Some Mini-Reviews Since Time Flew By

Yeesh, I had no idea it had been that long since I'd posted anything.  I've got to stop getting distracted by shiny objects.

Let's get caught up with some "mini-reviews," shall we?

Almost Human (2013) - Definitely a shoestring budget and an attempt to recreate the magic of 80's VHS horror and slasher flicks.  It tells the story of what happens when a UFO abductee returns years later and has gone from kindly bearded fellow to homicidal maniac with some new alien body parts.  Good effort but the execution fell a bit short.  Any intrigue melted away and it needed more story.  Nice practical effects, though.

Red State (2011) - Kevin Smith takes an effective journey into non-comedy with a suspense thriller about sees some local boys run afoul of the town's crazy church/cult leader that oddly seems like the funeral-protesting wack-a-doos in real life.  Not as talky as a lot of Smith's other offerings, and don't look for a cameo by Jay and Silent Bob.  Tense storytelling and good performances, especially from Michael Parks as the frustratingly smug leader.

Haunter (2013) - A pleasant surprise, this haunted house mystery sees the story told from the ghost's point of view, much like the awesome I Am A Ghost.  In this case, Abagail Breslin turns in a great performance as the ghost of a murdered girl who comes to the realization that she's dead and tries to awaken her family to the fact as well as prevent an evil spirit from his eternal murder spree.  Good tension and a good story.

Jug Face (2013) - This one really started off on the right foot but didn't go as far as I hoped.  It's the story of a young girl who's part of a backwoods community that worships a pit that has healing properties but also demands a sacrifice.   The likeness of who is to be sacrificed is carved onto a clay jug, but when the girl hides hers, the pit expresses its displeasure.  Fine acting and a creepy vibe made it good but the story felt like it lost steam.

Frankenstein's Army (2013) - A crazy Dutch-American-Czech production set in World War II that follows a group of weary Russian soldiers who follow a distress signal to a small town.  What they find there is insanity as the descendent of Victor Frankenstein says "the hell with it" and sets his insane creations on Ally and Axis alike.  The monster design is tremendous and there's no shortage of blood and guts as the movie descends more and more into utter madness.  I dug it because it wanted to be nuts and it got its wish.

My Bloody Valentine (1981) - Remade just a few years ago, this cult classic came from the old school of matching psychotic killers with holidays.  The residents of a town relive an old nightmare that took place on February 14 when grisly murders pile up as the day grows closer.  Add to that the Eternally Doomed Teen Party and you know the body count rises.  Good 80's wackiness and a murder mystery to boot.

Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013) - While I felt the first one went off the rails a bit, yet still told an intriguing story, I felt the second chapter was a little stronger.  The poor Lambert family is back and just when they think they dodged an astral bullet, it's the father who becomes the center of a spiritual attack.  Just the right amount of ghostly and strange, I enjoyed it like I usually enjoy seeing Rose Byrne.

+1 (2013) - An interesting take on a sci-fi standard of what duplicates would do if they met.  A meteor crashes, causing a nearby party to experience a little glitch in the matrix.  Time splits and people meet themselves from a few seconds behind.  An interesting story set on a strange premise with decent performances.  Not a bad choice if you like being weirded out by time and space.

Hellbenders (2012) - With a good cast and a premise that borders on sacrilege, this movie was more fun than it had a right to be.  The Augustine Interfaith Order of Hellbound Saints are a ragtag group of badasses who also happen to be priests of various faiths that sin on purpose on orders of The Pope so that if a demon possesses them during an exorcism, they can kill themselves and drag the demon to Hell.  Good guys who do bad things to prevent the really bad things.  In this flick, they have to stop a runaway Norse demon from pulling Hell up around the world.  Funny and with a touch of honor, the cast is headed by the reliable Clifton Collins Jr. and Clancy Brown.

Willow Creek (2013) - Oh, Willow Creek, how I wanted to like you.  A good director in Bobcat Goldthwait and some really suspenseful moments still added up to a movie that was a hair below "OK."  It's a found footage style movie about a couple setting out to make a documentary about the Patterson Bigfoot sighting and getting much more than they bargained for.  Admittedly, the tent scene is suspense at its best, but the ending left me feeling like the whole thing was meant to be a tongue-in-cheek joke.  Maybe it was, but I was hoping for a little more.

OK, that should just about do it for now.  I gotta stop taking so long between reviews.  Maybe some caffeine would help.

Until next time!

Back In The Chopper With Some Capsule Reviews

You just witnessed one of my "oh, yeah, I should probably write a blog entry today...hey, look, a shiny object" phases.  I didn't slow down watching horror/suspense films, I just didn't commit to sitting down and getting some writing done.  Plus, other writing endeavors took center stage.  But, hey, let's get down to business.  I took in quite a few movies, but wanted to highlight a few here with some capsule reviews, a few stray thoughts about a few flicks.

