16 posts tagged “zombies”
This is an interesting little film. It is sort of a cross between a zombie movie an something like the Exorcist or some other horror film that deals with a priest's lapsed faith. It is a good premise even if it doesn't carry through on it.
There's this priest who had an affair with a nun several years ago and the nun got pregnant. He hasn't seen her or the child since. He is, for some reason, leading a tour to look at some Mexican ruins. On the way the ex-nun and the child turns up. There are some New Age weirdos too. One of the kids that goes to the priest's school and the guy who she ends up hooking up with. There are also, of course, some Red Shirts who die along the way.
Once they get there the priest gets asked to do an exorcism on a local person and that's when the evil starts. The kid gets possessed. Zombies start killing people. And the subtle strains of camp that have been appearing through the movie take over and it gets just plain silly. How silly? Basketball game against the dead silly.
two thumbs up
basketball zombies
they use heads not balls of course
balls would be silly
I love zombie movies. I especially love George Romero zombie movies. Sadly, if this weren't by George Romero it wouldn't be very notable.
The idea is basically the same as Cloverfield or The Blair Witch Project. Someone if filming things as the world goes to Hell. The other Romero zombie films seem to take place in the same world in that they seem to take place in order of their release. This film, however, is not obviously connected to the other Romero films -- unless Night of the Living Dead has been relocated and is taking place in the current time frame. In that case Diary and Night could be taking place at roughly the same time.
Such minutia aside, the film starts off quite strong with what is supposed to be raw footage of a news team reporting on what appears to be a murder/suicide. Later we see the edited footage but a voiceover tells us that this unedited footage was found "online." In this uncut footage we see the paramedics taking the bodies out of the building and as they prepare to put them in ambulances the bodies begin to move. They are, of course, zombies. As soon as we hear that this is situation involving dead people we know these are going to end up being zombies but it is shot pretty well and it works.
Unfortunately it is one of the few parts that does. After that we are introduced to the main characters through that most "cinematic" of cliches: the film within a film. It turns out our main characters are film students and are out in the woods making a mummy horror film when the dead begin to walk. At this point the camera man decides to just keep filming as they attempt to figure out what is happening and try to get to safety.
The handheld conceit is done here much much better than in Cloverfield. It undoubtedly helps that rather than raw footage, Diary is supposed to be narrated and edited after the fact. This allows the film to include more footage "found online" (youtube is never mentioned but myspace is at one point) as well as some editing from other cameras (there is a cute scene where we shift from the main camera viewpoint to that of a security camera. At first I was shouting shenanigans but a couple scenes later we are shown the people talking about getting the footage from said security camera and editing it in. As I said, it is cute. I'm not sure if it actually works, but it is cute.).
Like all of Romero's zombie films it has subtext to it which also serves to put it above Cloverfield in my book. However, the subtext is so explicit and over done at times that it almost becomes text rather than subtext. For example, one character says something like, "If it doesn't happen on camera, it doesn't matter to you, does it?" Then half and hour later she says it again in case you didn't catch it the first time.
There are also some lame things like a girl from Texas who spends half the film trying to remember that she's from Texas and a professor that is not only British but a drunk. He is missing patches on his elbows though so I guess that is something.
three thumbs up
Romero's zombies
are starting to show their age
JJ can suck it
This movie is blatant false advertising. This film is not about elves at all. It is about an elf. Singular. There is only one elf in this movie. On the other hand, however, it does have Dan Haggerty. That's right. Grizzly Adams vs. and evil Elf.
So there's this very 80s girl (although the film came out in 1990 it is super ultra 80s in look and style) who lives with her mean mom and kindly grandfather. She hates Christmas and so her and her friends do some sort of anti-Christmas ritual in the woods releasing an evil elf that looks like and for half the film is referred to as a troll. She works in a store and Grizzly Adams used to work there but was fired for some reason. The store Santa gets killed (by the elf) and they let Grizzly take over. The girls have a party with some boys in the store after hours and the elf kills some people. Then Grizzly Adams dons his detective hat and figures out what this elf thing is about.
This is the point when it turns really weird. See, it turns out that the Nazis were researching elves to use as some sort of ruthless killing machine/ultimate soldier. So it isn't just Grizzly Adams vs. an evil elf, but rather Grizzly Adams vs a Nazi elf! Now how much would you pay??? What if I told you that the elf was a guy in a rubber mask and that the rubber mask had its mouth permanently held open? Now what if I told you that there was also incest? Finally what if I told you that at one point they steal George Romero's line about "When there's no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the Earth" and replace "the dead" with elves? Seriously.
five thumbs up
only one elf here
but there is never enough
for Grizzly Adams
This is the worst movie I've seen in a long, long time. That means a lot coming from me.
