Cast: Some dudes from RiffTrax and 3 Different Bela Lugosi's.
Synopsis: RiffTrax is a format in which you pay money to watch an incredibly bad movie while three guys talk over it making snarky comments. Plan 9 From Outer Space is basically the worst movie ever and the commentary is therefore about 57.6% more snarky than usual. Why do grown well-thinking people spend money to watch something awful while some weird people ruin the movie, you ask? Well, I guess you have to be there...
Review: Can I really review this? I mean, do I review the film itself or do I review the RiffTrax guys commentary on it? Do I review the surprise appearance by Mr. Jonathan Coulton? Or do I review the amazingly awful (in a good way) 'sponsor' videos from Something Awful? Or do I just ask a bunch of questions about who I should review and not actually really say a damn thing about it?
Yeah, that sounds good.
In Short: RiffTrax are awesome and, while I wish they were still using little robot puppets to make their commentary, they are still it seems equally as amusing as MST3K. We recently purchased their RiffTrax DVD release for Night Of The Living Dead, so you can look forward to a review of that as griping and informative as this one.
Biggest Positive: All things of the evening combined (The audience, the movie, the slightly confusing yet mildly intriguing 'O' faces Jonathan Coulton makes when he reaches high notes), I basically felt like I was right in the middle of "Giant Nerd-Fest 2009".
Biggest Negative: All things of the evening combined (The audience, the movie, the way that a nose flute has never been so masterfully used during a screening of an Ed Wood movie - at least this year), I basically felt like I was right in the middle of "Giant Nerd-Fest 2009".
Trivia: Bela Lugosi is still alive and living in the back of your fridge behind that potatoe salad you just won't throw away.
Cast: Jennifer Carpenter, Steve Harris, Jay Hernandez, That guy from Ally McBeal
Synopsis: What happens when you trap a group of people in an inner-city building without explanation and let wild zombie folks tear them to pieces? You get the intro to Dawn Of The Dead, I guess... but what if those folks aren't zombies and are actually rabid crazies? I guess that's 28 Days Later... yeah well, what if the rabies is fast acting and randomly makes people want to bite and eat each other? That's still 28 Days Later I guess... well okay, but what if there was a trendy "nightvision" shot where the viewer is the only one that knows what's going on? That's just 28 Weeks Later now, huh? Well fuck, what if the whole thing was shot on amazing(ly annoying) SHAKY-CAM-VISION! Now you've got Quarantine!
Review: Blah blah blah stuck in building, blah blah blah rabies, blah blah zombie film without the zombies. That's pretty much the gist of this film. That may sound like a derogatory review but believe me that leads to a pretty half-way decent flick! A lot of blood, a bunch of death (some particularly nasty falls and smashes actually) and some decent action sequences. The shaky-cam isn't too bad, since this film establishes the professionalism of the man behind the camera and thereby giving the film-maker a way to not make it suck to be "authentic" although it is wholly unnecessary and doesn't really achieve anything that couldn't have been achieved by just filming the movie like they weren't pretentious fuckers. Some slight problems with consistencies though in that the, for example, the virus spreads to it's victims in a matter of minutes. In minutes or less the victim is a foaming maniac, hell-bent on biting other people's faces suddenly... except for one character who is infected for hours before any symptoms kick in (Just at the right moment!) because it worked better for the "plot".
Another example, the victims seem to attack on site (Though not each other, go figure!) all through the movie until at one point it makes for a more "tense" moment if the victim waits until the person slo-o-o-o-o-owly turns around checking all their surroundings before finally facing them to attack... I guess these rabid brainless fucktards have a sense of dynamic tension! Must be part of the lesser prevalent side-effects...
Also a word of advice to anyone caught in the situation the characters find themselves in the end of the film (Stuck in a dark room with a rabid half-naked granny-looking thing chucking pots and pans everywhere while you are armed with a camera with night vision - happens all the time to me), don't just sit there and film the cowering girl next to you ignoring where the crazy rabid bitch is! Instead, maybe try using your advantage (seeing in the pitch black) to beat the un-living shit out of the foaming cunt! And instead of just hoping that for some reason while the bitch is tearing everything in the room apart without exception because she's a few olives short of a greek salad she'll somehow just coincidentally pass over the corner of the room where the two of you are shivering to yourselves if you "just keep quiet", why not try moving your stupid asses out of there? Hey, you know what else was "just keeping quiet"? THE WHOLE FUCKING ROOM FULL OF INANIMATE OBJECTS THAT SOME MENTAL PATIENT IS CURRENTLY TEARING APART WITH NO SENSE OF LOGIC OR THOUGHT! So maybe, just maybe, sitting quietly with your fucking camera on (I'm sure that thing has a little red light like every other one on the planet) you should get off your stupid asses and do something? Just a thought...
