Tag: Zombies

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Dinner: Movie Review

Dinner is a short film written and directed by the very talented Aleksandra Svetlichnaya.

It’s fun and short and you can watch the entire thing below.  Make sure you give her a follow on Twitter as well.

Dinner follows Dylan as she walks through a deserted town filled with chain-link fences and burned out buildings.  She’s on her way to a date, but there may be something sinister lurking in the shadows.  Every glance over her shoulder could reveal something dark advancing towards her.  Every turn down an abandoned street could be filled with monsters.

I don’t want to give away too much – clocking in at 12 minutes, I could spoil the twists and turns simply by synopsizing it – so I’ll stop.

I really enjoyed this short film.  The term “no budget” was thrown out by Aleksandra, and that’s exactly true, but the lack of a budget doesn’t mean there’s a lack of style or substance.  The opening scene of Dylan walking down the street – in glorious black and white, no less – is stunning, creepy and filled with tension.
The lack of budget doesn’t even really show up with the make-up.  The monsters look great.
It does show up a bit in the fight scenes, but that’s because “no budget” means it’s hard to make it look like you’re burying an axe in someone’s skull without actually doing it.  The fact that some of these actors weren’t willing to sacrifice their lives for the sake of a movie really makes me question their commitment.

Dinner is a really fun short film, featuring a leading lady I would gladly have on my side in any kind of scrap.  And by “scrap” I mean “me hiding behind something while she kicks everyone in the face and tells me when it’s safe to come out.”  Man, Dylan is the best.

Watch this movie.

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Mailbag: May 23, 2016

Welcome to another exciting installment of the Horror Writers mailbag!  Thanks for the questions.

Did you see the Rec saga? – @NicoLasaigues

I have seen the first three, and I really enjoyed all of them.  Like a true American, I saw Quarantine first (USA! USA!), so I think that colored my judgment of the first Rec.  I enjoyed it, but I thought Quarantine was better, mainly because I love Jennifer Carpenter and thought she absolutely CRUSHED that role.

The first two were good.  It has been a while since I’ve seen them, so details are a bit scarce.  I’m a fan of any sequel that is able to expand upon the world of the first one without feeling tacked on.  We went deeper into the mythology of the infection and learned exactly what it was.  The mood of the two matched up perfectly.  I probably need to go back and rewatch those.

The third film was a marked departure from the first two.  The fundamentals of the infections were still there, but the feel was totally different and it involved a completely different scenario.  No longer were we confined to the apartment complex.  It felt more like a Return of the Living Dead movie than a Rec movie. It started off found footage, but switched roughly 20 minutes in when the groom, after asking, “Why are you still filming?” smashed the camera – and a well-worn found footage trope – into oblivion.  That allowed the movie to expand.  No longer were we bound to a hand-held camera for the duration of the film.  Which was good, because I didn’t want shaky footage of the groom donning a suit of armor; I wanted that crystal clear, and I got it.
Rec 3 was bonkers crazy and I loved it dearly.  Also, for a crazy zombie movie, they did a great job making me care about the two leads.  I was really rooting for those crazy kids to make it.  Plus, they’re beautiful people.

rec 3 - wedding
What are your top ten horror series on TV (cable or otherwise?) You can include mini series, too – @Real_Cesca