I'll be honest, I didn't even watch this whole thing. I fast forwarded through nearly all of it because it was just that bad. I could tell from the lifeless monotone horribly unenthusiastic unenunciated voiceover in the beginning that this was going to be a bad film. Actually, I could tell by the long opening credits of a guy driving a truck while some lame song played and each name lingered on the screen for a long long time. Then the lame voiceover came on and that sealed the deal. This film was a piece of crap.
With a title like "Zombies Gone Wild," you would think that there would be all sorts of T and A. Well, that's what you get for thinking. There's only one boob shot in this and it is some dream sequence.
You would also think that with a title like, "Zombies gone Wild" that there would be some zombies in it. Well, if you turned it off less than 30 minutes before the end you would be right. The film is something like 100 minutes long and it isn't until after the 70 minutes mark that the zombies show up. And then the last five minutes are just completely inane.
So then what is in that 70 minutes? Something about three nerds on a road trip to spring break or something. Three nerds played by people who may be a lot of things but certainly aren't actors. They do this lame and obnoxious stereotype of nerds and the dialog is horrific. After the stupid voiceover the first scene we see is one of the guys on the toilet taking a dump, complete with fart noises and grunts. One of the other nerds calls and the guy on the toilet claims he is having sex so he makes lame sounds of a woman. On the phone instead of hearing the other guy talking we hear the sterotypical high pitched "mermna mermina minerma" sounds from lame cartoons and sounds like the guy from Police Academy makes. No the best way to start a film. The introduction of the other two nerds is just as bad and includes them having crazy parents who are apparently supposed to be funny but aren't.
So after an hour them meet some women who turn out to be zombies or something. Then it goes all normal zombie movie and people start to get eaten by the zombies. Then 5 minutes before the end a fat man portraying a stereotypical gay character comes on and everyone stops. Apparently this guy is the hairdresser or something and the zombies are all just actors. One actor says "screw this. I'm not getting payed enough for this" and walks off then the others do too. The end. So whatever. Even though the beginning voiceover was in the past tense indicating that the narrator had survived these events apparently it was just a movie. Even though there was no indication of that beforehand.
eight thumbs down.
Complete and total
one hundred percent pure crap
no zombies were wild
I can, that's who! The crux of this movie is that people are freaked out by killer kids and can't kill them. If I was attacked by a group of killer children I would certainly kick their asses. In fact, I happen to know for a fact that I could could take 28 five year olds in a fight.
However, the adults in this film aren't so lucky if only because there are way more than 28 kids and nearly all of them are over 5 years old.
The movie starts off with a montage of newsreel clips showing real atrocities that have been committed against around the world. From WWII to African genocide there are some reminders of how horrible people can be. I suppose that the film is trying to make a statement about how children are treated in war and to show that in the real world there are those who have no problem killing children. However, it is really too long and the first time I sat through it I turned it off.
I'm glad I did give it a second chance because the film is pretty darn good. It has a British husband and pregnant wife touring a Spanish-speaking country (I couldn't figure out if it was Spain or Mexico or some other South American country) who are going to go to a rustic island a couple miles off the coast. Once there the film goes straight into Children of the Corn territory -- even though this film was made years before that one and was released near the time when the short story was written. They get to the island and can't find any adults. Of course they soon find that the kids have killed every one. Then they have to try to get away.
Some have criticized the fact that they never explain why the kids went evil and there is a scene where an evil kid stares into the eyes of a normal kid and the normal kid turns evil. I, however, didn't find this to be a problem because it really doesn't matter. Without some sort of opportunity to cure the kids or prevent other kids from turning evil there is no reason why we need to know the reason. This film is really Night of the Living Dead with kids instead of zombies complete with some Gustav Vigeland-style kid fighting and an ending with some similarities to Night.
The film isn't perfect. The woman not only doesn't know Spanish (everyone but the husband and wife speak Spanish) but perhaps because she is pregnant is totally helpless. There is a part where a kid has a gun pointed at her head and is smiling and so the husband has to kill the kid and the wife just freaks out about it. That combined with the actress's horrible overacting was a major strike against the film.
However, the smiles on the kid's faces as they kill people and the scenes of them merrily playing (and the knowledge that the director just said, "Go out there and play, kids") which are then juxtaposed with them playing with the dead bodies is pretty chilling. There's also a great scene where the kids come up over a hill and you see that the adult is just screwed is also really excellent. The film isn't really scary and there aren't any real scenes to make you jump but it did slowly draw me in and the end of it is great and draws more parallels with the zombie movie genre which always makes me happy.
five thumbs up
I can kill a child
but not that I really would
unless they were bad.
