The Horde (2009) If They Don't Kill Each Other First

You remember those trailers from movies that featured two unlikely allies who must accomplish some goal "if they don't kill each other first"?  My friends and I used to riff on it quite often - "Hey, they're heading down to the bar...if they don't kill each other first."  Pure hilarity, I'm tellin' you.

Well, that whole notion is the basis of the French zombie action film, 2009's The Horde.  Directed by Yannick Dahan and Benjamin Rocher in their feature film debut, the basic plot is pretty straightforward.  In France, a group of cops who refer to themselves as a family unit, decide to take revenge on a Nigerian drug lord who has killed one colleague, and kidnapped another.  They're on an unsanctioned mission of vengeance, quietly storming the high-rise tenement building where the drug lord is based.  The raid doesn't go well, and the police are quickly held at the mercy of the bad guys.  Within minutes, the building is under siege by the titular horde of undead.  It's happening inside, too, as the kidnapped cop revives and attacks after being shot multiple times.  The zombies themselves have the origin characteristics of early Romero undead (don't have to be bitten, just be dead to revive) and the physical attributes of the mad runners of 28 Days Later (they're hungry and fast).  What brought on this undead virus is never revealed.  The important thing is you have two groups of people who couldn't be more different throwing those differences out the window to feed their instinct for survival.  Their goal is to get out of the building and escape the horde, but you know as well as I do, that ain't happening as easy as they think.  The rest of the film is their attempt at escape, with the building, the zombies, and each other as enemies.

While as a whole, the movie rates as "pretty good" in my opinion, it's the parts that make up the sum that stand out to me.  The action drives the relationships, and so the focus is there, unlike most zombie films where characterization is ranked higher.  I would daresay that this is more of an action movie than a horror movie, the way I see it.  There are stretches where scenes drag on a little too long, but the action is fast and furious.  And no, Vin Diesel is not in it.  Getting back to the "parts that make up the sum" thing I mentioned, I wanted to note that there were are scenes and moments that really made those parts enjoyable.

There were a lot of hand-to-hand combat scenes between uninfected and infected.  No martial arts goodness, but some brutal "fighting for my life" kind of fisticuffs.  One hood, Greco (Jo Prestia), finds and completely destroys two zombies using his fists and a small knife.  Completely badass, but only an appetizer for a scene towards the end of the film when heroic cop Ouessem (Jean-Pierre Martins) faces off with a giant-size horde using at first two pistols, then a machete, then his fists in an increasingly-futile battle.  It's riveting and sad and insane at the same time, and really a highlight of the film.

While Ouessem is a great character, for me, the most intriguing character was Adewale, the drug lord.  Eriq Ebouany portrays him with a full spectrum of emotion, from cold killer to protective brother to respectful ally.  He's smart and tough and will do anything to survive, even help his enemies.  His strength is seen on display when his hotheaded brother Bola (Doudou Masta), Greco, and a crazy old soldier they meet named Rene (Yves Pignot) - all hopped up on cocaine - contemplate sexually assaulting a wounded zombie.  While the zombie writhes on the floor and the drugged-up guys stand over her, Adewale's expression is one of horror and anger.  He shoots the zombie in the head, then angrily reminds Bola of their past in Nigeria and hints at something similar that may have happened in their younger lives.

All parts considered, I liked the movie.  The action sequences were very kinetic, the acting was quite good, and I'm going to give points to zombie movies that show a glimpse of the infection's scale in the world.  In this case, it was a dark, panoramic shot of the city burning and it's the punch in the gut to the characters that lets them know, things just got serious.

Until later, my dear readers, remember:  in a zombie apocalypse, we're all in it together.  Except for Fred Phelps and his Westboro nutjobs. I don't want them anywhere near my shelter.

Here, enjoy the trailer:

Hatchet (2006) Victor Crowley Needs Decaf

Writer/director Adam Green's Hatchet was supposed to be a return to the roots of the modern slasher, a throwback to the early days in the Friday the 13th and Halloween franchises, among others.  Victor Crowley, the monster antagonist, was supposed to join Jason and Michael in the pantheon of memorable killers of curious movie teens.  It's hard to say if that has actually happened.

