I'm trying to branch out a bit and do some movie reviews here. I usually end up getting between 30 and 70 movies a month and I think I should try and review one occasionally. My goal, one DVD cover quotes.
I've always wanted to do reviews, and in fact I've done a few very long winded and sloppily written reviews on here before. My goal is to make my new reviews shorter and more to the point, I'd like to try and keep them concise, like 3 or 4 paragraphs long, but I'm not a strong enough writer to really convey what I'm trying to say without going overboard and writing a thousand word essay with little focus or coherence.
I'm a bit soft on movies. So much effort goes into even the worst, most godawful piece of shit movie you can think of (Terror Toons, you still hold that honor for me) that I really try and find positives in anything I watch. So I plan on trying a "like" and "hated" list at the end of the review, see how that works out.
Since I mostly post soundtracks, I will post "Review" or something in the title so nobody gets excited (negatively or positively) about downloading a soundtrack that just came out.
I was one of the very few people who didn't hate Diary of the Dead. It wasn't great, but I didn't get the intense, boiling hatred everyone seemed to have for it. So, that and a very positive review of Survival on CHUD had me excited as I popped this bastard on to see what Georgie had come up with for his sixth undead adventure. As sad as I am to have to say this about one of horrors greatest filmmakers, it turns out CHUD has one of the only positive reviews out there for a reason.
The movie opens on Plum Island, an island off the coast of Delaware, (where everyone has a thick Irish accent for some reason) during a worldwide zombie outbreak. There seems to be only two families on this island, the O'Flynns and the Muldoons. Patrick O'Flynn believes that every zombie should be killed immediately, even if they happen to be small children. His nemesis on the island Seamus Muldoon has apparently seen the movie Fido and feels zombies should be chained up and forced to do mundane housework, like cooking or cleaning gutters. Muldoon has had enough of O'Flynn's zombie killing ways and intends to kill him one night. But Pat's daughter makes a deal with Seamus - In lieu of shooting O'Flynn in the head, waiting a few minutes for him to zombify, then shooting him in the head again Seamus just forces O'Flynn (and a few others) off the island.
We cut to the United States a few weeks later where we meet a roving band of military cliches (hard ass leader Sarge, dopey idiot goofball, tough chick Tomboy, horny hispanic guy Cisco) who, along with a teenager they pick up on the way seek refuge at Plum Island, which they believe to be a safe, zombie-free haven. In order to get to this island they steal a ferry from...you guessed it, O'Flynn who has been tricking people into coming to his dock with false information about Plum Island so he and his partners can steal all their shit.
A big gun fight breaks out between O'Flynn and Co. and Sarge's crew . Zombies show up, a lot of shit blows up but thanks to Tomboy's kindness, O'Flynn ends up on the ferry on the way to Plum Island.
That's the basic set up, to say more would ruin the rest of the movie.
Things I liked:
The practical gore effects were mostly pretty good.
Zombie Horseback
The brief underwater zombie shots were very well done.
Kenneth Welsh answered the question "What if Sean Connery and Malcolm McDowell had a son?"
Fire Extiguisher zombie kill was really pretty awesome.
Alan Van Sprang looked kinda like Ron Livingston after a particularly harrowing bender.
Things I kind of hated:
Terrible Irish accents - and I think some of these guys were actually Irish
Some fairly poor acting from pretty much everyone
Repetitive human deaths, way too much neck "flesh peel" effect.
Shoddy CGI work. I'm still not sure why lower budget films even try CGI.
I wanted to like it, and for a good 40 minute stretch during the middle it was actually pretty engaging. But ultimately, the subpar acting, ridiculous accents (why were they Irish again?), slow start and mediocre ending kind of killed it for me. Romero fans, and zombie aficionados should give it a look, but be prepared to bitch about George losing it shortly after.
If you're wondering where I'd rank it with the rest of the Dead, I'd say:
Day of the Dead
Dawn of the Dead (a better movie than Day, but Day's zombie make-up is top notch, so it edges out Dawn for me a bit)
Night of the Living Dead
Diary of the Dead
Land of the Dead (this and Diary are both kinda so-so, I'm calling a tie between these two)
Survival of the Dead
Here's a cool little thing I found while going through my stuff earlier today. This was sent to me a few years ago by Allan Trautman, the man underneath the Tarman costume in Return of the Living Dead. Thankfully they were able to reattach his head after it was knocked off by Clu Gulager during the movie and Allan went on to have a pretty nice little career as an actor/puppeteer in things like Greg the Bunny and Unhappily Ever After.
The other day I mentioned posting George Romero scribed comic books, so here's the first 3 issues of Toe Tags, the 6 issue series written by George, that was put out by DC Comics. If you've ever wanted to see an elephant whoop ass on a bunch of grotesque zombies alongside a hot woman and some bionic zombie dude, here you go. I've only had a chance to read these three issues, so I don't know how it ends yet, but I think it's a pretty cool miniseries from what I've seen so far. I suggest any zombie or Romero fans check these out (I'm talking about George here, but Eddie Romero fans might get a kick out of them too). I'll put the other 3 issues up later on.
Brian Yunza's Return of the Living Dead 3. Return of the Living Dead is my favorite movie, so obviously it's my favorite of the trilogy, but I think Part 3 would be my second favorite. It's not a great movie, but I do think it's a respectable effort. Of course, don't take my word for it, I even like Part 2, which is considered by many to be a complete and total piece of crap. I think what bothered most people about Part 2 was the overuse of cheesy comedy. Sure the original was very funny, but that was due to the characters and how they reacted to the situations. Part 2 tries to be wacky a little bit too much, I'm amazed they didn't work a zombie fart joke into the film. (By the way, I'm aware of and own ROTLD 4 Necropolis and ROTLD 5 Rave From The Grave, but I refuse to acknowledge those as actual Return of the Living Dead films.)
This is another one of those completely retarded things that's very existence completely amazes me. The self-dubbed "scariest exercise video ever made", Linnea Quigley's Horror Workout. Although if we're choosing the scariest exercise video ever made I'd like to throw this little number out there as one I think just might take the cake for that title.
This is the music from my personal favorite of Romero's Dead Trilogy. Well, I guess it's a "Quadrilogy" at this point, isn't it? Still my favorite.
I'm saving the best for last here, Vanilla Ice's feature film debut, the current holder of the #23 spot on the IMDB's Bottom 100, a reliable source if there ever was one, Cool As Ice. Directed by the man who brought us Inspector Gadget and a shitload of Playboy videos. My question, how in the hell is Sinbad not in this movie? Also, didn't they rip off that motorcycle/horse scene from Top Gun? While I'm on roll with the questions, didn't Adaptation also rip that off for the "technology vs. horse" bit? What happened to Ice's "metal" image he created for himself years after the kibosh was put on his rap career? So many questions, so little actual concern regarding the answers.
