Horror Reviews!

[philosoraptor42]

I'm going to start using a new system for reviewing now. It's not that all my scores are changing but simply that I am translating them into letter grades in order to make my decisions clearer. I think A - Excellent, B - Good, C - Satisfactory, D - Unsatisfactory, E - Awful and U - Not even worthy of a grade is perhaps rather clearer than a score out of 5. For this post only I'll put the new and old grades side-by-side. From then on I'm just going to use the letter grades.


Fido (2006)


Wow, this was a crazy Canadian zombie comedy. It's more general bizarre satire than out and out hilarity, but it's really sweet and there are definitely some clever aspects. The basic gist is that, post-zombie apocalypse, a corporation has managed to arrange communities that are isolated from the horror of the zombies. These communities are trying to artificially produce a sense of civilisation and society while ignoring the real horror that surrounds them, so what better way to emphasise that point than to make the whole society appear stuck in the 50s?


This is very much the George Romero zombie universe, right down to the vague "weird radiation" explanation for the existence of zombies in the first place. You don't have to get infected in order to become a zombie, you simply have to die. What's different in this world, however, is that an invention has been created which can suppress the hunger for flesh in zombies. This invention comes in the form of a collar which is placed around the zombies' necks, thus allowing zombies to be used as servants. In fact, they are essentially pets, hence the title of the movie. This too is in line with the Romero rules for zombies, as since "Day of the Dead" we saw that the zombies could be trained (though attempting it had generally seemed to be asking for trouble).


I think that's all the information I really NEED to provide about the zombie scenario. There are lots of little details, but half the fun of this movie is being introduced to them. When you come to see the movie, the basics of this scenario are introduced through a rather neat little Cold War 50s-style black and white public service announcement video.


The story centres on a small boy who gets picked on at school for being different and asking "the wrong questions". His parents turn out to be Carrie Anne-Moss (The Matrix, Memento) and Dylan Baker (lots of small roles, a fairly notable small part in Road To Perdition). In order to fit in with the rest of the neighbourhood Carrie-Anne Moss' character gets them their very own zombie servant who, it turns out, is played by Billy Connolly! (I certainly didn't recognise him during the film.)


Carrie Anne Moss is brilliant. While there are some good performances all round, I'd say that Carrie Anne Moss is the one who really carries the movie. Sadly the child actor who we are really supposed to be following is rather less impressive than they need to be. While they don't come across as annoying, they don't really get the audience on their side either.


The idea of comparing a zombie crisis to the cold war scenario of the 50s is actually pretty clever. Public bulletins regularly insist that everyone is perfectly safe and we know that during the 50s slogans like "duck and cover" were used to convince people that nuclear apocalypse might be survivable. There's a constant worry about fitting in with the rest of society and zombie slaves are kept because it's "the done thing". Someone starts asking whether zombies are alive and the question is pushed aside. There's a general sense that everyone wants a quiet life and to think as little about the rammifications of the post-zombie apocalypse era as possible.


Towards the end of the movie things feel a little rushed, but not so much as to completely mess things up. In fact, the real problem is the lack of a convincing story arc. The movie consistently brings up interesting ideas and makes the audience think about this bizarre scenario without making it so bizarre as to alienate us from the action. However, while it regularly gives us ideas to think about, the actual plot often feels like more of an afterthought. That's not to say that there isn't a story, but simply that the story never feels particularly important overall.


If you've seen "A Boy And His Dog", which had it's own post-apocalyptic society who decide to try to recapture the 50s, you might have an idea of what the dark humour will be like. However, a moaning zombie is no replacement for Blood, the psychic dog. This is a clever, silly and original take on the zombie genre and, while not perfect, "Fido" is a good little piece of entertainment which any genuine fan of zombie movies cannot afford to ignore.



B+
4.5/5 - Very good, but not excellent







Seige of the Dead (Rammbock: Berlin Undead) (2010)


Okay, the first thing I need to point out is that there are no actual "dead" or "undead" zombies in this movie. Now personally, I'm not terribly keen on the claim that movies like 28 Days Later aren't really zombie movies. I say: If it walks like a zombie and eats brains like a zombie, it's a zombie. Still, the difference is that 28 Days Later doesn't have the word "dead" or "undead" in the title. In any case the zombies in this movie are infected people, not the living dead.