All Superheroes Must Die (2011) - Wait, a superhero movie in a horror blog?  Here's the thing, see:  it's a horror/suspense movie with superheroes as protagonists.  Also, I don't like making this blog too restrictive.  Anyway, this low-budget offering plants a group of de-powered superheroes in a desperate situation:  win unwinnable challenges put forth by a fed-up arch-nemesis (Dexter's James Remar).  It plays out like a Saw episode, with the heroes having to solve their own issues as well.  It wasn't bad, and I can't help but think how much better it would have been if the characters were slightly more well-defined.

John Dies At The End (2012) - Whenever you get a film from Don Coscarelli, you just know it's going to be tons of fun.  And this film doesn't disappoint.  Freaky, trippy, and playing the rules of space and time as well as throwing a few buckets of blood and guts at you, this film flies loose and fast and it's a thrill.  Poor David needs to convince a reporter (Paul Giamatti) of an incredible story involving insane elements like strange demons, a powerful drug, portals between dimensions, and a kick-ass dog named Bark Lee.  It's bizarre and has a film swagger that makes it incredibly charming.

Evil Dead (2013) - In a remake of sorts (there's apparently more than meets the eye), Sam Raimi's innovative 1981 low-budget screamer gets a modern makeover as a group of old friends gathers at the infamous cabin to stage an intervention for one of their own.  Unfortunately, they discover a few grisly secrets about the cabin, including that old chestnut, The Necromonicon.  Demonic possession galore and buckets of blood everywhere should please many fans.  It was actually a decent effort that had a touch of uniqueness about it.  Oh, yeah, and wait until the credits are done.

The ABC's of Death (2012) - This ambitious collection of 26 short films - each corresponding to a letter of the alphabet and created by 26 different directors - saw a lot of support and derision in the film community.  I could see reasons for both opinions.  Definitely a challenge to create, it obviously moves quickly.  Most of the entries are in the "OK" range, while there are some that are better left not talked about.  Some I really liked, including A is for Apocalypse, which leaves a little to the imagination as to why a woman is trying to kill a bedridden man; C is for Cycle, offering an odd little loop of time; D is for Dogfight, a wordless short about an actual dog fight with interesting changes in perspective and a good ending; R is for Removed, a strange bit about a man's skin being removed to be used as film and his escape from the hospital in a surreal world; and V is for Vagitus (The Cry of A Newborn Baby) in which it's illegal to have unregistered babies in a futuristic world and where one police unit finds more than it bargained for with one group of rebels.  It's interesting to see what these established and aspiring filmmakers came up with for their respective letters, and there is something here for all tastes - both good and bad.

Devil's Pass (2013) - Inspired by an actual mysterious incident in 1959 in which several experienced Russian hikers died on their way through Dyatlov Pass, Renny Harlin's 2013 film sees a group of college students filming a documentary retracing the same path.  Filmed in first-person, it shows the students discovering strange followed by disturbing followed by terrifying things that make escape look more and more unlikely.  What I thought might be a throwaway film turned out to be somewhat good and with an ending that makes sense.  It ran off the rails towards the end, but unlike other films that go crazy, it got right back on the tracks and said "See, that's what I'm talking about." 

V/H/S/2 (2013) - The sequel to the original first-person anthology, the framework is much the same, but this film - to me, anyway - delivered a more solid group of short films with a stronger surrounding narrative. A pair of investigators break into a home to find out what happened to a young man who disappeared.  While their own story unfolds, they watch various tapes the student has lying around.  The videos show stories about a man with a "camera-eye" seeing things he doesn't want, a biker in a park experiencing the beginning stages of a zombie apocalypse, a news team investigating a strange cult leader predicting the coming of a deity in Indonesia, and an alien invasion of a family's slumber party.  I found the zombie and cult leader stories to be the strongest and most intriguing, but the entire film was quite good and a step up from the original.

 

The Conspiracy (2012) - More of a thriller than a horror film, there are plenty of creeps in this neat little flick.  Two guys making a documentary about conspiracy theorists go from the frying pan into the fire when the subject of their documentary disappears and they decide to track down the elusive Tarsus Club to find out what happened.  You definitely know what will happen as everything unfolds, but that doesn't take away from a fine, suspenseful "mockumentary" that leaves you thinking about the consequences.

Well, dear readers, this old helicopter is back in the sky.  I'll try to keep up better, and expand the blog to include more "adjacent" genres to the horror field.  Hey, even more comedy.

Enjoy and thanks for reading!

Quarantine 2: Terminal (2011) Better Than It Should Be

By all rights, I shouldn't have enjoyed Quarantine 2:  Terminal.

It's a sequel to a remake that was virtually shot-for-shot like the original.  While I thought Quarantine was OK - it starred the phenomenal Jennifer Carpenter, after all - it weakened itself by not going with the original's ([REC]) premise of an evil force and instead going with a "super rabies" disease infection.  A sequel, by all rights, shouldn't have been good.

