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Diary of the Dead (2007)
It Will Probably Stay A Limited Release
I drove almost an hour and a half to see this movie and afterward I was wishing it had gone straight to DVD. I'd been waiting for this movie for months and I suppose the build-up can sometimes ruin a movie, but I'm not convinced it would have made a difference for me this time. When it was over I was neither excited about it nor was I disappointed by it. It took me 3 days to decide how I felt about it, probably because I wanted so badly to love it. I was kind of excited about the thing being filmed documentary style but if that was the idea then they should have stuck with it. Instead we see through the camera that the character is using yet we get to watch it as if it's just another movie. The acting was mechanical, even the zombies didn't seem to shamble in quite the same fashion, and frankly none of the characters developed into anyone I cared about so when they were killed I was like "So what?". The special effects were very good. There were some scenes I liked but for the most part I think too much time was devoted to the social commentary. Maybe I like the message to be a little more subtle than so in your face and repetitive. There was some dark comedy which is always good as long as it's not overdone in a movie like this, and it wasn't. There's a few scenes, one with a swimming pool, one with a little kid zombie and one with some hydrochloric acid that I thought were original and nicely done, and I was happy that a character clarified that you don't have to be bitten by a zombie to come back to life, all you have to do is... die.
For me this just wasn't one of George Romero's masterpieces. I'm very much a fan of his, and of zombies in general, but in my opinion this is the worst of the "Dead" series. I know there are more really good films left in Mr. Romero. He's the zombie master after all. But for me, this just wasn't one of them.
Why do I feel so bad for not liking it?
Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield (2007)
Not Horrible... But Not Entirely Factual
There are many reasons I'm not a fan of fact based films, but more than any other is how the filmmakers give themselves creative license over the story. If they have such great imaginations then why not use that talent to make something original? Otherwise stick to the facts. This could have been an okay movie if only they had done just that. Ed Gein was an insanely frightening human being. It's been said if you were to take Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees and Leatherface, wrap them into one person, Ed Gein would still be sicker/scarier. So why can't someone make a movie about him that can convey this? When will they figure out that reality is ultimately scarier than fiction?
I've read books and watched news programs about him and, now I'm not a screenwriter or anything, but I believe there's enough documentation on Gein that it shouldn't take a whole lot to write a story about all these atrocities he committed without creating murders that had never even been documented. I'm aware that he was only found guilty of 2 murders but with all the evidence found in his home and barn there should have been plenty of other ways to put this film together rather than using the deputy's relationship with his Mother, and girlfriend as filler, and far too much of it.
I guess what I'm wondering is this... why at the end of the movie did I know more about the supporting characters than I did about Ed Gein? Why didn't we get to know his Mother, Father and brother and the relationships between them... what made him the psychopath he was... what abuse he endured as a child that may have contributed to the man he became? Instead, the only thing we got of his childhood were flashes of him as a little boy... running.
In the end I give it 4/10 stars. Thats 2 for the gore and 2 for Kane Hodder. Even though it was kind of bad casting in my opinion, considering Gein was a smallish man, and possibly effeminate and Hodder is anything but small and nowhere near what I would consider feminine. Maybe I was just excited because he was Jason Voorhees.
Slither (2006)
What'd I miss?
I don't know what I missed here, but I can't believe all these positive comments by so many people on this film. I thought it was silly, and a bit over the top. I did like the performances of Gregg Henry and Michael Rooker, however the others were just... boring.
Now I like B movies, I really do, but this was a bit further down the alphabet for me. I saw someone compare the humor and horror in this to "Army Of Darkness" and "Shaun of the Dead", as well as "On par with The Re-Animator". You must be joking. I didn't find this film funny, it tried, it did make an effort, (possibly too much of an effort), but it failed in my opinion. By the time I was hit with the 3rd or 4th one-liner I was rolling my eyes and checking my watch.
There were definitely homages made to several other films, which is always cool, kind of like an inside joke for us horror fans. But here it may have just been a lack of original thought. Admittedly there were some nice special effects, good gore, but that can't carry an entire movie. The mutated Grant looked like a cross between Jabba the Hut, and in the early stages of mutation- Chet from "Weird Science" (after he was turned into the monster) and one of the alien creature/children from "The Explorers". It just didn't work. I thought it looked like something some kid from Grade 5 art class could have designed. Then there was Brenda, the woman that Grant impregnated and chained up in the barn. When help finally arrived she looked like a giant tick waiting to be popped. The design once again was totally unimaginative. A round flesh colored balloon with a face in the middle. *yawn*
Now about the zombies- The more movies I see with zombies in them these days the more I wish George A. Romero had a patent on them and was the only writer/director allowed to make movies about them. He's the only person so far to do it right, with the exception of Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg (but that was a comedy). Oh, and Danny Boyle, but they were a different style of Zombie. Maybe Mr. Romero has ruined any zombie film for me due to his ingenious ability to get his actors to moan, groan and shamble about as if their joints are dried up and lacking even a drop of synovial fluid, and their muscles are fighting the effects caused by rigor mortis that had started to set in right before they were re-animated. The people of "Wheelsy" just didn't have the proper motivation... they were horrible zombies.