Besides annoyingly convenient plot devices, pointless shaky-cam-o-vision and the fact that it's a remake (Hiss!) this film is probably worth watching though. If you have an unlimited rental service like NetFlix (Or Shareaza, pow!). And if you don't have anything else in your queue you could be watching. And if nothing good's on TV. And if you don't mind unoriginal films. And if you suck.
Seriously, the film wasn't that bad. Here's a trailer for [REC] though (The film this was a remake of)
Biggest Positive: Well devised (I feel [rec] gets that credit though) and, towards the end starts to actually build up the tension you waited through the rest of the movie expecting to get in abundance.
Biggest Negative: The unnecessary Shaky Cam... it's been overused lately and unlike this, Cloverfield and Diary Of The Dead both had reasons to be using that effect...
More and more movies are proving to me lately that just having zombies in your film does not in any way mean it's not going to be a steaming pile of turd...
Days Of Darkness is exactly the kind of zombie film that makes you want to hurl chunks. The acting is practically non-existent from the start and the characters are so detestable that there isn't a moment when you don't just want them all to throw themselves over the fence and be eaten alive, preferably five minutes into the film so you don't need to go on watching this fucking nonsense...
Whatever you do with your life, don't make it watching this film. It is an utter waste of time. There are (very few) moments that are reasonable including some semi-decent gore but these are surrounded by an ocean of pointless speeches, explanations and melodrama. I mean it takes about fifteen minutes of really boring "group discussions" for the characters to figure out that the comet (that we see in the opening sequence hurtling towards Earth) is the cause of all this! Fine, the characters didn't see the connection but since the audience is already fully aware there is no need for the characters to spend more than a few seconds figuring this out - it's just plain boring! Have a character who saw the comet crash who can quickly inform everyone - have the characters already figure it out before we join them - have them hear it on an emergency broadcast - SOMETHING! But for God's sake don't make us sit through the tedium of them working it out... And why is it that the zombie infection infects men's testicles and virgin girls? Original Idea: Yes Necessary: No Better Film Without It: Yes! Yes! Yes!
It did make for some gross moments though which frankly were almost the only thing this film had going for it... Almost...
You see in the last five minutes of the film (I'm talking about the end of the film, in case it wasn't obvious there is going to be a spoiler or two here) they discover that the reason all the assholes in the picture above weren't infected when the comet struck is because they were all drunk at the time and the infecting parasite hates alcohol filled blood!
Genius!
You see, what this means is all they have to do is get trashed to be able to fight of the zombies and avoid infection! Unfortunately this all transpires in the last five minutes or so of the film with just enough time for the credits to roll as the only awesome scene in the film goes on: The two main characters swigging at a giant jug of whiskey as they blow away zombies, laughing their asses off and waving shotguns around!
Then the film ends. 90 minutes of shit for 5 seconds of awesome? FAIL!
This film had the potential to be the zombie equivalent of the drunken master! Imagine a zombie film where the only way to survive was to be pissed out your head?
A brilliant idea, sadly lost because someone thought it was a better idea to do the same thing every other low-budget zombie film in history has ever done. Except worse.
I might have given this film 2 out of 5 for gore but I'm giving it one because it took a good idea and fucked it in the ass.
Days Of Darkness's Website - it has "Kids Can Write" in the url. If this film was written by Kindergartners then I applaud them and it would totally explain it's existence.
Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things is an incredibly dull and poor acted attempt at a thrill ride which all too late turns into a sub-par but watchable zombie film about ten minutes before the end, but that's not important right now. What is important is that at a key moment (When a rather amusing looking 'Three Stooges' type fellow in a love-heart patterned shirt is being sequestered by a couple of rather camp gay grave diggers - who, by the way, were about the only likable characters) someone in the film exclaims "I peed my pants!", several times.