But it was, and I really did enjoy it.  Every so often, dear readers, the movie planets align and a sequel that shouldn't exist, not only does but does it pretty well.

Written and directed by John Pogue, the film takes place a short time after the events of the first film, in which a Los Angeles apartment building is sealed off when an infection runs rampant inside.  A variety of passengers board a plane on its way to Memphis.  After being bitten by a rat in a teacher's carry-on, one of the passengers begins to exhibit signs of infection.  When he nearly bites off an attendant's nose, it's safe to say he's on the sick side.  Making an emergency landing in Las Vegas, the survivors make it into the terminal, but it's soon quarantined (see what I did there?) and that's when the fun starts.  They not only have to evade infected staff, they have to deal with infections to each other, and a betrayal from within.  One of the survivors is not what they seem.

There's a great string of tension running through the movie, even as the sequences run toward the formulaic.  I've always said that sometimes formulaic works because the formula might be good.  You know something will happen at certain times, but in this case it's OK because it falls into place.  The added mystery that ties it to the first movie provides the underlying threat, the insinuation that no matter what happens to this motley group of survivors, the story really won't be over.

Quarantine 2:  Terminal was a pleasant surprise, and it's nice to have one of those every so often.  I'm not sure if the good luck would extend to a sequel, but hey, I'll take this one.

Paranormal Activity 4 (2012) Might As Well Finish It Out

I always have some high hopes for stories that play out a mythology.  But with those high hopes comes a caveat:  if you're building a mythology, you best back it up.

I've been mostly pleasantly surprised by the Paranormal Activity franchise, and I can certainly appreciate telling captivating stories on a shoestring budget.  But there's a little matter of running out of steam, reaching that point where the story strains to be told instead of simply falling into place.  As much as I hoped Paranormal Activity 4 would wrap up the mythology of the demon-plagued sisters, it sort of just peeked in to show what happened to one loose thread while not really answering much of anything else.

Directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schuman (who did Paranormal Activity 3 and Catfish) and written by Christopher Landon based on a story by Chad Feehan, Paranormal 4 intends to wrap up the story began with poor, possessed Katie (Katie Featherston).  We know that she's disappeared along with her nephew, Hunter, leaving a trail of bodies and mystery in her wake.  In this fourth installment, a strange young boy named Robbie (Brady Allen) wanders over to the featured family's house after his mother goes to the hospital.  He's an odd duck, making the daughter Alex (Kathryn Newton) and her best friend Ben (Matt Shively) suspicious, especially since he takes an interest in Alex's adopted younger brother, Wyatt (Aiden Lovekamp).  Robbie stays with the family for a while, and of course, strange things begin to happen.  Weird gatherings happen at the house across the street and the family's computers - which Ben has rigged to record video 24/7 - pick up some really bizarre things.  Most aren't too frightening, to be honest, but I really, really liked the use of the night vision camera along with the Xbox Kinect, which casts a sea of small dots over everything in the room.  There is a sequence late in the film where that really looks tremendous.  Things get really crazy when Robbie's mom re-appears, and they mythology gets tied together somewhat.  It hurtles toward a weird, tragic ending that frankly left me wanting a little more story.

That's not to say there wasn't anything to like.  Newton and Shively were natural, believable,and likable as the amateur detectives.  They both hit home runs in terms of creating characters with whom a viewer could identify.  A couple instances during the climactic chase at the end were really nice, and as I mentioned before, I really enjoyed the use of the Kinect as a new visual device.  Maybe others got more out of the film than I did, and I hope that's the case.  For me, personally, I wanted more in the way of what the demon's endgame was.  I assume it wants the world, or does it just want to be a nasty little menace?  I don't always need to be led around by the nose, but I would've enjoyed more direction in the mythology.

It wasn't altogether horrible, but when compared to the other films in the series - which I enjoyed - it fell a bit short.  But hey, not every franchise can be perfect.

And now I'm going to go play some Kinect with my invisible friend, who always wins at Fruit Ninja...

Paranormal Activity 3 (2011) All In The Family

I know, I'm sure some reviewer has made that joke-reference somewhere, but hey.

In 2007, Paranormal Activity - in its own way - became the Blair Witch Project of the modern era:  a shoestring-budget picture that became a cash cow.  2010 brought the sequel, Paranormal Activity 2, and it turned out to be very entertaining as well as hinting as a deeper story.  Well, that deeper story came along in 2011's Paranormal Activity 3, and I must say, it was pretty intriguing.