So in the end I give "Slither" a 3, for a couple of laughs and a few nice gore scenes.
El ataque de los pájaros (1987)
Now I Know Why Birds Attack
I'm not sure why I marked my comment with "*** This comment may contain spoilers ***". It's pretty much spoiled before you ever watch it.
Normally I wouldn't comment on a film if I'd not watched it in it's entirety. However, this one deserves that honor. Most times when I have had to stop watching a movie mid-way through it's usually an interruption by forces other than myself. Not this time, I invested 60 minutes into this one and just couldn't bear the thought of wasting another 30 minutes of my life on it. (And I've sat through some real stinkers)
I don't even know where to start. Let's see; The acting was worse than I've seen at an elementary school Christmas play- the script too, for that matter, with lines like, "Turkey's are killing people, and it's not even Thanksgiving" and "Stop. The champagne's going to get hot... Don't you mean we're going to get hot and the champagne's going to get warm?". Now I do agree with some of it being so bad it was almost laughable but for the most part, this one may just be so far down the scale that it passes by the hilarity and goes right on down to "complete waste of time".
I'll admit, I do like my share of gory scenes, and I suppose the one with the man's eyeball being removed was alright, but it sure wasn't enough to hold my attention. I'd be willing to bet that the makers of this film spent more money on the Hershey's Chocolate Syrup they used as fake blood than they made on their opening weekend; and let's just say there wasn't all that much chocolate syrup used. Well, maybe there was, like I said, I never made it to the end. Maybe the pigeons won the war and the world was flooded with it. And by the way, I was rooting for the birds.
I was happy to see in another comment here that someone else showed concern over what might have happened to some of the birds used in this movie. It was sad really. As was mentioned earlier, you could actually see a hand throwing a bird at one of the actors, and then the scene where two of the birds were shown pecking away at the dead hang glider their feet were attached to the clothing on the body in a way that I probably don't really want to know.
I was going to give it 1 star but decided since I hadn't finished it I should be fair, so I gave it 2.
(I do keep my promises, and I hope this is one you've never heard of... AL)
Bubba Ho-Tep (2002)
Mucho Mojo
When I first heard about his film I thought the idea of Elvis in a rest home doing battle against a mummy with John F. Kennedy was pure genius, and after having seen it, my thought was only confirmed. Not often is there a film that I will hype so much in my head that when I Do actually get to see it I'm still hyped about it. But this is one of those films. It was all that I was expecting... and then some. It has everything anyone could want in a film, original story, original direction, horror, comedy, drama and more than one stand out performance. Something lacking in the motion picture industry these days is originality, so when this came along it was quite refreshing.
We have Bruce Campbell giving the performance of a lifetime, and almost no recognition. The part of Elvis could have come across as just sad and pathetic, but instead, he brought a sense of realism to it, and heart. At times we felt bad for him, but we never forgot that he was the King of Rock and Roll. And he was still very much capable of "Takin' Care'a Business". We do have the option of believing he is Elvis, or that he could really be Sebastian Haff who impersonated Elvis for so long that he actually believes he is "The King"? As for myself- I'm a believer.
Yet another overlooked performance is Ossie Davis. He played the part of John F. "Jack" Kennedy to perfection. His performance was all class. It came off in such a way that We don't believe he is J.F.K. - but we believe that He believes he is J.F.K. Too confusing? Sorry.
Let's not forget Ella Joyce as The Nurse, and the old kleptomaniacal woman who was attacked by the "Cock-a-roach". And fans of Don Coscarelli's "Phantasm" movies will surely recognize Reggie Bannister as the rest home administrator. Well I could name everyone in the movie, they all did a swell job. But I can't stop without mentioning Bob Ivy as "Bubba". He did a fine job as well, and starved himself in the process just to appear undead and severely dehydrated! And KNB Effects made a very spooky looking mummy, I might add.
I'm not sure why this movie is classified mostly as a horror when it's so much more than that. I think there's a much wider audience out there that could (and would) appreciate a film like this but are missing out because it's been marketed strictly as horror. I actually know people who won't even watch it because they think it's all blood and gore! I guess that's because when they see it on the shelves at the video stores it's classified under "HORROR". Oh well, sometimes it's nice to feel like you're in on a secret.
"Where'd my youth go? Why didn't fame hold off old age and death? Why did I leave fame in the first place? Do I want it back? And could I have it back? And if I could... would it make any difference?"