The premise of the movie is that Michael has gone to Berlin to try to patch things up with his recent ex-girlfriend Gabi. However, when she isn't home and a zombie outbreak takes place he finds himself trapped in her apartment with a plumber's apprentice. And yes, we do find outselves inevitably wishing that he wouldn't keep whining about his ex-girlfriend. That becomes the main focus of the movie and I personally found that I had a tough time caring.










Nevertheless, the movie does contain good ideas. Unfortunately the pacing isn't great, so getting from one interesting idea to the next can be a struggle. In fact, the main problem is probably not so much the pacing, but the lack of a clear focus for the narrative. The characters seem to wander from one scenario to the next rather than genuinely getting concerned about the fact that they are surrounded by zombies. They barely even seem to discuss the zombie threat having apparently immediately understood and accepted the remarkably specific information released over the radio.


One original point for this movie (asides from not talking about the zombie threat much, which struck me as massively unrealistic and a big mistake) is that the protagonists are generally pacifists. Unsurprisingly no one has any guns and they don't seem keen on running into crowds of zombies with cricket bats either. The movie is more about how to manouever yourself around the zombies and avoid them, rather than taking them out with weaponry. This limitation makes for some of the more interesting scenes in the movie and when the time comes to get creative, we discover the Michael is actually pretty good at engineering. As he and his young trainee plumber friend put together a rather neat workaround with their limited resources to get into a new part of the building Michael says "I've always wanted to do this". YAY!


Another original point is that if someone gets infected, it's possible for them to avoid turning. Being bitten or scratched is still liable to turn you into a zombie, but if you remain calm or use sedatives to keep yourself calm then eventually the infection will go. Sedatives are preferable, because how do you keep calm when you are in the middle of a zombie apocalypse?


I think the budget must have been pretty low. The change of appearance in zombies (the infected who activate the virus by becoming stressed or upset) involves their skin going red and their eyes going white. (The fact that we often can only see the whites of their eyes seems to be inconsistent with the eventual method for dealing with the zombies. But anyway.) This makes the zombies look like they ought to, but doesn't involve the kind of "skin falling off" kind of effects that you might expect if they were genuinely dead.










Another sign that they probably had a low budget is the scene where we are shown the wreckage of zombie-ravaged Berlin. The poster includes photoshopped fires and thick black clouds. The actual scene in the movie shows a few whisps of smoke in the distance. Not particularly impressive at all really.










Now I would love to say that this movie benefits from the way it focusses on the characters rather than just zombie-killing. To a certain extent that's true, I guess. However, there's very little in the way of actual character development. The fact is that Michael is not a very interesting protagonist, Michael's relationship with Gabi is not terribly engaging either (particularly considering how little we see of Gabi) and I'd much rather the movie had focussed more on the trainee plumber since, of the two of them, he was by far the more interesting character.


There were some interesting ideas in this movie, but I think the flaws are too great to say this was nearly a good movie. Perhaps other people who feel the characters are more appealing will enjoy this a lot more, but I think this is very much an average "your mileage may vary" kind of film.



C-
3/5 - Bog-standard, your mileage may vary.
(I'm worried by how often movies that I give this score to are a great deal more boring to watch than movies that receive a 2.5, but there you go.)







Phantasm (1979)
The positive side of Phantasm is that there's no lack of content. There's a whole smorgasbord of weird s**t going on in this movie. The negative side is that the ending is incoherent and the acting is atrocious. To what extent that matters depends on what you are hoping for.



Right near the beginning it's made clear to us that this isn't your typical horror movie. The action starts in a funeral home when creepy figures set upon our young protagonist (who is arguably the most convincing actor in the entire movie). He quickly finds himself chased by a floating metal sphere which, after he gives it the run around for a bit, rams itself into the forehead of an aforementioned creepy figure and drills into his skull spurting out bizarre orange goo from inside his head.










As an aside, this same function is found in a weapon in the old Nintendo 64 game "Turok 2". Was the 'cerebral bore' inspired by Phantasm?


Anyway, I could spend all day talking about all the crazy stuff that happens in this movie, but that would rather spoil the surprises. (And trust me, if you thought the floating sphere of doom I mentioned above was weird, you WILL be surprised.) Still, one weird thing I probably can afford to talk about is the creepy tall man. He has practically no lines in the movie, which makes him all the creepier. We first see him randomly hanging around next to an ice cream truck and it's not obvious whether the ice cream truck's icy cold vapour clouds are supposed to help him make a creepy impression on the audience or whether he is somehow drawn to cold air.