With direction from Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, and written by Christopher Landon, the film begins with a prologue.  Consistent with the semi-parallel storytelling from the first sequel, we're treated to sisters Katie and Kristi (Katie Featherstone and Sprague Grayden reprising their roles) sometime before the craziness really kicks in during the first film.  Katie asks Kristi to store some old stuff, including some old video tapes.  When the house is messed up in the second film, that's when those tapes disappear.  That's when we're taken to the past via tapes from 1988.  Katie and Kristi are little girls, enjoying life with their mother, Julie, and her boyfriend, Dennis, a wedding videographer...convenient, I know.  After an earthquake occurs on-camera (Julie and Dennis were trying to make a "special" tape), Dennis sees a startling image and excitedly begins trying to capture it again.  He sets up his cameras all over the house and reviews the footage the next day.  In one segment, he sees Kristi whispering to someone off-screen where no one should be.  Later, he finds out that she was talking to an imaginary friend, Toby.  Although, Kristi swears he's not imaginary.  In this movie, that's a pretty glaring red flag.

More cameras (the oscillating fan camera is pretty sweet) and more strange things afoot as evidence makes itself pretty known.  The "ghost under the sheet"?  Yeah, you'll know what I'm talking about.  Dennis continues his investigation, and thanks to some "choppy" editing, we never really know the full story of the house and where it sits.  After a terrifying incident with the closet, he discovers an odd symbol drawn inside.  He connects it to an ancient witches' coven that once occupied the area, and he doesn't like the proximity to the girls he thinks of as daughters.  Julie is still skeptical, even when seeing some of the weird stuff herself.  It's when she has a...shall we say...kitchen moment, that she insists they leave and head for her mother's.

They do just that, but Dennis doesn't stop filming.  Good thing, because the camera starts catching little things, like Kristi's seemingly innocent "preparation."  At night, awakened by the sound of arriving cars, Dennis follows Julie into the darkened house.  Along the way, he discovers truths that he would shortly wish he hadn't discovered.  Getting out of the house with his daughters is the priority, but well, it's not a spoiler to say that doesn't happen.  Things that occur in the first two films make sense by the end, and it all comes together if you've paid attention to the clues.

I've always been somewhat lukewarm to the hype that Paranormal Activity but that's the fault of the films.  The more I think about them, the more I do realize their pure entertainment appeal.  It's a simple formula:  cameras set up, things escalate, some truths are uncovered, things get worse, climactic incident, silent denouement.  But sometimes, simplicity is just what's needed.  If the movies strayed too much from the norm, from what works, it would seem to convoluted or even pandering.  I do like the movies, individually and as a trilogy.  I like that the scares are obviously coming - that camera's going to show something and you know it.  I really like the ambient music that slowly creeps into a scene, indicating something's about to happen, but you just don't know when or what it will be.

It's just good fun.  Sometimes that's good enough.

So, hey, until the next time - I do hear there's another sequel in the works - enjoy the trailer, even if it does show a lot of things that don't appear in the theatrical release:

Paranormal Activity 2 (2010) More To The Story

A couple years ago, a little low-budget movie about a couple harassed by an unseen evil shot into the public consciousness, spreading virally, like that video of a cat playing keyboards. It was Paranormal Activity (my review is right here) and although fans and bloggers alike would be split on liking it, no one can deny the publicity machine that surrounded it.

Before the movie is barely born unto the world, a sequel is announced. I tell you, they're announcing sequels sooner and sooner these days. The success of the first film warranted a second, which, of course, is a tried and true Hollywood formula. Paranormal Activity 2 was released in 2010, this time with a different writing team (Michael R. Perry, Christopher B. Landon, and Tom Pabst) and a different director (Tod Williams), as original writer and director Oren Peli fell back into producer duties. While Paranormal Activity had its super-happy-crazy hype machine, the sequel had what seemed to me a lot less shouting. Sure, it had its share of viral videos and weird websites - in fact, the trailers and interactive website were downright creepy. But I either didn't feel or was subconsciously resistant to the hype surrounding the sequel.

Now, before there's a collective "aw, man, sequels" groan, let me say out of the gate that I found Paranormal Activity 2 to be quite interesting, holding my attention for the entire film. It's the same formula as the first movie: normal family, weird happenings, cameras documents, weirder happenings, get-out-of-the-house-NOW finale. Sometimes you just go with what worked before. What I found most interesting was how it intertwined with the story of the first movie.



The story begins with the arrival of baby Hunter (William and Jackson Prieto) into the Rey family, consisting of papa Daniel (Brian Boland), his daughter from a previous marriage Ali (Molly Ephraim), and his second wife Kristi (Sprague Grayden). We discover very quickly that Kristi is the sister of Katie, one of the stars of the first movie - and those who have seen it suddenly realize the time frame is very important. Reprising their roles as Katie and Micah are Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat, appearing at various points throughout the story. As you soon find out - and this is no spoiler - Paranormal Activity 2 is essentially a prequel. Sort of.