Hatchet is a divisive movie.  I have horror blog colleagues that absolutely love it, and others that absolutely hate it.  There are several in between, and I think that's where I stand.  I didn't hate it by any means, but it didn't "wow" me either.  However, the attempt at bringing back that old school flavor was not only noticed, but it is to be commended.  Green brings a certain freshness to the genre, not filling the screen with wild colors and big special effects.  It's a low budget he's working with, and therein lies the energy.  And my readers know I love for a film to have energy.

The plot is straight out of the 80's, and honestly, that's not a bad thing.  Ben (Joel David Moore of Grandma's Boy) is a sad sack whose girlfriend just broke up with him.  His friends try to cheer him up with debauchery in New Orleans, but Ben just isn't into it.  He thinks a ghost tour into the bayous might be more his speed, so he's joined by his buddy, Marcus (Deon Richmond of Not Another Teen Movie).  The original tour's guide (Tony Todd in a hilarious cameo) isn't running tours anymore, so he sends them to another guide, Shawn (Perry Shen).  The two friends join a would-be pornographer named Shapiro (Joel Murray of Mad Men), his two willing "stars" Jenna and Misty (Joleigh Fioravanti and Mercedes McNab), the jaunty Permatteos (Richard Riehle and Patrika Darbo), and a mysterious young woman named Marybeth (Tamara Feldman) as they head into the swamp.

There's a local legend about a deformed child who was accidentally killed during a fire caused by local bullies.  Seems Victor Crowley's father tried chopping down the door with a hatchet, and it hit Victor in the head.  But we know Victor is still roaming the woods and not willing to share some of that deep South hospitality.  Marybeth knows this as well, as she is searching for her lost father and brother (Robert Englund of Nightmare on Elm Street and Joshua Leonard of The Blair Witch Project), who met with a bloody end at Victor's hands in the prologue.  Shawn, who's neither a very good tour guide nor a very good boat captain, manages to sink the ship by running it into some rocks.  The tourists are stranded in Victor's woods just a stone's throw from Victor's house.

Let's just say Victor's a stickler for property boundaries.

"Get off my lawn!"

The enormous Victor (Kane Hodder, who has played Jason Voorhees a million times) bursts out of the house and sets about slaughtering the tourists with such over-the-top methods as the "twist top kill" and the "Pez dispenser kill" and the "I-really-hate-your-shoulder-old-man hatchet kill."  Victor is a force of nature:  pure strength and manic energy.  He's not one for stealth.  He just comes in like a Tasmanian Devil on Red Bull and starts ripping and chopping until the final scene. 

And that ending.  Yeah, I can see where it has something in common with the way the original Friday the 13th ended...sort of.  Still, if there wasn't a sequel planned, it was just a little bit too abrupt for my tastes.  Others may like it...hell, some people love it.  That's fine, but I'm just going by my own preferences here.

Hatchet was pretty good, but for me, it wasn't the new savior of retro-flavored slasher flicks.  It was pretty standard, but with a little more flair in terms of dialogue and direction.  To me, those were the strong points.  The snappy dialogue, especially coming from Deon Richmond, infused the movie with some verbal lightning.  Adam Green showed quite a bit of creativity and, yes, energy in his direction. Working extremely well with a low budget, Green is definitely paying homage to the teens-in-the-woods monster slasher.  It's straightforward and unflinching in its gore, which is so wild that you're more amused than disgusted or even scared.  It was fun, but I would hesitate to call it the movie that returned American horror to glory.  And don't think I hated it because I didn't - I thought it was pretty good, but really, that's about it in my humble opinion.

But hey, judge for yourself. All I know is, if I'm ever in New Orleans again, I'm sticking to the craziness on Bourbon Street and staying far away from the bayou ghost tours.