1. The X-Files – Sure, it begins to wane in season six and never recovers, but this was still five solid seasons of creepiness.  (It’s worth noting that the season 10 comic book run is a lot of fun.  I still haven’t dug into season 11, but it’s on my list.)
2. The Twilight Zone – Being an older show, some of the ironic twists can induce eye-rolling, but this show still holds up.  There are a ton of iconic moments/episodes.
3. Buffy the Vampire Slayer – You can debate whether this is horror or not, but there are lots of monsters involved, so I’m making an executive decision.  The descent starts in season 5 (thanks Dawn), but there are still great moments scattered throughout.
4. Twin Peaks – Again, you can debate whether or not this is horror, but it revolves around murder committed by a possessed man, so I say it fits the bill.  Combine that with the owls not being what they seem and The Black Lodge, and I feel comfortable calling this a horror series.  Agent Dale Cooper is one of my all-time favorite TV characters.
5. Hannibal – A beautiful, beautiful show.  The fact that this lasted 3 seasons on network TV is a miracle.
6. Penny Dreadful – Like Hannibal, this is a beautiful show.  It’s a perfect setting to bring monsters to life in a way that actually feels real.  The acting on this show is tremendous.  Eva Green deserves every award ever made.  I’m fully convinced that she is totally out of her mind.
7. The Walking Dead – I honestly don’t think I believe it should be this high.  What am I doing here?  The first season was dynamite, and there have been enough great moments since then to justify putting it at 7.  I guess.  I don’t know, man.  This last season was great up until the last two episodes, so maybe there are even better things to come?  I think I just talked myself out of this ranking, but now I’m too lazy to change it.
8. iZombie – It’s basically Psych, except the fake physic is a zombie who gets visions from the brains that she eats.  It’s fun, and justifies this ranking based on Ravi alone.  That dude kills me.
9. Tales From the Darkside – It’s basically George Romero’s Twilight Zone.  I don’t know why, but I spent an entire week watching a ton of these episodes and I really enjoyed it.  That was a good week.
10. Sleepy Hollow – It had some plots that threatened to take the show off the rails, but it always righted itself.  I enjoyed every season of this show.

Just missing the cut:
Ash vs. Evil Dead – The first season was good, but I’m not ready to have it crack the top 10 based on one fun season.
Damien – Ditto Ash vs. Evil Dead.  I love the tone of this show, but I want to see more than one pretty good season.
Tales From the Crypt – I know, I know.  I will probably have to turn in my horror fan card after leaving it off the top 10.  I caught a couple episodes as a kid, but I didn’t grow up with it.  I’ve gone back and watched a couple episodes as an adult and it just didn’t do much for me.  I can appreciate what it did, but it doesn’t crack the top 10.
Millennium – It ran for three seasons, but they were all pretty good.  There were quite a few legitimately creepy moments in this show.

Movies that, sadly, DO NOT hold up and then ruin your nostalgic feelings of them. – @lcfremont

I’m not gonna lie to you guys: this was a pretty sad list to make.  Let’s just get to it.  I’m having a hard time writing through my tears.
I didn’t want to just go with “a product of the time,” movies, because that can’t really be helped.  Plus, it would basically be a bunch of computer movies (The Net, Hackers, Swordfish, etc.) and that’s really uninteresting.  I also don’t have many horror movies on my list, as I didn’t watch many growing up.

Highlander – Sweet fancy Moses this movie is bad.  Like, REALLY bad.  First of all, I was convinced that MacLeod was played by Vigo the Carpathian for a decent portion of the movie.  So that was confusing.  The soundtrack is comprised of music by Queen, so it should be decent, but it’s the worst of Queen.  “Who wants to live forever?”  Apparently this movie does, because it’s 116 minutes long for reasons known to nobody.  The only entertaining part of this movie is Clancy Brown as The Kurgan, and that’s because he seems to be the only one who knows just how bad this movie is.  He’s chewing scenery like it’s his job, which I guess it kind of was.

The NeverEnding Story – Let me start off by saying this: the scene in the Swamps of Sadness is still heartbreaking.  So it has that going for it.  Or going against it, depending on how you want to look at it.
Anyway, this movie is super cheesy and doesn’t look great.  I understand that “cheesiness” comes down to the fact that it is a sci-fi children’s movie.  It wasn’t really meant for adults.  As an adult who has seen a fair share of movies, I not only dislike this movie, but I look down on the younger version of myself for ever liking it.  For shame, Young Dusty.  For shame.