After some small incidents, followed by a ransacked house in which only a necklace belonging to Kristi was stolen, the Reys install cameras throughout their home. We're privy to their life with a growing child in what is, by all accounts, a normal, happy existence. But like Katie in the first movie, Kristi is deeply affected by the strange happenings: voices, footsteps, pots falling off their hooks, Ali relating a feeling like the place may be haunted. In fact, Ali thinks it's "cool" at first, but deeper research into ghosts and demons quash her enthusiasm reeeeal quick-like.

The strange occurrences get wilder and more malignant until Kristi is at the center of a particularly violent episode. Finally wanting to do something about it, Daniel takes matters into his own hands with the help of the nanny he fired earlier (Vivis Cortez), someone who seems to know a little about keeping bad spirits away. I'm not going to get into the climax, denouement, and snap ending of the movie. Don't want to spoil it, although through logic, you may already have guessed the outcome. Still, there are story elements that add some spice to it, and for that, it made me want to keep watching.

I can safely say I thought Paranormal Activity 2 was pretty good. I know that notion will be at odds with some, but hey, variety's the spice of life. The use of deep ambient tones as a score was effective, and I believed Ephraim and Grayden's performances were especially good and quite believable. Like I said, I rather enjoyed the intertwining of the stories.

That said, I didn't come away from the movie feeling like I watched something special. It was entertainment, and that's it. That's fine, believe me. But for me, it didn't affect me like some films can. The ending was abrupt, which kept with the formula, but I did utter out loud, "oh, I guess that's it." Don't ask me what could have made it meatier. I've had pizzas that didn't satisfy me, but I couldn't tell you how to make them better. I'm just happy that I didn't waste my time, and that I can relate my opinion that I thought this movie was pretty good. I'm actually OK with Paranormal Activity 3 being made.

Now just make sure you've installed cameras, my friends...never know what they'll capture...

Survival Of The Dead (2009) Teach Them To Eat At IHOP

I love George A. Romero. I really do. He introduced and fine-tuned the modern living dead template as we know it: slow, lumbering dead people who have been re-animated into vessels of hunger, spreading the contagion to those they don't devour. The original trilogy, Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, and Day of the Dead is placed at the top of horror lists the world over. The subsequent fourth installment, Land of the Dead, was disappointing yet still entertaining. The reboot, Diary of the Dead, was a fresh, updated take on Romero's mythos with a few little missteps here and there.

There are many who say Romero should hang up the zombie spikes and be done with the genre. Admittedly, it would be extremely hard to measure up to Dawn of the Dead, and maybe that's unfair to Romero. I know I'm guilty of holding him up to that film, and it's because Dawn of the Dead is my favorite horror movie, and it's an amazing film. M. Night Shyamalan is often held up to The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable (my favorite movie of Shyamalan's), and maybe that demand is unfair. Because, as everyone knows, nothing measures up to the original blitz of originality and creative flair.

That said, here's my stance: I don't think Romero should give up on the genre. Maybe the movies aren't as good as Dawn of the Dead. But if he's got more stories to tell, and they're at least halfway entertaining, I'm willing to give them a chance. I had middling hopes for his most recent Dead film, Survival of the Dead. I went into expected to see a sad shadow of Romero's past work, but was somewhat surprised to find that it not only held my interest, I was okay with the whole deal.



The story follows an incidental character who appeared in Diary of the Dead. When the main characters of that movie were robbed by renegade military guys, they were threatened by Sarge "Nicotine" Crockett (Alan van Sprang), who advised them to "turn the camera off." In this movie, we find that Crockett passingly remembers those "college kids" and became a minor Internet celebrity when that video was posted. He and his crew have decided to desert and are just searching for a way to escape the rapidly dying (and reviving) world.

Earlier in the movie, we met the feuding families of Patrick O'Flynn (Kenneth Welsh) and Seamus Muldoon (Richard Fitzpatrick), two Irish rivals whose families have settled on Plum Island, off the coast of Maine. O'Flynn wants to eliminate the zombies, while Muldoon wants to save them. O'Flynn is forced into exile and makes a living on the mainland as a modern pirate. He accepts payment for the use of boats, then sends people to Plum Island to bug Muldoon, who hates strangers.

After rescuing a wise-ass kid from abusive zombie hunters, Crockett's unit discovers O'Flynn's online "advertisement" for escaping the mainland. Arriving, they engage in a gunfight with O'Flynn before one of Crockett's men, Francisco (Stefano Colacitti), jump starts a ferry. They are able to escape with O'Flynn barely making it aboard after all his men are attacked by zombies, and he forms a truce with the military deserters. Francisco is feeling a bit queasy, though, after biting the finger off a zombie that tried to drag him under while swimming to the boat.

Things just under the water. Cue the chills. Remember, that kind of thing skeeves me out.


When they reach the island, they find that the Muldoons have been trying to rehabilitate the zombies. They also have been killing the innocents that O'Flynn sent to "bug" his rival, but he never guessed they'd go that far. A couple Muldoons attack, resulting in Kenny (Eric Woolf) being killed (then shot by Crockett to prevent re-animation). They also meet O'Flynn's horse-loving but living dead daughter, Jane, who stayed behind when her father was exiled. Angered, O'Flynn stalks off to find allies while the unit heads to a nearby meeting hall.