End Of The Line (2007) Maybe They Should Put Up Billboards

Look at me, being all timely.  Well, sort of.  I mean, that piece of work, the bubbly Harold Camping did recently give another one of his spot-on predictions for the end of the world (two weeks ago as of this writing), and he's got another apocalyptic prediction scheduled for October.  Among the first things I thought of, other than the usual disdain that I feel towards money-grubbing, victim-creating crackpots, was the low-budget horror film End Of The Line, an interesting little apocalyptic flick that I saw a couple years ago.  The hamster wheel began turning in my head, and I thought it would be fun to look at it again in the light of all the Family Radio hullabaloo.

Hullabaloo.  Man, how old am I?

Anyway, End Of The Line was a small 2007 film written and directed by Maurice Devereaux, and it was a darling at several film festivals, including the Toronto Film Festival.  Touching on the subject of religious zeal, mob mentality, and fear of the dark and closed-in spaces, the film has its fans (and detractors) in the horror community.  Regardless, it offers a unique take on survival horror.

Karen (Ilona Elkin) heads home from her job at a psychiatric hospital, taking the local subway.  After meeting Mike (Nicholas Wright), who saves her from a seriously creepy guy named Patrick (Robin Wilcock), she boards a train for the ride home.  The train suddenly stops and several passengers, seemingly religious types from the Voice of Hope Church who wear similar clothes and acting generally nice, all get messages on their beepers.  They produce various sharp objects and begin stabbing other passengers, saying things like "God loves you" and "This is for your own good."  The train turns into an abattoir, with only a few - Karen and Mike included - making it off the train in mostly one piece.  But help isn't coming.  The land and cell phone lines are down, and the TV is showing nothing but bizarre images coming from the enigmatic preacher who heads this bizarre cult.  Apparently, they all believe that the Earth is being besieged by demons, and it is the End Times.  They show their "love" by killing others so that they're "spared" the coming apocalypse.  Karen and the survivors head into the tunnels, but getting away isn't so easy.

Man, the Backstreet Boys got DARK.

 The tunnels are crawling with Voice of Hope members, including kids, creepy guy Patrick, and even a member of the survivor's party, although she wants to rebel and go with the dude who took her virginity on the train.  One of the guys who helps them get out of a break room deep in the tunnels is even a member, despite being new and "not really a believer."  The growing paranoia adds to the tension, and Karen's occasional hallucinations don't help.  When they hole up in a control room, where they tie up Patrick, they get their first glimpse of the reverend on a TV, and the murderous chaos is widespread.  He's calling for Armageddon and a "holy rapture"...hm, sound familiar?  Hopefully, Harold Camping hasn't seen this movie.

The survivors, with the exception of the conflicted member and the boy she now loves, move on after hearing the subway workers come under attack.  The scene in which the Hope members descend upon the workers is harrowing and disturbing.  The lengths these people will go to "save" people is horrifying.  Patrick gets loose, and as the pursuing Hope members arrive, the boy and girl are killed.  In the meantime, the survivors have a bloody battle with some more Voice of Hope nutjobs and get away mostly OK, but Mike is hurt badly.  With multiple stab wounds right from the start, this movie just hates poor Mike.

 I LOVE this door!

The survivors split up, but not all of them make it.  Another page beeps for the Voice of Hope members, and they immediately cease their onslaught and take suicide pills.  Still, resident perv Patrick pursues Karen, completely off his rocker.  Karen dispatches Patrick in a most brutal way, and then the movie takes a turn for the weird...or does it?  The ambiguous ending isn't really that ambiguous if you've been paying attention. 

Look and listen during the first few minutes of the movie to pick up on the fact that the movie is not being told in a linear fashion.  While much of the ending is left open for interpretation, there are some helpful hints along the way.  The hallucinations are not coincidental or a throwaway device; they're pretty central to what's happening.  Think muffins.  Yeah, muffins possibly laced with some kind of hallucinogen run throughout the movie, and since we're seeing a lot through Karen's eyes - and she casually eats one early on - we can't always trust what she's seeing.  Are the demons real?  Did Reverend Hope have it right?  Or was he an insane but gifted strategist who plotted the horrible acts of terror?

