What I'm Watching: Pretty Dead

Hey!  It's a new post, yay!

I am SO behind on these, and movies just keep on coming.  I don't wanna deny you all my delicious thoughts, and want to try and catch up.

Like this movie, Pretty Dead?  I watched it back in January.  Eek.

But oh man, did I enjoy it!

It's quite possibly one of the best found footage movies I've seen this year, aside from Mr. Jones.  And I think I liked the story here more, and preferred the use of the found footage tropes more over in Jones.

In short, a young med student, Regina, is out partying one night, and after a bad experience with drugs gets a terrible infection because drugs aren't exactly regulated.  Everything seems fine, given that she's got a bit of a nasty thing in her, but it soon becomes clear that all is not well.

Regina can't sleep, she heals rapidly, and develops a craving for meat like she never ate before.  Oh yes, horror fans can maybe start to notice some traits here.

She occasionally blacks out, attacks people, and things just get steadily worse, until she is taken away to a hospital to see if they have any luck diagnosing her.

I love love love that this is told from a medical student's perspective.  It really gives some weight to the science of what's going on, and helps make it all the more real, and make it seem natural that she'd be curious and scientific about this strange thing happening to her, rather than the usual excuse of just doing it for kicks.

You really feel for her charatcer as she struggles to maintain her humanity, as the infection gains more and more control over her.  It is a great mixture of the parasite/possession genres with the zombie undertones.

I really don't want to call this a zombie movie, even though the hallmarks are there.  If I must, it's clearly closer to the 'rage zombie' side of the horror family tree.

The biggest shame is that the cause for all this, the cordyceps fungus that causes 'zombie insects' in nature, kinda hit a saturation point in pop culture and the collective consciousness of our media.  If this movie existed in a vaccuum, it would be a great, refreshing, unique idea.  Sadly, with other things like "The Last of Us" and their clickers using a very similar idea, it kinda gets lost in the crowd.  Which is a shame, because the story is well told, with a great lead you feel for, like I said.

Still, having the real world basis for this makes it just that much more terrifying.  Which is naturally why everyone's using it right now, right?  I don't believe anyone copied anyone else, but we all saw those documentaries and videos online at the same time, so naturally everyone went, "NEW ZOMBIE MOVIE IDEA!"

The ending did leave me a little cold though, at first.  As is usual with horror, it is so easy to drop the ball in those last few minutes, and this one literally lost me in the last five seconds.  It didn't really end, so much as stop, as these sorts of flicks tend to do.  I know I make a lot of the same complaints about found footage movies, but they are almost universal problems of the style, and more people need to avoid them, not embrace them.

But, the more I thought about the ending, the more I've become okay with it, and the commentary definitely helped me once it was couched in what sort of terms the makers of Pretty Dead wanted to end the movie with.  This is the outbreak origin story, the movie we rarely get to see, and it ends at the point where so many others begin, and we've SEEN that movie over and over again.  And that's fair.  And I can live with that.  It just threw me the first time I saw it.

So, in short, I give Pretty Dead a high reccomendation, even if the acting isn't great, even if the ending was abrupt.  But we've almost come to expect that from these movies, and since you've been warned, you might get more enjoyment out of it than I.  For a no-budget, found footage take on zombies, with a new(ish) twist, it's a pretty unique thing to watch.  Although less unique than it wishes it was, which is a shame.

What I'm Watching: Cockneys vs. Zombies

Hello horrorheads!

I've been following a zombie comedy movie for awhile now, the titular Cockneys vs. Zombies.  It had that right look of fun and horror, and I'm a fan of Michelle Ryan, so it was on my radar.

I was a little afraid at it trying to be the next Shaun of the Dead though, but the trailers made me smile enough.

It finally came out on DVD, and first thing I'm gonna say is that it is not fair to compare it to Shaun of the Dead.  Even though I'm going to, at times.  The movies are very different, with different goals in mind, and even the creators of CvZ know they can't compare to such a masterpiece.

