7.1 RESIDENT EVIL: AFTERLIFE (2010)

Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010)
Dir.Paul W.S. Anderson
USA

I should admit up-front that I have a soft spot in my heart (and head) for the Resident Evil movie franchise.  I've loved all but the second film, and as you could probably guess, I really enjoyed this one, too.

But first, some history.  Paul W.S. Anderson doesn't get a lot of respect, but I've enjoyed most of his films.  Mortal Kombat is a guilty pleasure (as much for the soundtrack as for the film making), Event Horizon was interesting and scary until the end (I really need to revisit that film), AVP: Alien vs. Predator was a lot of fun (almost as much fun as Freddie vs Jason), and, of course, Resident Evil is one of my favorites.

Anderson didn't direct Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004), that was Alexander Witt (his only directing credit) or Resident Evil: Extinction (2007), that was Russell Mulcahy (Highlander), but he wrote both of  them.  This latest Resident Evil film is actually the first time he's returned to a franchise as a director.

Milla Jovovich returns to play Alice, the star of the franchise (and someone I've had a crush on for fifteen years, since hearing her first album, The Divine Comedy), and is joined again by Ali Larter as Claire Redfield.  Joining the cast this time out are Boris Kodjoe as Luther West, Wentworth Miller (Prison Break) as Chris Redfield, Shawn Roberts as Umbrella Corporation head Albert Wesker, and Kim Coates (Tig from Sons of Anarchy) as creepy film producer Bennett.

A funny note about the appearance of Wentworth Miller: When his character first appears, brooding in the shadows, both Dr. Girlfriend and I thought for a second that it might be Jensen Ackles from Supernatural.  We both said it at the same time and laughed.  Then, today while looking up info about the film, it turns out that in 2007, Jensen Ackles was being considered to play Leon S. Kennedy (from the video games), however the character didn't make it into the film.  Instead, Wentworth Miller plays the new young male lead.

Interesting.

6.2 LA HORDE (2009)

La Horde (2009)
Dir. Yannick Dahan & Benjamin Rocher
France

Yes, it was a French double-feature last night, and both films were surprisingly good, even though they are very different beasts from start to finish.

La Horde tells the tale of a group of corrupt cops who, after the murder of one of their own, decide to take the law into their own hands and bring down the drug dealers responsible.  As bloodily and violently as possible.  Needless to say, things don't go as planned and they are instead captured by the Nigerian drug lord.  And then the dead rise, as they are wont to do.

This is another example of first-time feature film makers taking a swing and knocking it out of the park.  Well, that's a bit over-the-top.  It's not a home run, but it's a very nicely done film that lays good groundwork as a crime drama before jumping into the gruesome and apocalyptic zombie nightmare.

6.1 MUTANTS (2009)

Mutants (2009)
Dir. David Morlet
France

Let me start off by saying that this film isn't really a zombie film.  Like 28 Days Later before it, this is a plague film that lifts most of the conventions of the zombie genre and puts them to good use.  It's also French, so like some of the other French horror films of the past few years (specifically things like Haute Tension, Frontière(s), and, my favorite, Martyrs), it has some intense scenes of violence and gore, along with a brutally devastating existential dread along for the ride.

And even though the infected are not really traditional zombies, the basic structure of the narrative fits with this Easter Movie Marathon is all about.  It's all about the resurrection, baby.

Morlet directs a script he co-wrote along with Louis-Paul Desanges, and for a first feature-length film, this is very impressive.  The performances, particularly by Hélène de Fougerolles and Francis Renaud as Sonia and Marco are gut-wrenching.  The rest of the cast does well with their roles, but aren't really required to do much more than provide sounding boards for the exploration and development of Sonia and Marco.

In fact, once more characters are introduced, again, as with 28 Days Later, the film begins to lose its focus and its intensity.

5.1 DANCE OF THE DEAD (2008)

Dance of the Dead (2008)
Dir. Gregg Bishop
USA

Wow, is my thumb not on the pulse of contemporary horror critics.

This film has been garnering a LOT of praise across the Internet and was chosen by Sam Raimi for distribution through his Ghosthouse Underground label for Lionsgate.  Even those who haven't been that impressed still find a lot of good things to say about the film.  In fact, I've only found one or two reviews that really didn't like it after a few minutes of Googling (which, I know, is not a statistically reliable research method).

So, I'll go ahead and mention the good and then get to the bad below the break. 