The performances are quite good, especially from Ilona Elkin as Karen, showing strength and fragility, and Robin Wilcock as Patrick, smarmy and evil, wanting to rape his way to the end of the world.  There is a great deal of gore and scares, mixed with good amounts of tension.  Obviously the budget wasn't very large, but that doesn't matter.  Devereaux works well with what he has, and it's a nice little take on the "end of the world cult lays the nutbar smackdown on the world" subgenre.

It also bears watching since the whole Harold "You Gotta Believe Me This Time" Camping debacle.  A charismatic religious leader creating a following of human lemmings so desperate for spiritual absolution that they're willing to kill because someone tells them to commit murder is comparable to what happens out there in the real world.  How many people base their religion or politics on what someone on TV tells them?  Yeah, a frightening amount.  People who don't think for themselves and blindly follow someone with obvious agendas might be easy targets for jokes, but there's the potential for very dangerous behavior.  End Of The Line shows an extreme, fictional account.  Read the headlines if you want the real chills - or worse yet, the comments sections of any political article.  The looney-tunes in the movie might seem tame compared to what crosses some peoples' minds.

In the meantime, my dear zombie survivors, remember to steer clear of the subways if you see a lot of smiling people all dressed the same.

In The Mouth Of Madness (1994) Getting Lovecrafty

When John Carpenter wants to end the world, he does it in such interesting ways.

In The Thing, he hinted that a parasitic, all-consuming alien life form would spread to the rest of the world unless it was stopped at that lonely Antarctic outpost.  The son of the Anti-God would usher in its unholy father in Prince of Darkness unless several desperate people ended the threat in a run down old church.  However, with In The Mouth of Madness, it's reality itself under assault from the Old Ones made famous in the literary world by H. P. Lovecraft.  And what can one man played by Sam Neill do?

In short:  nothing.

Lovecraft was known for penning tales of unseen horrors, monsters so vile and so primed to crack reality at its seams that to glimpse them would cause instant madness.  The whole Cthulhu mythos?  That was him.  Casting shadows over Innsmouth?  Lovecraft.  The fish people who worship the mad god Dagon?  Yep.  He even had a story called "At The Mountains Of Madness," so it's a pretty fair bet that In The Mouth of Madness is a tip of the cap to his writing genius.

But Lovecraft isn't the only prolific, talented writer showcased in the film.  There are several obvious nods to my own longtime favorite, Stephen King:  the northeast region, the small town, the name of the antagonist author (Sutter Cane = Stephen King).  In truth, the entire film is about fiction, about the written word and its power over reality.  Words guiding us to believe anything, then using that power to fuel...well, in this case, the return of the Old Ones.  And that's not a good thing, dear readers.

See, Sam Neill plays John Trent, insurance investigator extraordinaire. When we first meet him, he's a little on the...nutty side.  He's locked up in an asylum when he's visited by Dr. Wrenn (David Warner), who wants the lowdown on what brought him there.  So John tells him the whole, horrifying story...which begins when he's called in by a publisher (Charlton Heston) to find their missing cash cow, the eccentric mega-superstar writer, Sutter Cane (Jurgen Prochnow), who has a final, blockbuster novel to get into the stores. The name of the book? "In The Mouth of Madness."  After reading some of Cane's horrific novels, John has bad dreams, weird feelings, and a sudden revelation:  the covers of Cane's books can be manipulated into a map of New Hampshire, revealing the location of a fictional town called Hobb's End.  Accompanied by editor Linda Styles (Julie Carmen), John sets out to find Hobb's End.  After a very trippy...er...trip, he finds it.

Hobb's End is like a ghost town with some eerie little residents, like the strange old lady up at the hotel bearing the name of a real Lovecraft character (Pickman from "Pickman's Model").  Discovering a menacing-looking church on the outskirts of town, John and Linda investigate and find Sutter Cane, that's for sure.