Shaun is such a well-crafted piece of work, with every single bit of dialogue feeding into the next, building up, and even the littlest detail leads to foreshadowing and the end.  The craftsmanship in Edgar Wright's movies are mindboggling at times.

And CvZ just does not compare, on that level.

But that said, it is still REALLY solid, taken on its own merits.  Even held up against Shaun, it still fares very well, even if it is proudly standing and staring up at its better.

The story centers around an old folks home in London, under threat of being demolished and the residents being located far FAR away from home, and into an area that the local cockneys just will not stand for.  So the grandkids, and their cousin, along with a few friends, team up to pull a bank heist to pay the money needed to keep the home open.

Meanwhile, the same construction company looking to rebuild have uncovered an ancient tomb, and set free a zombie plague upon the city.

I love mixing up the heist genre with a zombie movie, because you would NEVER think of those two going together, and honestly?  They don't.  But it's a good diversion and set up for plot and characters, as the zombie movie crashes the party and stops the heist dead in its tracks.

Which is probably a good thing, because the entire team besides Michelle Ryan's Katy are either inept, bumbling fools, or raging psychopaths, leading to the heist going horribly wrong in literally every way they can think of.

From their, the mission is STILL to save their granddad and his friends, but now the threat has become the zombie hordes.

This movie does some truly, incrediblely inventive things with the genre that I don't think I've ever seen before.  The humour is great, very well balanced with the more serious threat of zombies, and there are a ton of great, gory zombie kills.

Cockneys vs. Zombies had me laughing, yelping, cheering, and it even touched me emotionally a few times.  It never quite reached the heights of Shaun of the Dead, but it made a damned good effort, and if it didn't unthrone the reigning king of British zombie comedies, it should feel no shame in being a very close second.

I definitely recommend checking out CvZ, and just judge it for what it is, not because it's not Shaun of the Dead.  It was definitely surprising just how good it was, since I went into this without middling hopes for a fun time, and was not disappointed.

What I'm Watching: Dead Snow

This movie has been around for awhile, and I've been meaning to watch it forever, but just never got around to it, for a number of reasons.  A friend bugged me about it, and I saw I could watch it on Amazon Prime, and finally did just that!

This movie is AMAZING.

It is, quite possibly, in my top five zombie movies of all time.  Definitely top 10?  Maybe?  I hate lists.

The plot is, much like Dredd, very straight forward.  Your typical kids head off to a weekend stay in a cabin off in the woods.  While there, they end up running afoul of a lost group of Nazi soliders.

Who happen to be zombies.

The characters manage to be pretty likable, even despite the language barrier.  Yes, this movie is subtitled.  But you don't need words for zombie carnage.

The plot is just different enough that this doesn't feel like a complete retread of *either* zombie movies, or the 'cabin in the woods' subgenre.

Putting zombies in the snow makes them all the more terrifying, because you can have them hidden in plain sight.  And the blood stains on the pure white snow is great, visually.

Almost every single death of a major character is fun and inventive, and the carnage of the zombies is over the top, amazing, and just perfect.  And boy, was there a ton of Nazi zombies to hack up!  The movie was just moving along nicely, nothing special, doing it's thing, but it went to a whole new level when the literally never ending stream of Nazis JUST KEPT COMING.  That put the movie over the top for me, and I am grateful for it.

If you're a zombie fan, or a fan of movies on this sight, Dead Snow is a MUST SEE.  I enjoyed it thoroughly, and now that I've seen it, will be adding it to my collection soon.

J

What I'm Watching: Osombie

So they made a movie.

A movie about an undead zombie Osama Bin Laden.

Called...Osombie.

HOW COULD I SAY NO??

This...sounds like it's gonna be terrible, isn't it?

I had major fears that it would come out and be nothing more than people running around, shooting zombie terrorists, and basically using it as an excuse to shoot Muslims.

And while you can kinda look at it that way, I think that would more be the case of the viewer seeing what they want to see.

This movie...well, it surprised me.