Gregg Bishop shot this film on HD cameras for under a million dollars (I can't find more exact numbers) in Rome, Georgia.  The direction is solid.  Bishop has a good eye for staging a scene and the film looks like a lot more was spent on it than actually was.  Based on seeing this film, I actually do want to see his earlier film, The Other Side (2006), which he also wrote.

A brief look at the credits for this film shows that he got a lot of community support for the making of this film, which partially explains how he was able to put a huge number of zombies on the screen.  Really, the credit list for the zombie extras seems to go on for nearly as long as the feature itself.

There are a number of nice gore scenes, and all of the actors play their roles naturally and believably.

And that's where the trouble starts.

4.2 AMERICAN ZOMBIE (2007)

American Zombie (2007)
Dir. Grace Lee
USA

This is the first film of this year's marathon to successfully take on the topic of contemporary zombies with some seriousness.  It doesn't shy away from using humor, but there's a pretty serious, fairly disturbing undertone to the entire affair.  It's also the first film this year with a female writer/director Grace Lee (as well as co-writer, Rebecca Sonnenshine).  Lee graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles film program and was an experienced writer/director of short films before moving into documentary work with her biographical documentary, The Grace Lee Project (2005).

For her first feature-length non-doc film, she chooses to stay close to her comfort zone and produce a mock documentary about the Living Dead among us.  In the world of this film, zombies are real, but they come in three varieties: Feral (we're most familiar with these), Low-Functioning (practically mindless, but mostly harmless corpses used for low-level manual labor), and High-Functioning (the undead with most of their minds intact, can sometimes pass for human).   Lee plays herself in the film.

The idea for the documentary comes from John Solomon (playing himself), a cinematographer and, at least in the film, trauma footage cameraman.  He's not really taken seriously as a film maker, but thinks that by teaming up with Lee, he can finally finish a project.  And not just any project, but a great project.

Spoilers Ahead!

4.1 AAAH! ZOMBIES! (WASTING AWAY) (2007)

Aaah! Zombies! (Wasting Away) (2007)
Dir. Matthew & Sean Kohnen
USA

Matthew and Sean Kohnen have put together a very entertaining first film, and again, most of that boils down to raising enough money to actually realize their vision of a zombie comedy.  With talented actors and good equipment, they are able to make a script that at first seems like it might be just a one-note waste of time, into something really special.

I just wish they'd gone with the original name.  Wasting Away is a lot stronger than Aaah! Zombies!  The stupid name is part of why I've put off watching this film for so long.  I really wasn't expecting much with that name.

Anyway, the main story goes a little something like this:  A group of four friends are infected by a military-developed super-soldier formula that went horribly wrong.  What makes this one interesting is that our main characters, Tim (Michael Grant Terry), Cindy (Betsy Beutler), Mike (Matthew Davis), and Vanessa (Julianna Robinson), and their new comrade, Nick Steele (Colby French), are the zombies.  They just don't know it.

More below the break...

3.2 HIDE AND CREEP (2004)

Hide and Creep (2004)
Dir. Chuck Hartsell & Chance Shirley
USA

I'll be honest with you.  I went into this one expecting it to be anywhere from lame to awful.  It was advertised as "Even better than Shaun of the Dead" so I went in expecting the worst.  Because, you know, hyperbole like that doesn't do anyone any favors. 

But I am happy to say that I was completely wrong in my expectations.  This film was pretty damned entertaining.  And for a horror comedy, what more can you ask for?

Hide and Creep is a zombie comedy set in Alabama, made by Alabama film makers Chuck Hartsell and Chance Shirley, from a script by Shirley.  According to the film makers, this low-budget film came in at around $26,000, and while it is definitely low-budget, the money was very well-spent. 

So much so, in fact, that I am now dying to see their follow-up film, Interplanetary.  It's tagline is "Monsters.  Mayhem.  Mars."  For more info on that and their other projects, check out the Crewless Productions website.

But what about Hide and Creep?

Spoiler Shields Up!

3.1 EXHUMED (2003)

Exhumed (2003)
Dir. Brian Clement
Canada

Well, this is the first dud of the bunch this year, but it's not for lack of trying.  Writer/Director Brian Clement does everything right in what is probably the most adventurous film of this year's marathon.  However, the end result is a perfect example of one's eyes being bigger than one's stomach when it comes to low-budget film making.  It will still look good on his resume, though.