The Princess Bride – I thought this was a fun movie.  I enjoyed it.  I never gave it a whole lot of thought, but it was an enjoyable movie.  Then I went to college and, for some reason, every single person there thought this was the best movie of all time.  All of them.  Granted, it was a small Christian college, but there were still several thousand people there.  So I watched it with a group and hated it.  HATED it.  I tried watching it again afterwards and was just annoyed.  Part of my dislike is a product of that experience, but part of it is just that I don’t think it’s a very good movie.

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan – As a child, it was all, “Jason punched someone’s head off!”  Then you grow up and realize that this movie is awful.  For “taking Manhattan”, Jason spends precious little time in the city.  For over half the movie, we are stuck on a boat with the worst kinds of high schoolers.  One girl is just trying to make a terrible music video the whole time.  And yeah, the head punching scene is fun…

friday13th-head_punching…but it’s not worth the rest of the movie being garbage.  Watching this taught me that a movie needs more than one scene to make it a good movie.

Troll – I know that Troll 2 is a laughingstock, but I feel like too many people are sleeping on the original.  I remember watching this as a child and being scared.  I recently rewatched it and was horrified – HORRIFIED – that I ever found this remotely scary.  It’s not even in the “so bad it’s good” category.  It’s just bad.  Listen: I still love Ghoulies and Critters, so it’s not like I hate these odd, mid-80s creature movies.  But Troll is bad.  Really, really bad.

Event Horizon – I remembered this as being a ridiculously scary movie, but now all I see is Sam Neill hamming it up all over the place.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom – The majority of children are dumb.  I was one of those dumb children.  I liked this because there was punching and they had monkey brains on the table.  Those were the only two reasons.  As it turns out, the monkey brains aren’t that cool and lots of movies have punching in them.

I’m sure there are more, but I’ve ruined my childhood enough for one day, thank you very much.  Chime in with your own in the comments.

If you want to submit a question to the mailbag, you can hit us up on Twitter (@horror_writers) or over email (info@horror-writers.net).

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Pride & Prejudice & Zombies: Movie Review

ppz - poster

Synopsis:
A period piece that follows Elizabeth Bennet – the second of five sisters – through her unwanted courtship.  You could almost say that Elizabeth Bennet and something called “Mr. Darcy” fooled around and fell in love.  Also, there are zombies.  So many zombies.

My thoughts:
I have never read Pride & Prejudice.  I have never seen a film adaptation of Pride & Prejudice.  I once attempted to listen to Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, until I realized that it was boring and I shut it off after roughly 10 minutes.  I know the names Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy simply because I worked in a bookstore for 3 years.  I have also run across many people in my life who can’t wait to tell me about how Colin Firth is the quintessential Mr. Darcy.  “He just gets it.  He’s perfect. All other Mr. Darcy’s should burn.”

"Specifically this Darcy. BUUURRRRRNNNN."
“Specifically this Darcy. BUUURRRRRNNNN.”

That is my entire history with the source material and the source material of this source material.  I have also seen Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter no less than 4 times, which I feel is relevant information to share here.

I had no expectations going in.  All I wanted was a fun movie that featured lots of frilly clothes and a fair amount of zombie killing.  I got exactly that.
I can’t speak to how close the non-zombie parts were to the original book.  I assume the major plot points stayed the same, and I’m also assuming that a decent portion of the dialogue was pulled directly from the book.  I know that the opening line was a slightly modified version of Austen’s opener.  Witness:
No zombie version: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”
Zombie version: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.”
And they say you can’t improve on a classic.


There was quite a bit of commentary on social class running through this movie.  Again, I have no idea how this was handled in the novel, but I enjoyed what they did here: since the zombie threat was ever present, everyone was trained in martial arts from a young age.  If you had money, you trained in Japan.  If you did not have money, you trained in China.  Those who trained in Japan looked down at those who trained in China.  And round and round they go.  (If you came here looking for a deep breakdown of the clashes of social classes and gender politics in the 19th century, you came to the wrong place.)