I know this doesn't seem amazing by any stretch to anyone but to me it was as if the good Lord in Heaven was trying to communicate with me, you see over the course of the weekend we also watched:
Willard - in which Crispin Glover's boss is said to have pissed his pants when the rats get at his brand new car
The Grudge 2 - in which some girl pees herself after a shower upon witnessing the scary staring girl
Pieces - in which someone pees themselves. Pieces was ultimately forgettable except for a few key retarded lines so I don't really recall any of the events that led to someone pissing all over themselves but rest assured, it happened. I've just saved you the trouble of watching 'Pieces' by the way. It's not worth it!
Weird huh?
I mean how many films is there that people piss themselves in?
I can only think of one more and I'm not watching American Pie anytime soon, but what are the chances of so many films with urine soaked trousers being a prevalent theme being viewed all in such quick succession?
I can only imagine the mighty powers that be, the Necromancers of bed-wetting and lousy B-grade movies crossed paths over the weekend and tried to convey to me a message of warning, but what could it be?
And what's that comfortable yet awkward warm feeling between my legs all about?
Undead is an Australian film-makers' take on the age old tale of brain eating zombies...
It's not completely typical, and doesn't feature the same old lumbering zombies that we see in many other hundreds of thousands of movies featuring our undead friends (Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it is still nice to see some originality spring up from time to time). The zombies in this film were much more like the bad guys (They weren't zombies!) in Evil Dead. They don't speak though, but they just seem so much more capable and are definitely stronger than your average Bub...
The film-makers clearly have good vision and a fair amount of talent when it comes to getting nice slick looking shots and the gore effects (Which, let's face it, are very important when regarding a zombie flick) are really awesome in places. All the parts are acted well, especially considering this is a fairly low budget film and at first glance I figured they probably spent all their budget on bottles of blood. Altogether a very enjoyable film...
My only complaint (I had to have one) was in the editing. It all felt (especially during "action" scenes) like it was chopped together a bit and was kind of hard to follow exactly who was hitting who or who was running where in certain scenes... I think though, when I think about it, that I've sort of felt the same way about most Australian films I've seen so it's possible that it's just a different "style", or almost like an accent in film-making that makes it just seem a little different and maybe a "typical" British or American film might seem a little weirdly edited to an Australian viewer... maybe? Now that I think about it, sometimes Japanese films are also edited a little strangly, in a completely different way... maybe it is a movie accent thing... a little certain something that different countries' film-makers pick up on when they start making films...
Or maybe this film was confusing because of the sudden arrival of a science fiction plot arriving about half-way through the movie for no reason...
Whatever.
Go see it!
Or like, pick it up from the discount bin at Wal-mart or whatever.
That's weird, I thought I already reviewed this film when I watched it but I guess not...
Unfortunately it means that in my head I've already expelled all the information I have on the matter and I really don't feel like repeating myself.
I shall, however summarize my favorite things about the film
The line near the beginning about how the undead cannot run because they'd snap their ankles, which I took to be a fairly obvious stab at a few modern (and a few older) Zombie flicks on Mr. Romero's part.
The line near the end about waiting in the panic room "for all this to blow over", which I do believe must have made Simon Pegg shit his pants, for George A. Romero to actually reference his zombie film. Possibly more than he shit his pants when he was asked to be in George A. Romero's zombie film. Possible more than he shit his pants when he was asked to be in both of George A. Romero's newest zombie films. Simon Pegg probably just shits his pants every day out of sheer excitement for his life.
The fact that George A. Romero's political themes and sub-themes aren't in any way trying to masquerade themselves behind the film like some film-makers would do, but instead are completely blatant and transparent. I always feel that if you have a political message (or any kind of message for that matter) to make with your art, there's no point in pussy footing about trying to show your distaste for the Bush administration by painting a dying Sunflower... subtly is for giant fuck-tards and David Lynch. Oh wait David Lynch is...
Moving on... this film was by no means perfect. It definitely had it's moments of tedium. The main flaw was in it's "realism", in a sense, because everyone kept going on about how annoying it was that some idiot was filming everything that was going on. This was, I felt, terribly realistic, as this probably would be people's reaction, but didn't make for a good film. Unlike Cloverfield which wasn't realistic because I think they only told him once to "turn the fucking camera off", far less often than they would in reality, but it made for a less tedious film because of it...