Exhumed tells its story in three parts.  The first is in medieval Japan, the second in 1940s America, and the third in a weird grab-bag apocalyptic future.  That, in itself, is an impressive attempt.  The stories are all linked in what is, ultimately, a time-travel narrative that, with more money, better actors, and someone who knows how to handle professional lighting, could have been amazing.

Hell, just someone on lighting duties would have made this much more enjoyable, as most of the film is underlit and at times its nearly impossible to tell what exactly was happening.  Which is too bad, because Clement obviously loves film and film making.  There are enough references to classic films in this one to write a book about, and the combining of three distinct genres into one overarching plot is a great idea.

Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I think better lighting would have made me like the film.  As it is, I can't really recommend it as much more than a noble failure.

Although, just listening to the description of the film makes me want to see it remade, a la Evil Dead 2.

Spoilers ahead!

WALKING DEAD Season One Recap

As I type this, the DVD set of the first season of THE WALKING DEAD is on sale at Amazon for $9.99.  That's practically too cheap to pass up, even if you're only slightly interested in checking it out.

If anyone's curious, here's what I thought about the season, episode by episode:

1.1 "Days Gone Bye"

1.2 "Guts"

1.3 "Tell it to the Frogs"

1.4 "Vatos"

1.5 "Wildfire"

1.6 "TS-19"

2.2 SHOCK WAVES (1977)

Shock Waves (1977)
Dir. Ken Wiederhorn
USA

I went into this one not expecting anything at all.  To be honest, I expected it to be awful.

But as the credits came up, I was reminded that Peter Cushing and John Carradine were both in the film.  So it couldn't be all bad, right?  Absolutely.

This film was co-written and directed by Ken Wiederhorn, who's credits aren't amazing, but does include Return of the Living Dead Part II (which he also wrote), which I enjoy more than anyone else I know.  He's also responsible for directing episodes of Freddy's Nightmares and 21 Jump Street. 

Along with Peter Cushing (who also played Grand Moff Tarkin in a little indie film that same year) and John Carradine (who will always be a favorite of mine for his role in Everything You Wanted To Know About Sex  * But Were Afraid To Ask), the film starred a young Brooke Adams, who would bust out the next year in Invasion of the Body Snatchers and also star in Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven and Cronenberg's The Dead Zone.

That's enough of a pedigree to catch my interest.  And as it turns out, this isn't half bad.

2.1 PSYCHOMANIA (aka THE DEATH WHEELERS) (1973)

Psychomania (aka The Death Wheelers) (1973)
Dir. Don Sharp
UK

This one had a bit of a slow start, but the ultimate payoff was pretty nicely executed.

Psychomania is a zombie film without any traditional zombies.  Instead, what we've got is a story about devil worshipers and a resurrection that is more about the will than anything else.  The film was directed by Don Sharp, director of The Face of Fu Manchu (1965), The Brides of Fu Manchu (1966), and a few Avengers (1968) episodes amongst other works.

Even though this is well beyond the time when the flesh-eating zombie had been introduced to horror culture, Psychomania is something more along the lines of traditional UK occult horror.  It's the sort of film where a guest appearance by Christopher Lee wouldn't be entirely unexpected.

The story centers on Tom Latham (Nicky Henson), the leader of the motorcycle gang The Living Dead.  Tom's mother made a deal with the devil years earlier, and although we never really get a real idea about just what that deal involved, by the end of the film we discover that Tom's fate is intricately tied to it.  But what about the zombies?

1.2 PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES (1965)

Planet of the Vampires (1965)
Dir. Mario Bava
Italy

The second half of Sunday night's double-feature was the classic, Planet of the Vampires, an Italian film based on the short story "One Night of 21 Hours" by Rafael J. Salvia.  This film was directed by the legend, Mario Bava, who is best known for the films Black Sunday (1960), Black Sabbath (1963), and one of my personal favorites, Danger: Diabolik (1968).

The film is another science fiction approach to the zombie genre, telling the story of the crews of two spaceships that have crash landed on a foreboding, unexplored planet, while attempting to investigate a mysterious repeating signal that may be a sign of intelligent life.  Oh, it's a sign all right.  The planet is inhabited by bodiless beings who can take over the bodies of the unconscious, or the dead.

And as you can probably guess, mostly they take over the dead.

So the title is a little misleading.  There are no vampires to be seen here.  It's all zombies, baby!