From there, things get really freaky in the little hamlet of Hobb's End.  Linda goes after Cane, but she's helpless against the new, vast power that the Old Ones have granted the author.  Then it's down to John, and his role in what is essentially the end of all that is.  John slowly discovers the truth about Hobb's End, its residents, and Sutter Cane, and give the man credit, he stands up to it the best he can.  But despite his obvious strength, Cane is far, far too powerful.  John is meant to deliver the end of the world, typed just as Cane envisioned it, and there's nothing he can do.

The ending doesn't present any in-your-face world destruction scenes.  In that Carpenter never shows you out-and-out chaos, he's making it even more frightening.  John Trent may be the last sane person on Earth, and we're hanging on to that final unraveling thread with him.  We know something's going on in the world, but just like Lovecraft did in his stories, we don't see it.  The knowing is terrifying enough.

In The Mouth of Madness isn't linear in its storytelling.  Much of the story is a flashback controlled by John's memories.  But there's a bit of meta-storytelling going on here as well.  Sutter Cane goes on and on about controlling reality, and he may be controlling what we see in the movie as well.  During a fun little scene on a bus late in the movie, he proclaims that he "is God now" and asks John, "Did I ever tell you my favorite color is blue?"  When John snaps awake, everything is indeed blue.  But throughout the movie, the color blue shows up, especially in peoples' eyes.  Has Cane not only been controlling what John sees, but what we see as well?  Possibly.  Something to think about.  I love when movies play outside the sandbox, and Carpenter has never been afraid to do that.

What a fun movie In The Mouth of Madness turns out to be.  It's the third in Carpenter's loose Apocalypse Trilogy and it can be argued that it's the most dire of circumstances - certainly it's the most bleak in terms of ultimate endings.  The little nods to Lovecraft and King are a kick to uncover.  Sam Neill does a fantastic job as a true "omega man," part detective, part skeptic, all victim.  Definitely a great closing to the Apocalypse Trilogy, and a great way to spend a movie-watching evening.

In fact, get a hold of all three movies and watch them back-to-back.  It'll put a little sunshine in your day.

Now here, enjoy the trailer:

Stake Land (2010) Quality Over Quantity

Everyone knows I love me some infection horror, from Dawn Of The Dead to the [REC] series.  I know that technically, vampire movies can be classified as "infection horror."  One bite (or more, depending on the mythos) from a vampire and it's all over, much like a bite from the undead.  Vampire flicks, though, are usually lumped into their own genre, a rich, traditional genre that has its roots in the forever-creepy Nosferatu and has been somewhat co-opted by the Movie-Franchise-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named-But-Has-Sparkly-Bloodsuckers, which dilutes the potent potion with a strong history behind it.

Stake Land made me love the genre all over again.

From the people who brought you the underrated Mulberry Street comes this truly creative and compelling take on a world decimated by a vampiric plague.  Director Jim Mickle and co-writer Nick Damici took a small budget and loads of passion, mixed it up in a big bucket marked "good stuff," and threw it on film as Stake Land.

It goes something like this:  It's a world where vampires have taken over.  Considered a plague, it spreads fast, causing people to become mindless, blood-craving killers.  No one knows how it started, and much like George A. Romero's Dead movies, the origin is left a mystery.  Fine by me, since the origin's not the story here.  We are introduced to Martin (Connor Paolo), a teenage boy preparing to escape with his family.  When he witnesses them all - mother, father, and infant sibling - slaughtered by a vampire, he's saved by one bad-ass vampire killer simply known as Mister (Damici).  Mister takes Martin under his wing as they battle their way towards New Eden, a supposed vampire-free area in Canada.  Along the way, they run afoul of the dangerous, militant religious nutjobs called The Brotherhood, led by Jebedia (Michael Cerveris of Fringe).  See, Mister rescues a nun from what turns out to be Jebedia's son and a buddy, and Mister tends to play for keeps, human or vampire.  The nun, known as Sister (Kelly McGillis of Top Gun), joins them on their journey before they're set upon for the first time by The Brotherhood.  Eventually, Martin and Mister reunite and meet a couple more friends along the way, the pregnant Belle (Danielle Harris of the Halloween films) and former Marine Willy (Sean Nelson).  Sister rejoins them, and it seems like the perfect family unit, heading straight for the border.