That was really my only major gripe with the film, and since the film was trying to be as realistic as possible I should just pretty much shut my cake-hole
I used to firmly believe, and also have it proven time and time again, that all a movie had to do was involve zombies in one way or another and I'd at the very least be able to sit through it and enjoy it... Seriously, I've watched some drivel zombie flicks. From members of the "Return Of The Living Dead" series (Sorry fans, but they're really quite lame) to some old zombie films set in prisons that no-one's ever heard of, and no-one's ever wanted to hear of... but no matter how camp, dumb, retarded, mentally challenged, completely unrealistic looking, ridiculous, poorly acted or just plain shitty they were I was still able to take away from them the feeling of having watched a film with zombies in it. In itself, I thought, was something unmistakably unique and special and that no movie could possibly fail in, if they happened to contain zombies in any way, shape or form.
That was until I saw the "remake" of Day Of The Dead which made me want to gouge out my own eyeballs with a rusty spoon
Yeah so I've had a few beers, and yeah, I do prefer to review less... well... films that don't star Will Smith so much... yeah, so what?
You wanna make something of it, pal?
HUH?
Mothe...
Hey! I'm talking to you! You wanna hear this review or not? Ok, ok...
So like, Will Smith is the last human alive, right? And like... he's some doctor, and he's working on something because... uh, oh wait no, because see... there are other people but they're just all like... crazed out on some cancer or something, right? Is that what happened?
Wait, can I start this review over? I get one do-over, right...
Man, look, I'll be honest... I started watching this film, had me a few beers and couldn't stop yelling at the T.V. and telling the Fresh Prince to get home to Bel Air before the shit got too real! He didn't listen... the dumb bastard. Then he hopped in his fancy airplane with Jeff Goldblum and blew up all the bad guys.
BOOM!
Shit got real.
Then my review started!
Ok, so Will Smith was just an ordinary New Yorker, not a care in the world when suddenly POW! a movie came along that was pretty cool about humanity being extinct. In this movie, stuff happened, but that's not important. What is important is that he had a pretty awesome dog. That dog was so sweet, man. It was all like, "woof!" And Will was all like "Shut the fuck up, this is meant to be a serious movie about wierdo people who live in shitty buildings" Then the dog was all like, "woof?" Which was doggie for "For real?" And Will was all like, "For real."
Then I'm pretty sure he made out with his creepy manican girlfriend. Dude, he totally made out with her and it was gross. Then he totally cried about it, because he was a bit of a wuss. Then, he said "Home, to Bel Air!" And all was good.
Until the ending.
Seriously!
The fucking ending to this movie can fuck off and suck someplace else because I was thoroughly enjoying this movie until the last 10 minutes or so!
Dude
fuck
off!
P.S. I'll give this as many tags as I want. This is my blog MOTHERFUCKERS!
Due to laziness on my part, and making it probably more convenient for anyone trying to view the archive posts, I decided I'll just name them after the film I'm reviewing instead of the Tagline. Isn't that a hoot?
I hope you're happy now, you bastards! You and your constant complaining and whining that I don't make any sense naming the posts after taglines...
Yes, I was fully aware that it made it trickier for people to view the archives and if anyone were to actually be using my site for the purpose of seeking out a review of a specific film that it would be near impossible. But frankly I didn't care, sir! Mine is not a site of "convention" and "following standards", and I say to thee that my site is not for the casual film observer, looking for a serious opinion on a film but rather someone who is interested in a perspective on a film that they haven't heard of, or is just interested in a fresh, or at least original, opinion on a film.
That is what this site is about, sir! Integrity, originality and freedom of expression!
But you come in here with your complaints about Taglines, and non-sensical reviews and thwarts my great ideas of making an interesting movie review blog!!! How dare you!!!
Nonetheless, from this day forth, the Title of my posts shall be that of the name of the movie which I review...
I hope you're satisfied, you son-of-a-bitch!
(Why did no-one like this film? Was the original that much better? Because I thought this was pretty cool...)
I have my own vision of a post-zombie invasion, turmoil, corruption riddled world type film. It would be something like Land Of The Dead, but with more riding through the desert on motorbikes with chainsaws! Better yet, riding through the desert on mighty dark stallions with hacksaws! Sort of like an over primitive, gory, blood soaked, semi-political Mad Max. It would be a decent film but it'd be exactly what everyone might expect from a post-zombie attack world film, right?
But that's because we always assume the zombies would win in the end! But what if man and zombie found a way to live/die in harmony together! Specifically, what if man found a way to harness the zombies and put them to work doing useful things like digging, holding umbrellas, standing around waving and making vague attempts to carry things to their human masters?