Although it looks like this movie stars Puck from the Real World it doesn't. And although there is someone named Liz Hurley in it, this Liz Hurley isn't the famous Elizabeth Hurley. Nope, there isn't anyone famous in this but it is still a fairly entertaining film.
Combining elements from HP Lovecraft's From Beyond, Buckaroo Banzai, and Videodrome, the movie is about a film geek, Shemp, who films everything and his friends. They find a tape that turns out to be from a scientist who invented a machine to view other dimensions (actually the scientist invented a way to record audio and video before film was invented and somehow -- how is never explained -- that recording was transfered to a VHS tape). So of course the gang goes to investigate this guy.
Luckily, he was from their town and they eventually find his machine and then the movie pretty much goes to hell. Shemp gets melded to his video camera and goes crazy. Some zombies turn up. Some alien insects also show up as well. But forget about those zombies and insects because the film makers did since there really isn't any reason for them to be in the film and they get taken care of really quickly. Shemp is the main problem. If the film had managed to keep its tone and plot together this film might have been a personal favorite.
four thumbs up
Opportunities
they missed nearly all of them
with tunnel vision.
One of the crappiest movies I've seen in a while. Considering the movies I've seen, that is saying a lot. Either the makers didn't have a complete script when they began filming or this is some crappy attempt to be arty.
The film stars Rupert Everett as the caretaker of a cemetery where the dead keep coming back to life. It is a pretty good premise and the beginning is fairly entertaining. He has a very nonchalant attitude towards the zombies. I read that this is some sort of commentary on Italian politics and I can see that because the caretaker keeps trying to tell the owners of the cemetery about the zombies but can never seem to get to discussing the problem with them.
One day a man is buried and the caretaker falls in love with the widow. When her husband comes back to life the caretaker accidentally shoots her instead of the husband and kills her. She comes back to life and he is forced to kill her again.
Then there is like 40 more minutes of random crap that don't really have any pot behind them. There's this whole deal with the caretaker's assistant who looks like Curly from the 3 Stooges and can't talk. He's in love with a girl but she doesn't love him. She dies and he digs her up and takes her head. For some reason she now loves him. The caretaker dates a couple more women but they all look like the widow that he loved. Then he decides to leave town and takes his assistant with him. There's some stupid stuff about the rest of the world not existing. The End.
It is just way too long and the storyline just disappears halfway through. I got so bored I started watching this interview with a couple of the programmers of internet explorer on my computer while the film finished. The whole dead coming back to life thing is basically dropped. Sure, the bit with every woman he dates looking the same is neat and the problems he has with them is humorous but it just doesn't make up for the film's faults.
three thumbs down
if you have zombies
do not have sex on their graves
shoot them in the head.
For the first ten or so minutes I wasn't quite sure what to make of this film. It starts off with a teenage girl being kidnapped by some oddly dressed men and a do-gooder trying to beat them up. It is so over the top and the costumes of some of the kidnappers was so odd I didn't know if they were supposed to be funny or if this was just really bad. It wasn't until the next scene that I have completely made up my mind.
In that scene the father is talking to someone to try and get his daughter back and at one point the would-be hero says something like, "Hey be careful you want to get us in trouble with the censors?" With that I was sure this was supposed to be funny and that I was going to enjoy it. I was right.
All in all this film was pretty gutsy for several reasons. First of all that they would make a movie about a mutant strain of the sars virus turning people in to zombies in the part of the world that was most at risk for the disease takes some guts and then as the scene where the guy says that they have to worry about the film being censored also shows that they are taking on their country's film board. You got to admire that.
Basically, the film is about a zombie outbreak but it is the comedy and the fighting that makes it entertaining. There's at least one more gag about censorship and there's a convoluted plot about the hero losing his virginity to a transexual. Good times.
three thumbs up
those silly zombies
when will they ever learn
brains are for people!
The premise is that a cursed TV is accidentally delivered to someone's house (and no we don't learn why the TV is cursed). Zombies come out of the tv and kill people.