But it's never that easy.

Not everyone is safe, not even ones who traditionally are safe in movies like this.  In one of the most well-done and heartbreaking scenes, you're witness to just how far The Brotherhood will go to not only get to Mister, but simply sow terror and fear, something they'd apparently done on a large scale.  It's during a moment of rest, of happiness, in an idyllic militia-protected town that The Brotherhood does the unthinkable, and something entirely original:  they airdrop vampires.  Airdrop.  Vampires.  Yeah, that's right.  Think about it.  A simple night of neighborly goodwill, toe-tapping music, and most of all, rest for our by-now beloved characters.  Then it happens.  It happens and in the short time for the carnage to unfold, you really want to get your hands around the necks of The Brotherhood.  It's chilling, and it breaks your heart.

So who makes it to New Eden?  What happens in the cold hills just miles away from this alleged haven?

I'm not going to spoil it for you.  The ending is ambiguous, as it should be.  No one is truly safe in the reality of Stake Land.  It's an ending that makes sense and even though it is left open to what happens to the remaining characters, it doesn't leave you saying, "Whaaaat?"  It ends, but only the way you believe it ends as the credits roll.

The acting is wonderfully sound.  Only Jebedia is portrayed a little over-the-top, but he's an effective villain nonetheless:  you WANT to hate this religious fanatic.  And you do.  Damici is grizzled and understated, no-nonsense in his role, and much like his character Clutch in Mulberry Street, he's someone for whom you can really cheer.  Paolo is fantastic as Martin, a young boy thrust into becoming a man in the worst possible environment.  He's both tough and awkward, vulnerable and still possessed of great inner strength.  I cannot take away from the others in the group, as Harris is immensely sympathetic as the young mother-to-be and Nelson is solid as the ex-Marine.  McGillis is a real standout, as the nun struggling with traditional faith and the new necessities of the world.

Like all great infection horror works, the characters are the focus, but there is an underlying theme tying them together.  A theme of faith rings both loudly and subtly through the film.  The Brotherhood represents the current state of "mob religion" in the world, people who would use faith as a weapon or an excuse to hate.  Look around.  It's everywhere you look today.  The traveling band of heroes represent the true, inner faith of people who only want to survive and only want to do good for each other and themselves.  The Brotherhood are those loudmouth, ignorant people who demand you think they way they do, like those Westboro nutjobs.  The heroes are that pastor who greets others at the door of his modest church with a friendly "all are welcome."

Also, let me get one thing perfectly straight:  the similarities between Stake Land and the wonderful Zombieland end with the names.  I've heard people say, "oh, so it's Zombieland with vampires."  No.  It is not.  Stake Land  has not a lick of comedy in it.  The world is bleak, it is dying, and it will never be the same.  Don't let the title throw you off in the slightest.  We're talking two different movies here.

Stake Land might be hard to find at the moment.  It's not playing on that many screens, although check your on-demand features with your local cable company.  That's how I saw it.  It's well worth the hunt and it stands head and shoulders above most big-budget horror fare in that it's an honest, passionate, creative movie.  One that actually tells a tried and true story (getting safely from point A to point B) without a hint of stagnation.

Well, I've gushed enough for now.  Go judge for yourself, and I sincerely hope you find it as fulfilling an experience as I did.  If you don't like it...oh, well.  I won't hold it against you.

Until next time, dear readers, don't stay out when the sun goes down.  It might be a little bitey out tonight.

Now enjoy the trailer...

