Posted on October 26, 2010 by Darren
Welcome to the m0vie blog’s zombie week! It’s a week of zombie-related movie discussions and reviews as we come up to Halloween, to celebrate the launch of Frank Darbont’s The Walking Dead on AMC on Halloween night. So be sure to check back all week, as we’ll be running posts on the living dead.
It seems like a fairly straightforward question, right? A zombie is one of those rotting, decaying corpses shuffling around looking for brains, isn’t it? I’m not so sure that even that simplistic explanation is enough. I mean we classify a wide variety of films as “zombie” films, even if the creatures prowling the land don’t resemble the type of monsters I have described. I mean, if the simplest description of a vampire is that it sucks blood and the most direct synopsis of a werewolf is that it changes form into a beast, what is the most essential element of being a zombie?
Will I stumble across the answer?
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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: 28 days later, AMC, Christopher Lee, creature features, creatures, george romero, horror, Ken Foree, Living Dead, monsters, Simon Pegg, zombie, zombie films, zombie week!, zombies | 6 Comments »
Posted on September 28, 2010 by Darren
We had a family outing at the weekend. We all went to see The Last Exorcism, on the recommendation of my gran. We were pretty much all disappointed, but to different degrees. Anyway, as we sat around the kitchen table at midnight, discussing the film, my gran and my aunt conceded that whenever they typically saw a film about demons, they had trouble sleeping – even the camp horror of The Devil Rides Through or the courtroom-focused drama of The Exorcism of Emily Rose. However, neither would have any real trouble sleeping that night (and, the following morning, both seemed perfectly rested). So it got me thinking, perhaps the perfect measure of a horror movie’s effectiveness is how afraid it makes you as you lay yourself down to rest. So, when was the last time you had trouble sleeping?
A stab in the dark...
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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: arts, asian horror, audition, Demonic possession, Eihi Shiina, Exorcism of Emily Rose, horror, japanese horror, Keanu Reeves, Movies, night terrors, nightmares, paranormal activity, ringu, scared, scary, the last exorcism, the ring | 16 Comments »
Posted on September 28, 2010 by Darren
The fundamental problem with The Last Exorcism is that it tries to be too many things, while being unwilling to completely invest in any of them. Is it an exploration of the culture of “showy exorcisms” (where the preacher himself refers to it as “a sham”)? Is it a jerky, handheld homage to The Exorcism, filtered through Paranormal Activity? Is it an indictment of small insular communities and the sinister ideas which may underpin them, as in The Wicker Man? It seems to be all three at once, which is a problem, as the three don’t gel together too well in a two-hour film.
The movie certainly isn't a blessing...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Blair Witch Project, Cotton Marcus, exorcism, film, horror, Horror film, Last Exorcism, Movie, Movies, non-review review, paranormal activity, religion, review, the last exorcism, United States | Leave a comment »
Posted on September 17, 2010 by Darren
I curse you with my name. You shall be… Blacula! Vampire!
– the only thing worse than Dracula is racist!Dracula
I have to concede, Scream Blacula Scream (what a title!) is actually pretty high end blaxploitation. Sure it’s cornier than my foot after a long hike, but it never truly descends into the realm of self-parody that we seem to have (at least retroactively) come to expect from such blaxploitation films. This is actually a sequel to the previous year’s Blacula. Although I wasn’t really going in expecting much, what I got was certainly better than a large portion of the generic Hammer Horror films of the era. This is certainly helped no end by the lead performance from William Marshall who – even in a silly cape – manages to lend proceedings a touch of class.
Fangs for the memories...
Note: I have to concede that I am pretty ticked off with MGM HD. They’ve been running this as the UK High Definition Premiere of “Blacula”, but it’s actually the sequel. Not that I’m complaining too much, but it feels weird to see the sequel before the original.
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: arts, Blacula, Blacula Scream, blaxploitation, dracula, film, Hammer Film Productions, horror, Movie, non-review review, Pam Grier, review, scream blacula scream, William Marshall | Leave a comment »
Posted on July 9, 2010 by Darren
It must be genuinely one of the toughest and most unforgiving tasks in moviedom to produce a belated sequel to a beloved franchise. Even Spielberg and Lucas messed up in producing the long-delayed Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull or Lucas’ prequels to Star Wars. The original film has just been lying there so long that it has built up its own legacy and reputation – to the point where it’s arguably not so much a film as a legend. Okay, maybe the original Predator and the modern Predators shouldn’t really be classified as legends in the same way as the earlier examples (or, say Chinatown and its disappointing follow-up The Two Jakes), but this is undeniably a cult franchise. The good news is that – while far from perfect – Predators actually lives up to its legacy quite well.