Fortunately, the actual "Osombie" is a very minor part of the overall plot.  Yes, there is some zombie Osama, but most of the movie is about the terrorist zombie horde, with him in the distant background, and really little more than a MacGuffin.  Whew.

The soldiering was WAY better than Zombie Strippers.  I'm no expert, and I'm sure a real soldier would nitpick the HELL out of this, it was fine enough by my standards.  If an actor believes what they're doing, makes ME believe what they're doing, they can usually do the most absurd shit and I'll buy it.  And they mostly pulled that off here.  The acting and soldier stuff was credible enough.

The acting was pretty decent, or decent enough for this sort of thing.  I'm not expecting Shakespeare, right?  They did their jobs well enough.  The writing helped, too.  Each soldier was well defined, and not just a fighting caricature.  They came away with depth, histories, and personalities.  VERY surprising in a movie like this, and even more so in the insane sort of plot this movie has.

You really come into this movie expecting nothing.  Nothing but sadness and pain.  So with such low expectations to have a movie with a decent enough story, even if it is very straightforward from point A to point B, then fill it with three dimensional characters, and even THEN handle the situation with us dealing with Muslim civilians with something of a deft touch and respect...

Yeah, I came away actually enjoying myself.

Granted, you should be warned that a lotta Muslim zombies go down, and a few American soldiers too.  Those things could push some people's buttons, but I think with them going into this movie knowing what they were going to have to do, they handled things well enough.

I'd actually say this is worth seeing if you get the chance.

Huh.

Whoda thunk?

What I'm Watching: ParaNorman

Sure, this is stop-motion animation, and aimed kinda towards the younger crowd.  But it IS a movie about zombies, and also aimed at the horror crowd, so I have zero problem talking about this here!

I *loved* ParaNorman.

Honestly, I'd probably say it's better than Brave, for me, which I also liked quite a lot.  But ParaNorman really resonated with me.  Mainly because of my interests, and the themes they dealt with.

The basic story is about a kid in high school in New England, who can talk to ghosts.  He tries desperately to get through the day, not be noticed, not be made fun of, and just try and survive school when he's seen as a freak.  He also has something of a destiny to deal with, so there's that on top of everything else.

This is something so many people can relate to.  I was one of those outcast kids, I'm sure many people reading this were, and there are moments where this movie really goes for the gut, and speaks to that part of me, even though it was a long time ago that I had to deal with any of that shit.

While watching the movie, I almost instantly thought, "Wow, this looks so much like my hometown!" and lo and behold, it did turn out to be set in New England, as evidenced by the talk of pilgrims, the Mayflower, and witches.  But it got even better when it turns out they actually did some location scouting for inspiration in Salem, Massachusetts and other New England areas, so yeah!  It pretty much was my hometown!  I'll admit this helped endear the movie to me that much more.  But I loved the movie before knowing that for certain.

The story is set up wonderfully, and humourously, and really books along at quite a good pace.  The stpp motion is just...amazing.  We have come so fat with this sort of stuff, that you forget it's puppets being moved at a fraction of a second at a time, and I swore this was CGI for the longest time!

I will say, I wasn't quite in love with the movie for the first half of the movie, which isn't to say it was bad.  It was great, but just kinda doing good stuff that wasn't really latching onto me.  But once the second half kicked in, once things got turned on their head, I instantly went from really liking to loving this movie.  Quite a few unexpected turns that make the movie something special, a great message or two for kids trying to deal with their own damage in school, and a great wrap up really made for a great film.

There are SO many nice little nods in this movie for the long-time horror fan.  My personal favourite is, naturally, a certain hockey mask. ;)  I'll leave the rest for y'all to find on your own.

ParaNorman doesn't shy away from the scares for the kids, which is SO SO damned refreshing.  This doesn't try to be clean and sanitised.  It's very much got a little Grimm Fairy Tales in its storytelling DNA.  And like all good family movies, it is good for kids and adults alike, as I can atest to.

If you're a horror fan, I would say this is a must-see, or just an animation fan, or just a fan of good, family movies that don't talk down to you.

ParaNorman is easily in my top ten for 2012.