La Casa Muda (The Silent House) (2010) Bad Things Happen In One Take

From the moment La Casa Muda (a.k.a. The Silent House) begins, the camera eye never blinks.  That was the drawing point in the advertising for the Uruguayan suspense offering:  for 79 minutes, there is one long, continuous take.  The real draw is the tension it creates and ultimately the part it plays in the actual story, a minimalist take on madness, fear, and possibly ghosts...with a twist...all based on a true story that occurred in the 1940's.

Laura (Florencia Colucci) and her father, Wilson (Gustavo Alonso), arrive at a rustic, out-of-the-way cottage owned by family friend Nestor (Abel Tripaldi) with the intention of getting it cleaned up to sell.  Nestor gets them set up, warning them not to go upstairs due to the precarious nature of the stairs.  He leaves them to turn in early as dusk sets in. It isn't long before Laura hears noises upstairs and begs her father to check them out.  There are sounds of a struggle, and Laura is frozen in fear before she carefully explores the old house. Her father returns, bound and bloodied, and Laura is sure there is someone else in the house, stalking and taunting her.  A little girl appears out of the corner of the camera eye several times, but something even more sinister seems to be closing in on Laura.  After a run-in with her mysterious antagonist, Laura runs outside to see the girl for the first time, but also meets a returning Nestor.  Nestor investigates the supposed noises and intrusion, disturbed that Laura went upstairs, but then disappears while he and Laura check out an upstairs room.  Laura loses her source of light and relies on an old Polaroid to take strobe flashes of the room to see where she is, ratcheting up the tension.  The little girl makes an appearance in one flash, as well as someone who appears to be Nestor advancing on Laura.  She escapes the room, and makes a strange discovery in another room:  hundreds of Polaroids showing Nestor, her father, and herself, as well as other young women.  Some seem innocent enough, but others...something a bit...off about them.

Laura finds Nestor bound and bloodied soon after, and from here, the movie takes an interesting sharp turn.  The dialogue changes tone, Laura's emotions change, and certain truths come to the forefront.  When it happens, and for the rest of the movie, it's no surprise that the viewer might be confused.  Hell, I was.  But things make sense the more you put the pieces together.  All the clues are there.  I won't give much away, but I can say the following:  what you see for the first 70 minutes or so is not really what you might think it is - it's not as cut and dried as one might believe.  Listen to what Laura says towards the end, pay special attention to the Polaroids during the credits, and wait for the mid-credits epilogue.  Put those clues together and you'll get exactly what happened.  Wow, a movie that makes you do some of the detective work?  Yes, please.

La Casa Muda is full of quiet tension, where every noise counts.  The camera never shies away from Laura, and in that, buries the mystery deeper and deeper.  By the end, you'll ask yourself, "but how can that be?" but if you look at the clues, you'll see.  The dialogue is sometimes so quiet, though, that you'll strain to hear it even though you'll have the benefit of subtitles.  It could be because I saw it on-demand, so it could be Xfinity's problem.  But the camera moves fluidly through the house with Laura, and I imagine a choreographed dance as the cameraman must know exactly where Laura is and is to be through the entire 79 minutes.  I don't imagine that would be very easy, and I wonder how many times they had to start from the beginning to get it just right.  I can just see them getting right to the end, and someone trips..."Aw, crap. OK, cut! From the top!"  That's scary in itself.

It was a good movie, with some fine acting by the few actors involved.  The shots were set up nicely, considering the difficulty of shooting one whole take.  And everyone knows I love the use of low ambient music to create deeper tension.  It's not a perfect movie, but it was well worth the price to pay for on-demand.

But now I don't want to renovate an old cottage.  Or own an old Polaroid.

Check the official trailer:

28 Days Later (2003) A Little Case Of The Rage

It's become a classic of modern horror arguments:  should zombies be fast or slow?  "Fast" increases the urgency, but "slow" - the more traditional choice - allows for more character development.  Well, this argument as it pertains to Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later can be thrown out the window for one very obvious reason:  the movie isn't about zombies.