One of the things that makes the film somewhat worthwhile is that there are some rather unusual zombie rules in effect here. While the zombies are the traditional slow gray kind, they aren't killed by taking off or shooting them in the head. In Video Dead the zombies are too dumb to know that they are already dead and they think they are alive. So if you shoot them enough in any part of the body they will fall down because they think they have been killed. Eventually they will forget that they were killed and they get back up again. Also, because they think they are alive, if they look into a mirror they will freak out because of the revelation of how they look. They attack people because they sense that normal people are afraid of them. If you want to escape you have to pretend like nothing is really wrong. It seems like the only thing that will really kill them is trapping them in a room. If you do that they will turn on one another and eat each other. And they don't just slowly go crazy. No, they go crazy within seconds.
Early on there is some lame padding and general cornyness as we see the zombies going from house to house killing people. There's one scene where a man's wife is zombified but of course he doesn't notice it because he's too busy reading the paper. Yes, its about that original. On the other hand the unique rules make for some interesting scenes like one where our heroine serves the zombies dinner because she's acting like she isn't afraid of them. So the first half is kind of slow but it picks up nicely around half way through.
three thumbs up
Don't take them bowling
Do take the zombies dinning.
yes, take them dinning.
The movie is allegedly based on Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla. I'd never heard of Carmilla, but apparently it is the story of a vampire and it appeared before Bram Stoker's Dracula. From what wikipedia says there are some similarities between Vampires vs Zombies and the company that made this movie has released a special "unrated" edition under the name Carmilla (it supposedly has more hot girl on girl action or something...).
Basically, there is a girl and her father who are trying to go to a cabin in the woods somewhere or something. They are stopped in the middle of nowhere by a woman who has her daughter, Carmilla, with her and another woman she claims is also her daughter but is bound and gagged. The woman claims she is sick and tied up for her own good. The woman begs the dad to take Carmilla with them so that she can take the sick daughter to a doctor. Reluctantly, the father and his daughter agree.
So they take off only to stop at a gas station. While the father is getting gas and the daughter is just handing out, Carmilla takes the gas station attendant to the bathroom and bites him. Carmilla is a vampire!!! Oh noes!!! But the father and daughter don't catch on so they can Carmilla take off.
Then we meet a Kenny Rogers impersonator who goes by the name "The General." He stops at a gas station that looks exactly like that other one but is apparently a different gas station since the guy who works there seems fine. Just then the woman with the tied up girl pulls up. The General claims that the tied up girl is Carmilla and that Carmilla killed his daughter! So although the woman has untied the girl, the girl doesn't say anything or protest until the General has put him in his car and taken off. Only after they are on the road does the girl tell the General that she isn't Carmilla. Heaven forbid that she try to get away or claim her innocence before she gets into the car.
At this point, the General calls the father and daughter and tells them that he has caught Carmilla and is going to meet them so that they can kill Carmilla. However, the father tells the General that they have the real Carmilla and then the General learns that the girl he has is also a vampire! On noes!!!!
So here we have the father who knows that the woman they have with them is the Carmilla that is like an evil vampire or something (although it all takes place in the daytime and there isn't any evidence that the daylight has any effect on the vampires). Although he knows who she is, he lets Carmilla go off alone with his daughter. That's real good logic there... Of course it does allow Carmilla and the daughter to get naked and Carmilla to give her a vampire bite on the daughter's inner thigh.
I usually don't give this much plot but I feel like I have to in this case because the movie is so stupid that it is really hard to follow. Because cut in between all of this are some random zombies walking across the road that the General and the dad like to run into, flashes of the daughter being seduced by some brunette women (Carmilla is blond), flashes of the daughter in an insane asylum, people getting bit by the gas station attendant, what the woman with the gagged girl does after the General takes off, the fate of the General's daughter, and some other stuff. The zombies are pretty special because when you become a zombie apparently not only does your face get covered in tar black stuff, but you get some work gloves because all of the zombies have gloves. It has nothing to do with how cheap the production was or anything...
The only possible rational of why the zombies even exist in this film is some stuff on the radio about a sickness going around that is making people sick, and murderous. Only when you first hear that on the radio, it is made to sound as if vampirism is the sickness and not zombism. Only it seems that the zombie stuff is the disease and all the vampire stuff just seems to be happening at the same time as the zombie stuff.
Then once the General and the father and daughter get together the whole thing goes off the rails as they seem to forget that Carmilla is a vampire and are more interested in other things and the flashes to the daughter in the insane asylum get more and more common. I know, as if the movie could go any more off the rails, it does. Then it ends on what is supposed to be some sort of twist but it is really just stupid especially if you are looking forward to seeing a movie all about vampires fighting zombies.
The movie is almost so bad it is good but really, it is very very infuriating and so much of it makes you go, "what the hell???"
five thumbs down
This is a train wreck
Everyone knows vampires suck
It needs more zombies