1.1 THE EARTH DIES SCREAMING (1965)

The Earth Dies Screaming (1965)
Dir. Terence Fisher
UK

The first film in the 2011 Easter Zombie Movie Marathon is a golden oldie from 1965.  We decided to go with a chronological order for this year's films, so as the week goes on we'll get closer and closer to the modern conception of what a zombie film is.

But for this first night, we're really dealing with a variation on the classic Voodoo zombie, only with a creepy British Sci-Fi twist.

Terence Fisher is probably best known as the man who almost single-handedly redefined modern UK horror with his run of classic Hammer Horror films, The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Horror of Dracula (1958), The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), The Mummy (1959), The Curse of the Werewolf (1960), Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966), and many, many others.

In 1965 he directed The Earth Dies Screaming for Shepperton Studios in London and filmed in Surrey.

A LATE ZOMBIE REVIEW: DEAD SET

For the past three years, Dr. Girlfriend and I have initiated a yearly Easter Zombie Film Marathon (you know, to celebrate the Resurrection), and after watching each film, I've written up a blog post about it.  For the most part.  2009 was a rough year, schedule-wise, and all we really got to watch was the UK Zombie TV series, Dead Set.  And I never wrote it up.

So a friend was over last night, and he'd never seen it, so we watched it one more time.  And since we're nearing the end of NaBloPoMo, and my brain is starting to shut down, I figured now was as good a time as any to write it up.  But before we get to that, here's a list of the other Easter Zombie Film Marathon Entries so far:

2008:

• Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971)
• Zombie Honeymoon (2004)
• Horror Express (1973)
• Blue Sunshine (1976)
• I Walked With a Zombie (1943)
• Premutos: Lord of the Living Dead (1997)
• Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue) (1974)
• Dead & Buried (1981)
• Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (1972)
• Deathdream (Dead of Night) (1972)
• City of the Living Dead (Gates of Hell) (1980)
• Demons (1985)
• Fido (2006)
• Battlefield Baseball (2003)
• Enter. . . Zombie King! (Zombie Beach Party) (2003)
• Graveyard Alive: A Zombie Nurse in Love (2003)
• Les Revenants (They Came Back) (2004)

2010:

• Pontypool (2009)
• To Kako (Evil) (2005)
• Boy Eats Girl (2005)
• Isle of the Dead (1945)
• Vengeance of the Zombies (1973)
• Sugar Hill (1974)
• Night of the Comet (1984)
• Night of the Creeps (1986)
• The Zombie Diaries (2006)
• Plaga Zombie - Zona Mutante (2001)
• Dead Snow (2009)
• Grey Knight (1993)

As you can see, 2009 was a bit of a letdown with just Dead Set and some various television show episodes involving zombies.

Anyway, Spoiler Shields On, and away we go!

Day Nine: Grey Knight (1993)

This is another film that I really wasn't sure about before pulling it up on the old Netflix Streaming.

Grey Knight is a Civil War Zombie film, although the zombies in this are a little bit vampire and a little bit ghost, as well. They can't cross running water, have aversions to silver, and only come out at night.

But, at the same time, they're more like the Nazi zombies of Dead Snow, in that they're agile and fully conscious. And their origins involve African magic instead of your traditional vampire source material.

That said, this is really more of a vampire movie than a zombie film, but it's really not a vampire movie either.

Does that even make sense?

The source of the zombification is part of what makes this both interesting and a little puzzling. Somewhere, underground, live The Makers. And they bring the dead back to life. An African tribe that nobody fucked with, was fucked with by white slave traders and some sort of plague was brought to America. Is it vampirism? Is it zombieism? Who knows.

Regardless, The Makers are over here now, and as the Civil War is winding down, a group of soldiers from both sides are slaughtering people and recruiting the newly dead. Adrian Pasdar (Heroes) is recruited by Ray Wise (Twin Peaks) - at the suggestion of Martin Sheen (Apocalypse Now) - who then recruits captured Confederate leader Corbin Bernsen (L.A. Law) to track down his old allies (one of whom is Billy Bob Thornton (Slingblade), sort of).

There are a lot of recognizable names in this (including a short appearance by David Arquette and a large, but silent, part by Cynda Williams (One False Move)), and the director, George Hickenlooper, also directed Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse and the short, Some Folks Call It A Slingblade, which might explain Sheen and Thornton's involvement. It was written by Matt Greenberg, who was also responsible for Halloween H20, Reign of Fire, and the recent 1408.