Let’s talk zombies for a second.  That’s why you’re here, right?
They looked good.  Really nice make-up and zombie effects.  Being a PG-13 movie, they couldn’t show geysers of blood with every kill, so they had to get creative with their gore.  For example, for one kill the camera showed what the zombie saw.  And what the zombie saw was someone violently decapitating him.  That was fun.  It was basically the final scene of season six of The Walking Dead, except without all the unbridled hate that followed.
The zombies appeared to be of the Romero variety, but, once we saw more of them we saw some differences.  The main difference was revealed when we saw a church full of zombies acting like humans.  Humans with rotting faces and (likely) terrible breath, but humans all the same.  As it turns out, if zombies can sustain themselves on pig brains, they can live relatively normal lives.  They are also capable of running.

ppz-zombie_killing
The movie ended with a cliffhanger in an attempt to set up a sequel.  Seeing as how this made $16.4 million on a $28 million budget, it’s safe to say that a sequel isn’t happening.  Or, at least, it’s not happening outside of SyFy.


Overall, I liked this pretty well.  It definitely dragged at times, but that’s just because I wanted to see more zombie gore.  I will not apologize for who I am.  Don’t expect a masterpiece, but, if you’re looking to have a little fun with zombies and also feel slightly (SLIGHTLY) literary, give this one a shot.

Rating: 3/5

Notable actors: Lily James, Lena Headey, Charles Dance, Matt Smith, Sam Riley

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Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse: Movie Review

scouts - poster

Have you ever found yourself watching Superbad and thinking, “I wish there was a less well-written version of this with zombies and more annoying characters,”?  Then this movie is for you!

That sounds harsher than I mean it to.  I apologize to the scouts and their stripper friend.  Let’s break it down.

SCOUTS VS. ZOMBIES

Ben, Carter and Augie are sophomores in high school.  They are Boy Scouts.  Augie loves being a scout.  Ben and Carter are planning on quitting – because being a Boy Scout is super lame, you guys – but don’t want to hurt Augie’s feelings.
The three of them are going on an overnight scout trip with Scout Leader Rodgers (a Dolly Parton-loving David Koechner) when Ben and Carter are invited to a super-secret high school party by Kendall’s (Carter’s hot sister, who Ben has a very obvious crush on) boyfriend.  But it’s the same night as the camp-out!  What are these scouts going to do?

They’re going to ditch Augie after he goes to sleep and go to the party, because that sounds like a plan that will go very well.  Somewhere along the line, they meet up with Denise, a former high school dropout who now works at a local strip club.

SCOUTS VS. ZOMBIES

Pretty standard high school sex comedy stuff, really.  Until the zombies show up.
We see the outbreak at the beginning of the movie.  They are being studied at some local sciency place, which allows burnout janitors to just dance right into the zombie zone.  It seemed like they probably could have secured the area a little better, but that’s just me being cautious, I guess.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfP_GdRFZL0

At this point, Ben, Carter, Augie (who joins up with them after having some adventures by himself) and Denise are still trying to get to the party.  Not because they want to hook up with seniors (they do, though), but because they want to save everyone there from the zombies.  Also, the military is planning on wiping out the entire city to stop the zombie spread (as seen in Resident Evil: Apocalypse, The Crazies, Return of the Living Dead and many, many more).

SCOUTS VS. ZOMBIES

I just used a whole lot of words on a pretty simplistic plot.  I apologize.  I could have just said, “high school boys attempt to procure alcohol and bang girls way out of their league, also zombies.”  Or, to kind of repeat myself from earlier, “Superbad: Rave To The Grave,” complete with one of the characters (Carter) trying to be a skinny Jonah Hill in the worst way.  Anyway, let’s get to some thoughts.