What if this all happened in a 1950's America, giving a sort of cold-war era chill to the everyday paranoia of the old Zombie War and the heroes that fought and killed their own families for the freedom of the survivors?
What if one little boy named Timmy did the unthinkable and not only learned to befriend his Zombie, but also taught his strictly conservative mother to open up and do the same?
A heartwarming tale involving one young boy... and his Zombie.
What if the lead Zombie was played by Billy Connoly!? Got you interested now, huh? Strangely, Billy looked a lot more clean cut as a member of the undead than he usually does in real life...
Anyhow, point is this is a zombie film with a distinct originality, which is always good. Zombie films are really cool and all but when they're not just run-of-the-mill "Zombies rise and attack, let's follow the survivors" we begin to see why "Zombie Film" is almost a genre in itself, and not just another kind of horror film.
Fido managed to actually have a somewhat heartwarming message about humanity, but since every time there's a "stop, pause to reflect on this little joyous part of 1950's American love!" moment, someone's arm gets ripped off or someone gets shot, it really takes the edge off and turns the heartwarming into comedy!
Bonus!
I shall end this review here by saying, although I'm only giving this film 3 smiley faces out of 5, it's still a must see. It wasn't great by any means but absolutely must be seen by everyone!
If you have Netflix, it's on the Browse Instantly category, so you don't have any excuse, bitch!
Here's a trailer, I think this movie was worthy of my promotionsing
Gotta make a move to a town that's right for me. Town to keep me movin', keep me groovin' with some energy. Well, I talk about it, talk about it, talk about it, talk about it. Talk about, talk about, talk about movin'. Gotta move on. Gotta move on. Gotta move on. Won't you take me to Zombie Town. Won't you take me to Zombie Town.
Zombies + Small Town = Killing People You Know!
This review sucks... Zombie Town is a small independent film, which seems to have been made and is set in Vermont. It has a great small-town feel that other zombie films don't which almost makes you reflect on the difficulties which might be faced if you had to fight zombies that you know, but instead makes you think "Oh my God I could totally kill my boss and that dick from across the street!" The soundtrack sucked, but I don't like many horror soundtracks so I'll let that slide, especially considering this had a fair amount of gore.
The movie 28 Days Later was the first horror film I actually took the time to sit down and enjoy, before that I was of the opinion that horror films were kind of lame and zombie films were especially so (having never seen any but being put of by the dull premise), that all changed when I went to see 28 Days Later by chance... this may make it sound like I'm in complete awe of 28 Days Later but that's only marginally true, I think it's an awesome movie. Well acted, well directed, well written, great soundtrack... I'm indebted to it for getting me into the genre I now enjoy frequently.
Anyway, for this reason I was quite looking forward to the DVD release of
28 WEEKS LATER
I was waiting for the DVD release because it's a lot of effort to go to the cinema and unless we really need to see a movie (like Grindhouse! duh!) then it isn't worth it, and although 28 Days Later was such a great movie in my eyes, I didn't expect as much from a sequel.
I'm thankful that I didn't expect too much because really it just followed the same theme outlines as the first one, which I'll explain in the rest of my review which will, as usualy, contain spoilers:
The sequence of events was identical to the first movie in that first everyone's in danger, and more importantly, most people are dead, mid-way into the movie we are shown that everyone's safe thanks to the military guys! Soon after that we find that "Oh no, the military are actually the ones to be afraid of!". The only difference is that in this one you expected everything to go wrong despite the strong military presence, whereas in the first one there wasn't any real indication of what was going to go wrong and you didn't necessarily think it was going to go wrong for sure... is this review followable or am I just typing to myself here? I'm pretty sure I'm just incoherently typing nonsense... oh well, moving on to the soundtrack then I'll finish.
I've heard a few people commend this movie on an excellent soundtrack! I'd agree if it were not for the fact that as far as I could tell it was the exact same music as the first film! Not that there's anything wrong with that, it is a sequel after all, but it's not like I watched Halloween 3 and thought "Oh what an original and fitting soundtrack!", no! Because it's the same as the first one!
Anyway, the only gripes I have about this film are to do with it just being a run-of-the-mill sequel to the first film. I guess I had hoped the 28 Days Later sequel would be one of those rare sequels that in some ways surpasses the original in many ways, but it did not.
The one thing I thought stood out as good about this movie is that in all the trailers we see that Robert Carlyle is the main character and it's a genuine shock when he's infected pretty early on! Bam!
That's all.