Okay, that's the pedigree, but is the film any good?

Surprisingly, yes. Although, as I noted, it's more of a vampire/ghost film, it's nicely put together and aside from a few narrative glitches here and there, isn't a bad way to pass an evening. Corbin Bernsen is actually very good as the Southern POW forced to hunt down his old regiment, and is about the only character with an actual development arc. This is his film and he does a fine job with it.

This isn't the best film we've watched this week, but it's not the worst. And for one that actually takes itself seriously and doesn't fall back on easy comedy and gore, it really does stand on its own as one of the better films we've watched this time out. I wouldn't say that you HAVE to see it, but it's not a waste of your time.

Day Eight: Dead Snow (2009)

Now this is what I'm talking about!

I wasn't sure about this one at first, but I'd heard nothing but good things about Dead Snow, a Norwegian zombie comedy pitting a group of twenty-somethings against Zombie Nazis, so we figured we had to fit it in the schedule this year.

And while I don't think Dr. Girlfriend enjoyed this one as much as I did, I think we could agree that it was one of the best zombie films of the 2010 Easter/Zombie Marathon.

Although, to be fair, until the zombies really come out to play, this was bordering on just too tedious and self-aware for my tastes. Now, don't get me wrong. I love it when a film references the classics, even when it's just by doing something cheesy like naming the characters after famous directors (like Fred Dekker did in Night of the Creeps).

It adds to the fun, when you suddenly recognize a name-check or see an scene that echos one from an older film.

I'm not too thrilled, however, with films that have characters openly referencing and quoting classic films as fans of those films. A cool T-shirt is one thing, but when a character starts commenting on how much their trip to a cabin in the woods is like Evil Dead, and then starts discussing the relationship between Evil Dead and Evil Dead II, it's a bit too much.

I get it. The creators like those classic films. Discussing them inside the narrative of a film inspired by them is too Meta for me.

I suppose it could be done right, but usually, as with Dead Snow, it was just heavy-handed and annoying. Your mileage may vary.

But that's really nit-picking. Once we get past the introductions of the characters, as well as the "fun in the snow" montages, things start to really pick up. The plot is interesting, establishing why there are Nazi zombies running around in the first place, and the acting is effective. There were very few rough patches there.

And the gore effects are superb. As are the kills themselves.

This film brought two things to the table that I hadn't really seen before (or if I have, I've forgotten): zombies that are cunning, devious, and are ready to punch you in the face before they kill you; and a sex scene in an outhouse.

Yes. I did just say that.

One of the characters goes to the outhouse to take a dump, and a lady friend follows shortly thereafter and proceeds to sit on his lap and, um, you know. Never mind the logistics and the weather.

Anyway, it was the Nazi Zombies that really made this one interesting. Their leader, Standartenführer Herzog, orchestrates his zombie troops to converge on the isolated cabin with a motivation that makes them seem more like zombie Pirates than Nazis. All of this leads to a final confrontation between the last survivors and the Nazi hordes. There are horribly violent deaths, horribly violent self-mutilation, and laugh-out-loud moments one after the other.

I actually laughed so hard at one point I had tears running down my face.

Dr. Girlfriend looked at me as if I was a fool.

So, again, your mileage may vary.

But me, I liked this one a lot. So far, it's second only to Pontypool and rivals Night of the Creeps in my book.

Day Seven: Plaga Zombie - Zona Mutante (2001)

Day Seven brings us the Argentinian zombie-comedy, Plaga Zombie: Mutant Zone, or Plaga Zombie: Zona Mutante in the original language). I'm really not sure why the American release only translates half of the title.

Oh well.

This is a sequel to 1997's Plaga Zombie, and if I had known that before sitting down to watch this one, I would have searched it out and made a double feature out of them. Only I'm not sure I would have been able to sit through both of them back-to-back if the first one is anything like this.

And after checking out the trailer to Plaga Zombie, it looks like it was. Only with a smaller budget.

So, this is probably the only one you have to worry about watching. If you worry about things like that.

I do. I'm mentally ill like that.

Our main characters are named John West (a western-themed wrestler), Bill Johnson (a med-student, kung-fu ass-kicker), and Max Giggs (computer nerd and completely insane). The actors playing Bill and Max, Pablo Parés and Hernán Sáez, wrote and directed both this film and the original. Berta Muñiz (John West) co-wrote the original with them.