In fact, the antagonistic force of nature in 28 Days Later isn't comprised of dead-becoming-undead people at all.  They're still alive, but infected with something called The Rage.  So that argument I mentioned?  Save it for another day because while we're talking about infection horror here, the infected are still technically alive.  The danger, though, is still the same as undead movies:  the infected are going to chase you down and viciously attack you until you're a) dead or b) infected as well.  The disease takes hold quick, and makes you twitch and growl with madness, much like a person suffering the after-effects of a late-night Heineken run and too many burritos.  Not that I would know...ahem.

Despite the fast-moving nature of the infected, there are plenty of moments of character development in the film and that's the balance that helps hold this film higher.  It's a wild, kinetic ride when the action is in full swing, yet subdued and soft during scenes of real human interaction, and quietly tense during moments you know something is about to happen.

Literally 28 days after a militant animal rights group naively sets an infected chimp free, London is an abandoned urban wasteland.  Bicycle courier Jim (Cillian Murphy) awakens from a coma to an empty hospital, and a seemingly empty city.  When he's set upon by a group of infected people, he's rescued by Selena (Naomie Harris) and Mark (Noah Huntley) who fill him in on what's happened.  The infection has apparently spread like wildfire, and London - as well as most of England - has been evacuated.

The trio heads to Jim's house, where he discovers the final, peaceful fate of his parents.  While there, neighbors attack, resulting in an injury to Mark.  Without hesitation, Selena kills Mark, knowing the infection can manifest in minutes.  We never know for sure if the injury would have led to infection or not, but the scene marked the stark new reality of post-infection London. 

Selena and Jim eventually meet up with Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and Hannah (Megan Burns), a father and daughter surviving in the upper floors of an apartment building.  The four of them hit the road, as they're running low on supplies and follow the signal of soldiers broadcasting from near devastated Birmingham.  They find an abandoned outpost, and Frank is infected when a drop of Rage-filled blood gets in his eye.  He is gunned down by the arriving soldiers, who take the others to their base in an old mansion.  They meet Major West (Christopher Eccleston), who welcomes them warmly at first before revealing that he plans on keeping the human race alive by forcing the women into sex with the soldiers, making Jim expendable.   Caught trying to escape, the girls are separated from Jim, who is to be executed the next morning.

The execution doesn't go as planned.  Jim escapes and lures soldiers to the roadblock where they first met.  After taking care of those soldiers, Jim makes his way back to the mansion, sets loose an infected soldier to cause mayhem, and goes about rescuing Selena and Hannah, almost meeting the business end of Selena's machete due to the brutal way in which he kills a soldier.  On the way out, Jim is shot by West and after leaving the Major to the tender mercies of an infected soldier, the girls hurry Jim someplace where they can tend to his wounds, which may or may not be fatal, depending on which ending you prefer.  And yes, there is more than one ending, the happiest one being the default at the end of the theatrical release.

Boyle always has an eye for the stylistic, from Trainspotting to the more recent 127 Hours.  In his films, he manages to reach past the wild or unique circumstances of the characters to get right to the heart of their being.  I remember watching Trainspotting and thinking how much I loved and cared about the characters, even if they had less than redeeming qualities.  The same could be said for 28 Days Later.  Even minor characters have depth to them, and the major characters - you just want them to live.  You just want this makeshift family to get to where they're going.  The acting is as good as expected in a Danny Boyle film, with Murphy and Harris as real standouts.

There are some really great moments in it as well. Jim's awakening and wandering around a beautifully empty London is haunting and sad. Jim's standoff at the roadblock is surrealistically bad-ass. His rescue of and subsequent brush with a machete wielded by Selena is heartbeat-fast tension. There are plenty to choose from, believe me.

Plus, I have to admit.  It's weird looking back on this movie and seeing Doctor Who (Eccleston) face off with The Scarecrow (Murphy) after the death of Mad-Eye Moody (Gleeson).

That's the nerd in me.

28 Days Later is kinetic and solemn at the same time, at the time a new look at infection horror when the genre was really starting to break out again.  It's always worth a look and makes you think twice when you hear about a new strain of the flu making its rounds.  Cover your mouth!  And eyes, nose, ears...