Francisco wanders off to kill himself when he accepts what has happened to him, but Tomboy (Athena Karkasis) follows and tearfully does the job for him so that his "soul wouldn't be damned." Then, she's taken prisoner by the Muldoons.

When Crockett passes out from his wound, the kid heads to try to find water, but runs into someone familiar, yet new. Turns out zombie Jane has a twin sister, Janet, who has arrived to help. She has no love lost for her father, but changes her mind when he admits she was truly his favorite.


When O'Flynn and Crockett, along with their allies, head for the Muldoon ranch, they are forced to lay down their weapons and observe what the elder Muldoon has been trying to achieve: conditioning the undead to eat something other than living people. It has been unsuccessful, but now he has Jane in a pen with her horse and the other living dead out of their pens to watch.


Janet arrives with the discarded guns and evens the odds. There's a battle, and the zombies run loose to do what they do so well: tear and eat. Janet tries to connect with her zombie twin sister, only to be bitten on the hand. O'Flynn and Muldoon face off, and Muldoon just wants O'Flynn to admit he's wrong. Not wanting any more bloodshed, O'Flynn agrees and asks for a moment with Janet. Muldoon coldly shoots O'Flynn in the back, but is gunned down by O'Flynn's hidden sleeve gun. The others begin their escape as Janet watches her sister suddenly take a bite out of the horse.


She runs to tell the others, but is shot by her own father, who is on his last legs. Any last hope of holding the key to conditioning the dead goes to the grassy grave with Janet. O'Flynn shuffles off while Crockett, Tomboy, and the kid return to the ferry, passing up the chance to live on Plum Island, not wanting to become warring tribes like the O'Flynns and the Muldoons.

Zombies devour the horse (the only time I cried "noooo!" in the whole movie) and, against the backdrop of a full moon (looking oddly like the poster for Dawn of the Dead), the undead O'Flynn and Muldoon aim empty guns at each other, their hate never dying.

Like I said, I was okay with this movie. Some of the zombie kills are played for laughs, and some of the acting is dubious, something that occurs in Romero's films. The deus ex machina of the twin sister was a little "okay, really?" and I found people sneaking up on other people with surprising stealth that didn't seem plausible. Really, Tomboy couldn't hear those Muldoon goons coming? And the accents. My, my. Francisco's dialect seemed forced, and O'Flynn reminded me of Malcolm McDowell imitating a pirate. Oddly enough, I still liked the character.

I did like the "message," that the rivalry among humans will continue even at the worst of times when unity and teamwork are needed most. I know...I just know...that if something like the zombie apocalypse were to happen (and, oh...it will), humankind will still find ways to blame each other. Political parties will say the other caused it and won't sign on to a good solution the other might have to rectify it. Religious groups will blame each other and "non-believers" as the cause of the dead rising from their graves. Neighbor will blame neighbor. Nation will blame nation. A never-ending cycle. The only winners: the zombies. They don't care who you voted for or what church you go to. They're just going to eat you.

Ah, well, I've waxed philosophical enough for now. To sum up, I did like Survival of the Dead. I know that opinion will be at odds with others' opinions, but that's fun of it all. It's not a bad way to pass a little time, enjoy a little Romero while you're relaxing at home on a lazy afternoon.

Just steer clear of Plum Island. They don't seem to like strangers.

[REC] 2 (2009) Yep, Afraid Of The Dark Again

It's no secret I'm a gigantic fan of the masterful Spanish horror film [REC]. Go back and read my review of it to see just how lovingly I spoke of it. When I heard a sequel was in the works, I had one of those rare reactions to news of a continuing story: joy. It wasn't going to be just a sequel with different characters, same story as the first, but with a bigger budget and more "Hollywood-like" promotion. It had some of those traits, but it was more than those. It did have different characters, but in a logical way. The story is only the same because it's a continuation of the first movie. In fact, it starts about 15 minutes after [REC] finishes. It dives in and doesn't look back for one instant. Well...maybe one instant, but that's towards the end of the movie, and I'm not spoiling it here because it's a chiller.




I'll tell you now: this review won't be like most others. There won't be a detailed blow-by-blow here. The entire movie is pretty straightforward and full of spoilers that you really need to see for yourself. So let me give you some of the basics and we'll go from there...

Not long after the first movie ends, a special operations group prepares to enter the quarantined apartment building along with a member of the Ministry of Health in order to get some control of the situation. There's some nostalgia for the viewer upon entering that old building. There's that enormous bloodstain in the lobby along with empty handcuffs attached to the stairs. It's about then you remember something that the new characters don't know: not all of the infected died and you know they're just running around somewhere in this building. Revisiting (well, for us anyway) the penthouse, there's a little reminder of what the characters are dealing with through the pictures, the Evil Dead-like tape recording, and the murky atmosphere.