That in itself makes this an impressive little piece of work, if you ask me, but maybe a little bittersweet as well. You see, these three guys have been working together since 1991, making short films, and released Plaga Zombie in 1997 to the joy of Argentinian gore fans. Until the sequel was released in 2001, Plaga Zombie's fans called it the best Argentinian gore film ever.

But for reasons unknown to me (I'm really just too lazy to look into it at the moment), they stopped working together after Plaga Zombie: Zona Mutante.

Anyway, back to the review.

If you like your zombie horror with a healthy dose of slapstick comedy, then this is the one for you. It's gory as it can get, with cheesy effects that bring films like Evil Dead II (with a smaller budget) to mind. And that's definitely the mark they're shooting for. There's very little serious in this one, making it a welcome breath of fresh air after The Zombie Diaries.

Apparently, in the first film we discovered that an alien race had made a deal with the American Government to sample a strange alien virus on an isolated test community. As you could probably guess, this virus turned the infected into zombie mutants and the disease quickly spread, overrunning the entire city. Our heroes, John, Bill, and Max barely escaped with their lives.

Unfortunately, they were then captured by the FBI and, as this film opens, are dumped back into the city as it is closed off and scheduled to be destroyed. We can't have any surviving witnesses after all.

What follows is a pretty entertaining splatterstick romp as the boys try to survive long enough to decode a government map showing the only way out of town, before everyone is killed. There are a few very nice twists and turns, and the zombie attacks are always fun (even if most of the zombies are just running around, not really attacking anyone) and gory.

Any film gets bonus points from me when one of the heroes twists off someone's arm and uses it as a weapon. The same with pulling out spines or carrying around lengths of intestine to use as rope when needed.

Plus, we even get a little character development, sort-of. I mentioned that Max went crazy, right? Well, when the boys discover another survivor named Max, who also wants to be best friends with John West, will crazy-Max's jealousy tear the boys apart? Or just the new-Max?

Sure, it's all pretty silly. But at least it's intentionally silly. That counts for something.

It's stuff like that that pushed this film a little higher than three stars, but not quite into the four star range. So, on a free scale, this would get 3.5 stars from me. On Netflix's scale it gets 3.

Day Six: The Zombie Diaries (2006)

So, after watching these films, I'm going over to Netflix and rating them. The only problem with that is there are no half stars. It's all or nothing, 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5.

Because of this, more films are being ranked at 3 stars than actually deserve three stars. I'm giving 2.5 and 3.5 star movies 3 stars.

This is one of those cases.

The Zombie Diaries is a low-budget, independent British horror film shot entirely on hand-held cameras. It functions, as the title suggests, as a video diary of people going through a zombie plague outbreak in England.

It's not a bad idea. Hell, George Romero himself used the exact same idea for Diary of the Dead, which was released at about the same time as this film.

Zombie Diaries is a very quick exercise in nihilism at only 80 minutes long, so it's definitely worth the time to watch, however, be warned. It's really only the last 40 minutes or so that are anything interesting or original.

Which is why I'd rank this at 2.5 stars on an actual scale.

The set-up is slow and boring, as we follow around characters that we don't really get to know, thanks to the limitations of the plot device of filming with hand-held cameras. You see, our camera work is coming from a news crew on their way to interview a farmer about having to kill all of his chickens in response to an oncoming virus. Of course, everyone in the farmer's town is dead and zombified, but for some reason they wait until dark to come out and chase our "heroes" out of town and into the woods.

That occurs in one of the recurring annoying "I'm running through the dark carrying the camera" sequences.

At the same time (sort of), another group of people are trying to survive, and as luck would have it, videotaping the whole thing. This second group is even less compelling than the first, as the actors are less successful with their improvising. Oh yeah. A lot of this film is improvised dialogue, according to the Wikipedia site.

After putting off several urges to stop the DVD and go to bed, Dr. Girlfriend and I were rewarded with the back half of the film.

We discover another group of survivors; this time a group that is organized and trying to make a life for themselves. This is where the other two narratives converge and we find out what's happened to those characters.

And what's happened is pretty messed up. This is what raised this from a 2 star film to a 2.5 (or 3, according to Netflix). I'm not going to tell you too much about it, and be warned, the Wikipedia page spoils the ending (which is why I'm not linking to it).