J

What I'm Watching: Zombie Strippers

How could I *not* review a movie with this name?

I'd been aware of it for awhile, but had not gotten around to watching it, until a friend of mine told me that she thought it was just terrible.

Well now, that's kinda like offering a little kid a lollipop.  Gotta see just how much it sucks!

Another person I know said the movie was 'the best' and well...  how did the movie fare?  Was it terrible, or was it the best?

You can probably guess from the name, but let's take a look at this.

Now, I did NOT hate this movie.  It IS pretty bad though.  It opens up with some awfuly created news reports that I could do on my computer.  From 1999.  And then there is some terrible exposition and even worse acting from some army soldiers.  Oh, and a trashy EMP effect that is pointless, because it does nothing and plays no role in the plot ever again.

The movie does get a bit better once we get that over with and move on to the strip club.  And not because of the strippers, believe me.  Their acting is just as bad as the soldiers, mostly.

But we do get Robert Englund as the skeevy club owner who, upon seeing his strippers become EVEN BETTER STRIPPERS once they're zombies, sees a goldmine of an opportunity!  He chews the scenery like only the former Freddy Krueger can, and it is awesome.  He has some great lines, with great delivery, and him alone is worth watching.

The movie is stifled though, by too much stripping.  Yes, I know what I am saying.  But it goes on for so long, with so many strippers, and they all have to do their bits, as regular strippers and then as zombies.  And stripping battles too!

I don't mind that stuff, but there is just soo much, that it detracts from...  Uh...  Not the plot.  Not the story...  Let's just say it fluffs out the movie and move on.

But there's some good gags here, I got a few laughs, and the blood and gore effects are seriously not terrible.  Some great headshots, an amazing jaw tear, some skeletal bones, and other stuff.

The movie isn't entirely a waste of time, but you might want to keep the fast forward button handy.  I saw it free on Amazon, and I will tell you this: That is the right price for me.  If you can do the same, and got 90 minutes to kill, what the hell.  You could do worse.

I'd give it a barely three out of five.  Probably 2.9 if I had to say that specifically..  Too padded, too much awful acting, but with some good bloody bits, and Englund make it be at least entertaining for some parts of it.  But brace yourself for cheese.

And still WAYYY better than Clown Hunt, once you get past the opening army scene.

J
But seriously, where the FUCK did the donkey come from?!

What I'm Watching: A Cadaver Christmas

As y'all know, I will occasionally grab or watch something random because it looks fun, and might fit in with my tastes, and what this site is all about.

That's what drew me to Cadaver Christmas.

C'mon, just look at that title.  You know I *had* to watch it, right?

This...

This may be one of my favourite Christmas horror movies.

It's a simple story.  A janitor shows up in a bar on Christmas Eve, covered in blood.  He casually goes to the bathroom to clean up, while the barkeep calls the a cop friend of his.  Once the janitor comes back out, he starts telling his crazy story of walking cadavers in the local college.  The cop doesn't quite buy it, naturally, and they all rush off to verify the guy's tale.

And hilarity ensues.

No really, hilarity.

This is very much a horror movie, with the same tropes, lots of blood, and a few jumps.  But it also comes with many jokes, and a strong sense of humour.  Many movies have tried to be the "American" Shaun of the Dead, and I think this one comes the closest.  It's more humour than "Shaun" by quite a bit, and doesn't quite have us much pathos in the end, but it is still a solid story told with humour and horror.

It is cheesy, yes.  They're going for a bit of the Grindhouse feel, and they come pretty close, without being annoying, or TOO faithful to that genre, or letting it get in the way.  The dialogue is badly recorded, deliberately so I presume, and they graded the film to make it scratchy and off.  The whole feel of this is like something from the 80s, and it works well.

If you like the sound of an 80s style, low budget, hilarious and fun movie that has a zombie massacre take place to Christmas songs, then you have GOT to check out Cadaver Christmas.

There's a character named Officer Sam Sheriff, for Kaufman's sake!  That's a double pun right there!!

J