After some eerie music starts playing in an apartment, one of the special ops team runs afoul of some infected and quickly becomes one himself.

They lock him in a room and the dude from the Ministry of Health drives a knife into the door, then hangs a rosary from it. This actually stops the infected. Yeah, and that guy from the Ministry of Health? Owen is his name, and he's from a ministry, all right, but it's not the one of health. He's an agent of the Vatican with a license to exorcise, and he's kicking ass and taking rosary beads. The other officers aren't too happy about being deceived, and they're even more perturbed when they discover the real reason they entered this death trap: Owen needs to obtain the blood of the first possession victim, Niña Medeiros, kept somewhere in the darkened, ruined apartment that was home to a previous Vatican agent who experimented on Medeiros. Oh, and for a glimpse at the Medeiros girl, watch the ending of [REC]. Yeah, that's her. Shiver at your convenience now.

There are several attacks on Owen and the officers, and some by very recognizable faces from the first movie:



Around the confusion of one attack, a seemingly uninfected man is killed and thrown over the guardrail. The agents catch a glimpse of another party of uninfected people before another wave of attacks occur, splitting them up - which is never a good thing, face it. A frantic and revealing skirmish with the little girl from the first movie that ultimately ends the point of view from the agents' lone camera.

The film goes back a bit and starts down a different path as we meet three young pranksters who are high on adventure and daring-do. They think descending into the sewers and coming up into the quarantined building will be a hoot. Not exactly. They meet one of the firemen from the first movie who didn't go inside, and the father of the infected little girl, who are desperately trying to reach their friends and family inside. They find themselves locked - rather, welded - inside the apartment building. From there, it's a parallel story to that of the special operations team until they all meet up in an apartment. That pivotal scene leads to the final, white knuckle, screaming descent of the roller coaster as the ultimate push to either finish the mission (according to Owen) or simply survive begins.

I honestly can't get into the rest of the movie here. I could, and I could spoil everything for you, but I don't want to do that. I want you to go into this movie with the same blank slate I did, knowing what might happen, but feeling that thrill along the way as you discover what actually does happen. The ending is chilling not so much for what you see, but for what you could see if the film hadn't ended. And that's all I'll tell you. Even the lead-up to the ending includes clues and tip-offs that are better left uncovered by you as you watch.

[REC]2 is a brilliant sequel in my eyes not only because it's wild, intense ride, but because it's a logical progression from the first film. You see characters from the first one - logically - because they've been infected and weren't "killed" in the first movie. Scroll back and see that picture with the bald fireman to see what I mean. If you'd seen the first movie, you know who that is.

When you have entries in the "found footage" or "cinema verite" genre, there are inevitable comparisons to The Blair Witch Project, simply because that was the film that made the mainstream audience aware of the style. Makes some sense, but the films are worlds apart. There was one film that the [REC] series compares favorably to, and that's Demoni (Demons) from 1985, and a film that I gushed about in another review. I'm not the only one who saw that similarity, as my friend Jim from Movie Brain Rot mentioned it to me as well in a discussion. A dark setting and rapid infection from a nefarious source, nasty fluids and frantic escape plans - it's a nod and a wink, however intentional, to Lamberto Bava's Demoni.

Without spoiling anything for you, allow me to list a few indelible images and scenes that make [REC]2 so much of a trip

* Revisiting old settings: the lobby, the penthouse, the bloody landing, the fabric store. You definitely should see the first one again to fully appreciate it all.

* The building itself, a character in its own right. It's like a labyrinth, and seems larger on the inside than it does outside. The apartments seem to go on forever, especially in the dark.

* Ah, the dark. The darkness itself is not only a brilliant mood-setter, but much more important of an element than you think. Trust me, you'll see.

* The rocket. I'm sorry, but one scene involving some fireworks made me laugh out loud.

* The continuity. You'll find yourself saying, "ah, so that's where that came from." Not only that, but the camera manages to catch important establishing shots that allow you, the viewer, to figure certain things out. A film that makes you use your brain? *gasp*

* The "interference" that crops up here and there on the film. Watch when it occurs, and it only adds to the chilling air of what's happening.

* There's a scene involving a small pool of water that will give you shivers when you wrap your mind around what happens. See my reference to the "darkness" above.

* The ending. Yeah.

It's safe to say that I love this movie, and that's not just because I watched a pair of stinkers before it. [REC]2 has everything I love in a horror movie: thrills and chills, an enthusiastic air about it, clever use of atmosphere and setting, moments that let you figure out the details, a feeling that you can't control what's happening thanks to a better use of first person than most "found footage" films. It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but from what I've seen, the tea table I'm sitting at is crowded.

Now, who wants biscuits?