But I'll just say this. Of all the films we've watched so far, this is the most nihilistic and the one that takes itself the most seriously. There really isn't anything humorous about anything in this film. None of the characters have any real personality beyond reacting to the zombie situation. We don't know who these people were before and we don't find out. The only character with much personality is a dick.

The whole thing is bleak and boring until you get to the last half. Then it's bleak and interesting and decidedly disturbing.

Which almost makes up for the first half.

So if you've got a little over an hour to waste, this is an okay way of passing that time. But there's really not much here you haven't seen before, the gore effects are okay, and the acting is passable at best. There's a kernel of a good idea here, but the urge to use hand-held cameras and justify it in-narrative kind of spoils the whole thing.

I'd much rather have seen a traditionally structured and filmed movie with this plot.

Day Five Point Two: Night of the Creeps (1986)

Night of the Creeps is awesome.

What? You want more?

Okay. Night of the Creeps was written and directed by Fred Dekker, who would go on to write and direct another cult classic, The Monster Squad.

If you haven't seen Monster Squad, then shame on you. If you have seen it, but didn't care for it, then you must have never been a prepubescent boy who loved the Universal Pictures stable of monsters.

Sure, that lets a lot of you off the hook, I guess. But dammit! That movie is gold.

As is this one.

What we've got here is an alien invasion of sorts. An alien experiment is jettisoned from an alien spacecraft in the opening moments of the film. The experimental container lands on Earth back in 1959 and infects a college jock.

Cut to 1986 and the misadventures of two college students just trying to find nice girls and fall in love. In a misguided attempt to impress a young lady, these gentlemen decide to pledge a fraternity (one which will never actually let them join, of course), and their hazing involves stealing a corpse. The corpse, naturally, turns out to the the cryogenically frozen body with mysterious alien worms inside (the alien experiment, for those of you not keeping up).

The alien worms gestate in the brains of mammals, living or dead, causing an outbreak of zombie-ism on the college campus.

That's enough plot.

Let me just say that this is a low-budget horror film made by a man who clearly loves horror films. Nearly all the characters have names inspired by the greats in the horror film industry. There are narrative references to all sorts of horror precursors. And best of all, it doesn't suck while doing all of this.

It actually tells an entertaining story with likable characters while both advancing the genre and respecting the traditions.

This is one of the good ones, folks.

If you haven't seen it, then make some time for it. If you've already seen it, shouldn't you check it out again? How long has it been?

For me it was around fifteen years.

It doesn't take itself too seriously, but it does take itself serious enough to make it more than a shallow parody. It's a worthy entry into the pantheon of zombie film, if you ask me.

It's not Top Ten material, but it's not too far off.

Day Five: Night of the Comet (1984)

Okay. I'll admit it.

I wasn't expecting this to be good at all.

I mean, look at that tag line. "They came. They shopped. They saved the world."

Come on. Right?

I was in high school when this film was released, and thought it looked like some completely stupid shit. So I never watched it.

Never even had an urge to watch it.

Well, I was a dumbass. Night of the Comet is pretty damn entertaining.

Sure, it's hampered by an Eighties soundtrack, where they had to get someone to cover "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun." Sure, it's about two teenage girls in a post-apocalyptic wasteland version of LA.

But, lo and behold, it's not just some stupid valley girl comedy with "zombies."

What we've actually got here is a story, not really a zombie story, but oh well, about the end of the world. Sure, these two sisters are California girls, but they're got an absent dad who's a Green Beret and just happened to have trained them to fight and use weapons.

That in itself adds a layer of entertainment that I would have never imagined from the reputation of the film. I mean, come on, check out the trailer.



See? They really didn't even take it seriously when they were promoting it.

But the hints are there. If you pay attention.

Again, as with most of the films we're watching, this isn't your high quality entertainment. But so far as the zombie sub-genre goes, this is not only watchable, it's downright entertaining and, dare I say it, good.

It doesn't go too far into the characters' psychological reactions to being some of the few survivors after a comet annihilates the majority of humanity, but it does pay attention to the psychological effects. These aren't just Valley Girls. There's a hint of character work going on.

Sure, in the end it's one-dimensional and cartoonish, but damn it, it's fun.

Is that too much to ask?

Oh! And Commander Chakotay (Robert Beltran) from Star Trek: Voyager is in it as Hector.















That's worth something, right?