Preying for a way out...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: action, adrian brody, adrien brody, alice braga, alien, alien vs. predator, aliens, aliens vs. predator, avp, film, hish, horror, laurence fishburne, Movie, Nimrod Antal, non-review review, predator, predators, review, robert rodriguez, topher grace, Yautja | 11 Comments »
Posted on May 6, 2010 by Darren
I’m sucker for things that go bump in the night. It’s a personal thing. Some people are inherently weirded out by the very idea of zombies or insects or serial killers, but it’s ghosts (or demons or “spiritual presences” or whatever euphemism you wish to use) in their purest forms which terrify me. It’s a matter of personal horror preference – I can (admittedly reluctantly) take copious amounts of gore and graphic violence and, while I may flinch, I’ll shrug it off. It may get me while I’m watching it and I may even look away like a big baby, but it doesn’t really bother me. Give me something just a bit more abstract and I’ll spend the night shivering. So Paranormal Activity was right up my street, then?
A new house can be hell on a relationship...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: films, horror, Movies, non-review review, paranormal activity, review | 9 Comments »
Posted on February 11, 2010 by Darren
The Ruins is a decent enough little horror movie. In fact, it’s a cut above the average mould. Eschewing the torture porn or the gratuitous slasher movies, The Ruins is – after a fashion – a creature feature in the style of eighties. It can’t hold a candle to the true classics of the genre, like The Thing, but it offers a perfectly decent substitute. What’s more is the way that – like all good horror films – it is able to generate pure menace from what should be a ridiculous premise.
Worst. Vacation. Ever.
Note: Towards the end of this review, I’ll discuss some items which might be considered spoilers. Nothing as glaring as the ending, but some stuff you might not want to know ahead of time. I’ll flag it a paragraph beforehand, so don’t worry. If you want a recommendation, it’s an old-fashioned horror which works like any truly effective monster movie: the threat is not just outside the group, but also within it. It won’t rock your world and it isn’t a masterpiece, but is worth a go.
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: creature feature, film, genre, horror, Movie, non-review review, review, the happening, the ruins, the thing | Leave a comment »
Posted on January 15, 2010 by Darren
Something’s happening… And it’s happening all over the East Coast… And it’s just happening to people without a reason… And… oh, that’s what’s happening? What the hell was M. Night Shyamalan smoking? Probably some killer grass.
It's a car crash of a movie...
Note: This review contains spoilers. But I’ll flag them beforehand. Still – you have been warned. Oh, and – if you’re looking for a recommendation – the only appeal of the film is in the ‘so bad it’s good’ category. It’s the movie that Lesbian Vampire Killers wishes it were.
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: ecology, evolution, film, hitchcock, horror, intelligent design, M. Night Shyamalan, mark wahlberg, Movie, non-review review, plants, review, science, the happening | Leave a comment »
Posted on December 9, 2009 by Darren
I’m a little torn about this film. On one hand, it’s nice to know that Sam Raimi has more than simply half-a-dozen Spider-Man movies left in him, on the other hand, this feels like it’s what The Evil Dead would look like in the era of CGI. And that’s not necessarily a compliment. At the very least, Raimi immediately reestablishes his creditionals as a unique film maker – I don’t think anyone has a vision quite like him. While he has the same difficulties finding the perfect balance of black comedy and horror that he had while making the Evil Dead trilogy. It doesn’t always work, but it benefits from being new and relatively exciting.
A grave matter...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: alison lohman, black comedy, dark me to hell, film, horror, Movie, non-review review, review, sam raimi | Leave a comment »
Posted on December 3, 2009 by Darren
Well, I guess Twilight: New Moon was ahead of the curve in at least one regard. Perhaps horror tastes are cyclical, as it seems that werewolves have cycled back into public consciousness after a few hundred years. Disregarding the aforementioned sequel, we have the release of The Wolfman coming up next year. That the werewolf has been chosen to spearhead the planned relaunch of classic Universal horror properties is perhaps a large vote of confidence in the beasts, and perhaps a long overdue one. How come, for all the cheesy B-movies they’ve been featured in, werewolves have never pierced popular culture in the same way that vampires, zombies or even plain old ghosts have?
Benecio del Toro looks only slightly hairier than usual...
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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: an american werewolf in paris, creatures, films, horror, Movies, teenwolf, the wolfman, twilight: new moon, vampires, werewolf, werewolves, wolf, zombies | 2 Comments »
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