Until next time, fellow survivors, the rules remain the same: don't get bitten. Now enjoy the trailer for this fine film, [REC]2:

Halloween 2 (2009) I Think I Missed A Class

You ever have one of those dreams where you know you're long past high school - or in my case, college - and you know it, but suddenly you're back there searching in vain for a classroom in order to take a test you're sure you missed all those years ago?

That's kind of how I felt watching Rob Zombie's Halloween 2.

Now, I'll preface this by saying I believe Zombie's got incredible potential to go down as an influential and important voice in horror filmmaking. I actually liked his version of Halloween once I accepted that John Carpenter's original version will always been seen as the measuring stick of modern slasher horror. I felt it was a decent remake/reimagining.

Halloween 2 just felt about an hour and a half too long. I appreciate what Zombie was trying to do. It just left me feeling like I missed an important test in college, and years later, can't find the classroom.

The first twenty minutes or so of the movie were, I have to say, pretty damn good. The image of Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor Compton) wandering the streets of Haddonfield after the gruesome climax of the first remake was striking. Laurie's surgery to repair her broken body was wince-inducing, but not out of place. Michael Myers (Tyler Mane aka Big Sky - obscure early 90's wrestling reference!) escapes his ambulance after the inept workers slam into a cow while discussing necrophilia.

Laurie awakens and finds Annie (Danielle Harris) in her own hospital room, still in grave condition. The nurse escorts her out, but leaves to answer an emergency call. In what I thought was a brilliantly taut series of scenes, Michael goes on his rampage in the hospital, slaughtering the nurse and several others off-screen as he pursues Laurie. It's very similar to the original version by Carpenter, but as you may know, that entire movie took place in the hospital. Just as Michael finally catches up to Laurie in a guard shack, we're provided the truth: it's been a dream, and it's actually two years later. Michael is presumed dead, although no body was found. Laurie and Annie survived, but are both scarred, physically and emotionally. They live with Annie's father, Sheriff Brackett (the great Brad Dourif) and have become hardened, even when Laurie tries to confide in her therapist (Margot Kidder).

From here, the movie gets...well...I don't know. It's like I said, I felt like I missed a class somewhere and started getting anxious when I couldn't find the classroom to take the test. Michael is indeed alive and living like a rabid hobo in some abandoned barn. He's also hallucinating his long-dead mother (Sherri Moon Zombie) and his younger self. It's them that compel adult Michael to pursue Laurie because she's family and they need to be "together." There are dream sequences, party scenes, oodles of post-teenage angst, and interesting cameos from people like Howard Hesseman and Daniel Roebuck.

I feel like I should break tradition on the recap here. This movie has been reviewed so many times in the horror blog community, and I've found it to be one of the most polarizing films. A lot of people really don't like it. It's safe to say it makes some people quite angry. Yet there are those who really do like it, and they'll defend it to the end. For me to give a rundown of the events in the movie would be pretty repetitive.

I came away from the experience feeling like questions I didn't have or want to ask were answered quite loudly. I didn't really want to know everything about what drove Michael. That was the draw of the first two original Halloween films. Michael was a juggernaut, a force of nature. We felt what Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis in her amazing role) felt: confusion, the instinct to stay alive, and most of all, unfathomable fear. No psychoanalysis, no elaborate backstory, no wild visuals. And no white horse.

The cast is really good, especially Dourif. To me, he felt like the one true character I could feel sympathy for. His reaction to SPOILER Annie's death was heartbreaking. Harris and Compton are also very good. While I love Malcolm McDowell, his Dr. Loomis was far, far away from what I always liked about the character. In this, he was brash, arrogant, and lecherous. I could write it off as this was his reaction to his near-death experience with Michael in the first film, but it was tough.

Seriously, I like Rob Zombie. I have a lot of respect for him as a creative person, although I'm sure there might be some who disagree with me. That's okay, too. Everyone will have an opinion, and I can definitely respect that as well. I don't feel this was the best showcase of his talents. I'm hoping down the line, we'll get to see what Zombie's capable of. If it's anything like the first part of Halloween 2, right up until Laurie awakens violently from her dream, then he'll have a fine career.

Ironic that the director's name is "Zombie" when I'm trying to rescue survivors from that very undead thing in this crazy world. Heh.

And hey, remember how I said Big Sky was an obscure wrestling reference? Well, here: enjoy Tyler Mane a.k.a. Big Sky as he wrestled for WCW in the 90's...



Speaking of zombies, the movie I'll be reviewing next time comes from our friends in Norway, and I'll be taking a look at Dead Snow.

Oh, and there's still time: go vote for my strange self over at the Mr. Horror Blogosphere Contest at my buddy Chuck's great blog, Zombies DON'T Run. If you've already voted, great! If you voted for me, thank you so much, and drop me a message so I can thank you personally when it's all said and done.

Until later, watch the skies. I might be there.