There's a similar kind of message in Phantasm to in Nightmare On Elm Street. The tall man can apparently influence nightmare's and a weird psychic lady tells our young protagonist near the beginning that "it's fear that's the killer". The point is that the tall man uses fear (as well as floating metal spheres that drill into your forehead) to defeat you. Conquer your fear and you can defeat the bad guy.


So here's the point where I ought to start pointing out the bad points. I already mentioned the horrendous acting. It's almost like the actors thought "there's no good way to say these lines, so I might as well just blurt them out like a complete amateur". Another problem is that the movie feels like a series of events just happening one after the other with no good reason. Admittedly there is an explanation for why all the weird stuff is happening, but they don't approach that explanation in any kind of logical fashion. Still, the problem with random stuff happening one thing after another is normally that it's boring. While some parts of the movie do have a pacing problem (particularly during the first half), the bizarre stuff that happens certainly isn't boring, even if it makes very little sense.


There are good ideas in this, but it's not a good movie. This is a bad but entertaining movie and so I'm giving it my bad but entertaining score. Be aware though, that it earned every point in that score fair and square.



D+
2.5/5 - Not good but with entertaining elements







Bride of Re-Animator


Jeffrey Combs returns in this even lower budget sequel to the absolutely fantastic horror-comedy "Re-Animator". Somehow Dr. Herbert West (Combs) manages to persuade his housemate that putting his housemate's dead girlfriend's heart into a weird stitched up combination of organs is a really good idea.


We see a return from the villain of the last movie (who is now solely a disembodied head) who unfortunately doesn't seem anything like as threatening as we'd like to hope he will become. (Though he gets pretty creepy in the final act.)


While the effects are up to the same standard as before (in some scenes at least) and we do get some rather fun ideas explored when Dr. Herbert West starts experimenting with combining body parts. (How many zombie creations have to attack him before he realises that it's a bad idea?) However, this isn't carefully structured like the last movie. The original Re-Animator involved a gradual build-up of both horror and comedy until we reach a climax at the end. Bride of Re-Animator involves a bunch of daft ideas stitched together only for an "all hell breaks loose" stage at the end which feels like more of a mess than a climactic ending.


Also, I don't know if this is true of all versions, but my DVD was pretty horrendous quality. It was the sound that annoyed me. I had to turn the volume up pretty high because the sound didn't appear to be mixed properly.


Still, Jeffrey Combs is still great fun and he always elevates the material. Without Jeffrey Combs there wouldn't be any Re-Animator. This is still great fun, but sadly it's a big disappointment by comparison to the original (which I gave 5/5).



C-
3/5 - Bog-standard, average, your mileage may vary







Bride of Frankenstein (1935)


The movie begins with Mary Shelley talking with Lord Byron about her novel and explaining that the story goes further than she wrote in her book. This was quite a bizarre way of beginning this movie that is unsurprisingly is very unfaithful to the books. Still, what follows is a pretty strong indication that this is intended as horror-comedy.



Unfortunately one of the clearest signs that this is being played for laughs is the inclusion of Una O'Connor who I recognised for her never-ending "is it screaming or is it laughter" screeching in "The Invisible Man". The fact is, she is not funny, but she thinks it is. This is a bad combination. As such, I found myself having to grin and bear the first 10 or 20 minutes of the movie.


As it turned out the first time I watched this film I was quite tired and ended up falling in and out of sleep fairly early on. I'd given up hope on the movie when I came across a Rotten Tomatoes article where Joe Dante (of Gremlins fame) was recommending it as one of his favourite movies of all time. On my second attempt I decided to start watching the movie from where the new mad scientist Dr. Pretorius turns up. This is where things get interesting.


On first watch I found myself rather less than impressed by Dr. Pretorius' own bizarre creations, but on second watch I was in a more appropriate mood. The fact is that the focus of the movie is not on Dr. Pretorius' creations, but on his character as a whole. Dr. Pretorius is what makes this movie work. He's pretty much Dr. Herbert West without the same degree of self-delusion.


The ending of Bride of Frankenstein is a great way to finish things and much more appropriate than the burning in a windmill that marks the end of the first movie.


That said, the movie still has Una O'Connor being unfunny at the beginning and it still feels a little unfocussed. There's a section involving a blind man that seems to be heading somewhere interesting, but it doesn't tie in with the rest of the movie in as interesting way as might be hoped. The elements in this movie are great and Dr. Pretorius is a fantastic character, however the movie as a whole is not quite up to scratch.



C+
3.5 - A few elements holding it back from being a good solid movie