scouts - zombie selfie

It was fine.  Carter’s whole “Jonah Hill in Superbad,” act got old really quick, and I didn’t really care for bland Ben, but I really liked Augie and Denise.  I liked Augie because he wasn’t ashamed of who he was (he also created the best weapon when it came to killin’ time) and Denise because, underneath her gruff demeanor, was actually quite sweet.  Her and Ben formed a weird little friendship that I genuinely enjoyed watching.  She treated Carter like garbage, because he was a jackass and needed to be put in his place.  I liked that, because Carter deserves everything bad in this world.
Ultimately, we’re talking about zombie comedy, so let’s talk about the zombies.
It was unclear how they were going to play it.  The first zombies we see are typical Romero zombies.  We also see a zombie deer, so we know it can cross species.

Also, cats
Also, cats

Then we get to a scene early in the outbreak where our heroes are making a stand in a liquor store parking lot.  A horde of zombies are lurching towards them.  Suddenly, one of the zombies goes down on all fours and starts running at them like a flesh-eating ape.  Okay then.  We’re dealing with Day of the Dead (remake) zombies.
We also find out that the zombies retain something of their pre-zombie memories, much like latter day Romero zombies (as first seen in the original Day of the Dead).  How do we find this out?  Why, the scouts sing “…Baby One More Time” to a zombie wearing a Britney Spears t-shirt, and the zombie attempts to sing along.  It’s a highly scientific method.

"My loneliness is killing meeeee..."
“My loneliness is killing meeeee…”

There is some decent gore, especially when the scouts “weapon up” and hit the party.  They created a bunch of zombie-killing weapons from random hardware store items, because apparently they had all earned their Weapon Making merit badges.  Lots of death, destruction, mayhem, etc.
If you like the image of someone using a zombie penis as a handle, only to tear that handle off and send it flying through the air, there is also a scene like that.  There is also a scene where someone takes a selfie with a pair of zombie boobs.  I did not care for those scenes.

scouts - running up stairsI can’t say I enjoyed this movie all the way through, but there were enough funny/bloody moments to keep me entertained.  There’s something I had to keep in mind as I was watching this: I am 35 years old.  This movie was not really made with the “approaching middle-age man” in mind.  If I was in high school or college, I’m sure I would find this movie hilarious.  It’s a bit of dumb fun with crude jokes, lots of gore and a little nudity.  It’s fast-moving enough to make it easy to overlook its flaws.
Although, honestly, if you switch out Carter for a character who is less obnoxious, I’m sure I would have enjoyed this more than I did.  As it stands, this was a fun movie that I will probably never watch again.  If I do, it’ll probably be on mute, in the background of a party.

scouts - trapped
Who am I kidding?  I don’t have parties.  I apologize for lying to you all.

Rating: 2.5/5

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Fear The Walking Dead: Pilot

 

Finally!  Zombies to hold us over until more zombies arrive!  I mean, I guess you could always watch Night of the Living Dead during the summer or something, but that probably doesn’t happen in most households.  It’s okay.  We can still be friends.  As long as you don’t love Survival of the Dead.  Then we might have a problem.

Remember how the first episode of The Walking Dead kicked off with about 10 minutes of Rick being a sheriff and getting shot, then waking up from a coma to find the world had gone to hell?  Take that 10 minutes of nothing, stretch it out over 65 minutes, and you have the first episode of Fear The Walking Dead.  I’m not saying it was a total waste of time, but I am saying that it looks like we’re going to have to be patient if we want any action.  We did get a bit of payoff at the end, so perhaps that’s a sign of better things to come.

This entire episode hinges on whether or not you connect with the family.  I did not.  I liked Madison pretty well, but I can’t tell if I actually liked her character or if I just really liked her on Deadwood.  Probably the latter.  Travis was fine, if a bit bland.  Alicia is the perfect, boring, too-good-for-this-place-I-need-to-get-out daughter, while Nick fills the role of the family screw-up, who manages to have the best abs of any heroin addict I have ever seen.  Nick gets a lot of face time in this episode and is asked to carry some pretty dramatic scenes, but he just can’t quite pull it off.  Every time he started talking about his life, my eyes glazed over.