If you haven't seen Snake People then you haven't lived!
There's a line in the remake of the Hills Have Eyes (sorry to keep harping on about that film, but whatever!) that goes something like: "I think Freud would have a few things to say about your fascination with snakes!", and there's a good 20 minutes of continuous footage and about an hours worth of overall footage in this film that really makes you think the same thing about the director of this film... it's hardly implied either... at first there's a woman in her bed and some deranged midget voodoo guy comes in brandishing a snake and an idiotic grin, his assistant with the dumb hair removes the woman's top, and presumably all her clothes. The midgets at the foot of her bed with the snake, then we cut to the woman's face and... is she making "that" kind of face?... surely not! At this point you think, well... that was implied and harmless. In fact you almost curse the director for not having the balls to imply it a little more, and at least turn this film into a really grizzly film that's difficult to watch... But then we're whisked away into some dream world where the woman wakes up to find her evil twin is there brandishing (and stroking) an enormous snake, as she clutches it towards her face like... well... you know
The woman is horrified by this and makes a run for it only to be encountered by her evil twin, only this time she's holding the snakes head in her mouth... uhh... awkward?
Then she has it tied around her waist and is holding out it's head like...well... you know
There's still no nudity though! So... well done on managing to make a long drawn out porn sequence without actually showing anything at all, I guess?
I'm supposing that this sequence was some sort of arty way of reflecting the innocent character's inner turmoil as she struggles with her own deep seeded desires and urges, will she continue to run from the penis, I mean snake, or embrace it? And by embrace it I mean start making out with her own evil twin?!
What?
Seriously, then we see the main character (who I swear sounded Spanish right up until the last 5 minutes when he became French, but there was some plot going on that might have implied he had to pretend to be French... even though everyone on the island knew him... uh...) and he's just waking up to find what else but a snake in his bed and all the while you're thinking "Is this going to turn into homo-erotic snake non-porn???" as he looks fearful at this snake that keeps manifesting itself... but before the guy has any disturbing dream sequences the director shows his closet homophobic nature by whisking us away to a scene where a zombie lady is seducing a man at the bar...
Oh yeah! This film was about zombies, what was all that snake nonsense then, Mr Director?
And who told him that he should even try and make zombies hot? It's a well established fact that one of the key things about zombies is that they are never ever hot. No matter how Return Of The Living Dead tries to spin it.
Worth noting: there were only a few moments where I could really tell this film was poorly dubbed, so... well done there
"Does Anyone Have Anymore Questions Or Comments On The Subject Of Zombies?"
Ever wonder what would happen if a plain old mundane ordinary run-of-the-mill dullsville disease like, oh I don't know, Mad Cow Disease was in any way interesting and turned people into awesome blood eating Zombies? Well... wonder no longer because there's...
THE MAD
In "The Mad" a family trip to middle-of-nowhere-ville turns into a relatively ridiculous frolic filled with zombies created by people unknowingly eating tainted toxic beef from a local crackpot's farm, gun toting locals, mindless references to 80's electronic music and one unnecessary blow job scene.
As far as regular horror films go, it's pretty tame, but if you're a zombie film fan it's probably worth a look (If you can find it, I imagine it's not the easiest one to come across by conventional methods...). Definitely gives a comedic and alternative look at a group of people dealing with a zombie uprising similar to Shaun Of The Dead in that respect (Though The Mad is slightly more retarded. I'm sorry, I mean The Mad is slightly more Intellectually Challenged, and not nearly as awesome as Shaun Of The Dead) It boasts the best scene explaining zombies I've seen in a zombie film to date. Most films have them, at that point when people realise it's zombies, not people, they're dealing with but The Mad's take on that scene was one step above par. Or is it below par? In golf, below par is good, right? But if I said "The Mad is one step below par" it'd sound derogatory, right?? right?!
Whatever, answers on a postcard, here's a trailer.