Heroin dens are great places to do stomach crunches.
Heroin dens are great places to do stomach crunches.

And then there is Tobias, who is clearly a 30 year old high school student.  He’s the first one who knows that something is amiss.  He says “zombies” without actually saying it.  And what does he do?  Why, he shows up at high school – a high school with a metal detector at the entrance – with a paring knife.  A paring knife.  What was the plan there?  The best case scenario is exactly what happened: a concerned teacher pulls you aside, confiscates the knife and releases you into the school.  So now you’re knifeless in the school while a zombie threat shambles ever closer.  The worst case scenario is that the knife is confiscated and you are either arrested or released into the world, sans knife.  Now you’re out in the open with no weapons and a zombie horde on the horizon.  It’s a lose-lose situation.  If he knew zombies were coming, he would have grabbed a baseball bat, crowbar, machete and a bunch of canned food and run for the hills (or whatever).  Get out of L.A.  Don’t walk into school with a tiny knife.  The only person that benefits from that is the zombie, who will laugh his terrible laugh as your knife doesn’t come closer to penetrating the skull.

"I have to go now and do my taxes...I mean, study school things? Yes. Study school things."
“I have to go now and do my taxes…I mean, study school things? Yes. Study school things.”

Let’s talk zombie outbreak for a second.  I figure the entire first episode covers a minimum of two days.  During that time, we know that the zombies are among us.  We know a couple zombies escaped from the church.  We also know – both from The Walking Dead and from Calvin at the end of this episode – that everyone is infected.  If you die, you come back as a zombie.
Now that we’ve got that established…
The population of Los Angeles currently sits a little below 4 million people.  On an average day, roughly 170 people die.  That’s 340 over two days (not factoring in the fact that zombies would cause more deaths than that).  Congratulations!  You now have 340 zombies that no one knows about.  Once the apocalypse starts, it will roll over a big city like a tidal wave.  The fact that we know there are at least a few zombies on the loose means it’s not confined to just one part of the city.  I have a hard time believing that there are just a couple random attacks, only one of which has been filmed so far.  Large portions of the city would likely already be thrown into chaos.  (According to a simulation run on Zombietown USA, Los Angeles would be more or less overrun within 48 hours.)
For the record, the reason Rick was able to wake up alive is because the population of Cynthiana, KY is only a little over 6,000.  The fewer people in a town, the fewer zombies there are.  Come to Kentucky. Survive the zombie apocalypse.  But not too many of you.  I don’t need you blowing up my spot.

But I assume L.A. will soon be overrun, so we can all be thankful for that.

I'm really looking forward to Fear The Benny & Joon.
I’m really looking forward to Fear The Benny & Joon.

Random thoughts:

– Loved the blood on the piano in the opening scene.  Seemed like something Neko Case would write a beautiful song on.

– The “I just threw up in my mouth a little,” joke has run its course.  The delivery here was particularly painful.

– “If there’s a problem, we would know about it.  The authorities would tell us.”  We all know that authorities would give the zombie outbreak an unfamiliar disease name (like, say, SARS) and cover it up as quickly as possible.

– I admire Travis’ bravery in going into a dark heroin den by himself, but I condemn his stupidity.  He took no weapons.  He yelled, “Is anyone there,” after he already saw blood.  Tense scene, but driven by the bad decisions of a character.  (I don’t really admire his bravery.)

– “[Jack] London tries to teach us how not to die.”  It’s like someone slapping you in the face.  “Survival.  Get it?!  Cuz zombies?!  And literature?!  It’s smart.  We’re smart.”

"Did you get it? That guy got it."
“Did you get it? That guy got it.”

– There is not a chance in hell that a nurse would ever untie a patient’s restraint.  “Well, he said he had to pee really bad and I felt bad for him.  It’s not like I thought he could actually free his other hand in the process.  How would I know that?”