I can't resist making an entry about this little piece of genius. This is another episode of Masters Of Horror, a TV show where different horror directors get a shot at making a 1 hour episode, this time from director Joe Dante, who directed Gremlins and The Howling. Sounds awesome so far and only gets better! It follows the political struggles of members of the Republican party as they try and get some president who's quite clearly George W. Bush into office for four more years. It takes completely blunt stabs at the back stabbing tactics and mis-informing that it is my, and apparently this film-makers, belief that the Republican party is guilty of. Sounds ok so far, but this plot is missing something. You guessed it, Zombies! In a careless televised error, one of the republicans (the morale, likable one, who's the lead role) inadvertantly wishes all the dead from the war could come back. His idea was that, hypothetically, they would come back and say how honoured they were to have fought and died for the cause! But he's way wrong, because they all come back as zombies who hate the current administartion and want to see it destroyed! Brilliant! And how will they destroy it?! Ripping off heads?! Tearing out throats?! Spreading the undead love like only a horde of corpses can do?! No! They're going to vote motherfucker! This film is as brilliant as it is ridiculous! If you like the political messages that are apparent thorughout such Zombie films as Romero's bunch, then you'll probably be amused by the way this one has absolutely no tact in it's blatant political messages throughout, mainly direct stabs at Bush and his misleading of the public and mishandling of the war in Iraq. Like we really needed it spelled out to us... nonetheless, this movie does it without tippy toeing around the subject! Pow! It's a must-see and I'm going to give it 5/5 before quickly retracting that score and giving it a more honest, 4/5. Here's a trailer, by gum!
This, for those of you who are unaware, is a double feature movie. The first half, Planet Terror, directed and written by Robert Rodriguez and the second half, Death Proof, by Quentin Tarantino.
The film opens with a fake trailer for a film called Machete which kicks your ass! It stars Danny Trejo as a bad-ass Mexican immigrant who's all about killing many people with kick-ass weapons with a kick-ass bike and stuff...It's an obvious parody of Rodriguez's films and is done hilariously! You could maybe search for it online and maybe watch it. This one is hilarious from start to finish in my opinion and seems like it'd make an awesome Rodriguez film. Luckily for us, he's making it into one! Huzzah!
Moving on...
I think that was followed by the first feature: Planet Terror!
This film was shot in a way that made it seem like a B-movie in every way except the effects are realistic, which gives it an odd new-old B-movie modernised feel.
It's hilarious in how it pokes fun at itself and the whole genre all at the same time as being an awesome zombie-esque film. There's more guns and shooting and explosions than you can shake a stick at, and even the most ridiculous of events is met with such seriousness that the whole audience can't help but piss their panties from giggling so hard. So let's see. there's explsoions... there's guns... there's blood... there's zombie-esqueness... there's car crashes... there's boobies... what could be missing?!
Bruce Willis, that's what!
And he's right there and he's awesome and this whole movie kicks everyone's ass in a way I thought nothing ever could.
From there, I believe we go to more fake trailers?
I think next was something about werewolves and nazi ss troops and stuff. It was fairly random but just fell short of being hilarious (despite the part at the end of the trailer that I laughed harder than I've laughed at anything in my life about because I'm awesome). It was directed by Rob Zombie, and uhh... there isn't much to say about it without giving away the hilarious 'twist'! So I won't...
Then there was the gripping thriller "Don't" which treaded on the fine line between making you want to tear the arms off your cinema seats from frustration and absolute hilarity. It starts off by being overly 'gripping' and tense and ends being loud and obnoxious. I spotted the guy from League Of Gentlemen in it too. It was pretty damn funny but compared to the other blood-and-guts themed trailers and movie before it, it stood out as being a little odd. It was directed by Edgar Wright though, what daya think about that motherfucker!?
To conclude the fake trailer section we had a rather amusing spoof of the slasher genre by Eli Roth (Who, by the way, I think is a total asslicker) called Thanksgiving, a play on how many horror films take their names from holidays though I think it was hard for that fact to be conveyed in the trailer. This one is possibly the best trailer from the set, though 'Machete' either beats it or is a close second. It mocks a genre which is, I think, far better and easier to mock than the other trailers did (I dunno what Werewolf Nazi Bastard Zombie Fest SS whatever was spooofing though...)and I think that plays to it's advantage. Eli Roth managed to get a tally on my good side! As a writer I think Eli Roth stands out as being relatively awesome but as a director and a person I pretty much think he sucks ass... but I think he's still on the positive side of my rating bar after 'Thanksgiving' (And will probably remain there until I throw up watching Hostel: part II, and I won't be throwing up in disgust at the gore, it'll be because because it'll suck).
In conclusion, I give Grindhouse 5/5
Oh, I forgot
After Thanksgiving, Quentin Tarantino concluded this 3 hour blood, guts, guns n' explosions fest with an hour and a half of people sitting round talking.
In conclusion, The end!
Grindhousemovie.net
