6/27/15 (Part Two): Two is the Loneliest Number

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Adam Cronheim, Alana O'Brien, baseball players, buddy films, Christian Stella, cinema, directorial debut, dramas, end of the world, film reviews, films, friendship, horror films, independent films, Jamie Pantanella, Jeremy Gardner, Larry Fessenden, low-budget films, low-key, Movies, Niels Bolle, post-Apocalyptic, road movie, Ryan Winford, slow-moving films, stranded, The Battery, undead, Walkman, writer-director-producer-actor, zombie apocalypse, zombie movies, zombies

How rad would it be to run wild in a post-apocalyptic world with your best friend? Hunting, fishing, killing zombies, taking whatever you need, never answering to “The Man,” never working another day in your life, just kicking back and taking it all in…if you squint just right, it looks like a damn good life, doesn’t it? Now…imagine the exact same scenario but substitute “a co-worker you don’t know very well” for “your best friend” in the above equation. Not quite as fun, eh?

First-time director Jeremy Gardner (working from his own script) takes a close look at the second scenario, the one that sees you getting stuck with a relative stranger during the fallout from an unnamed zombie epidemic, in the low-key, immensely effective horror-drama The Battery (2012). Utilizing a slow, measured pace and a startling degree of real-world verisimilitude, Gardner has created the equivalent of a mumblecore zombie film, a movie not so much about the ravenous hordes of undead that stagger and groan across empty swatches of abandoned humanity but about the few remaining humans who’ve been left holding the bag. When the end-times come, Gardner seems to say, we’ll all find ourselves doing the exact same things we did during “better times”: arguing, swearing, fighting, listening to music on our headphones, masturbating, hoping, goofing around, wondering and wishing for a better tomorrow.

In as economical a way as possible, we meet our two leads and get the lay of the land right off the bat: Ben (writer-director Gardner) and Mickey (Adam Cronheim) are a couple of baseball players who find their lot tied together once the U.S. (and, presumably, the rest of the world) becomes overrun by zombies. We don’t get big explanations, no sense of a larger scheme at play here, just the facts, ma’am. Although the two were never great friends when things were “normal,” they now find themselves needing to rely on each other for their very survival: you might think that making a new friend is difficult…try doing it when mobs of zombies are trying to eat your face!

Personality-wise, the two former teammates couldn’t be more different. Ben is the brash, act-first member of the team, a guy who sees killing zombies as his duty and relishes the opportunity to live “off the grid” and make his own way through life. Mickey, on the other hand, is much more reserved, quiet and withdrawn. With his ever-present headphones and lingering memories of his lost life with his pre-apocalypse girlfriend, Mickey is like an open, throbbing wound, slinking from one place to the next without ever really living. Hell, he even resists Ben’s constant attempts to teach him how to fish: he’s got plenty of canned goods, after all, so why bother with the “real stuff” until he has to? Grizzly Adams, he ain’t.

Change comes to the guys’ daily fight for survival when they happen to pick up a mundane conversation on their walkie talkies. The discussion might not be earth-shattering (picking out the movie choice for that night) but Ben and Mickey are rocked to their very cores: here, at long last, is proof that they’re not alone. For Ben, it means more potential problems but for Mickey, the existence of others allows him the faintest glimmer of hope: for the first time, he can begin to see the path that leads out of their personal wilderness and back into regimented society.

The problem, of course, is that folks in post-apocalyptic societies don’t tend to be the friendliest, most trusting, sorts. One of the voices, Frank (Larry Fessenden), pointedly tells our heroes that there’s no more room at this particular inn, while the other voice, Annie (Alana O’Brien) does much the same thing, albeit in a nicer way. Too late, however: poor Mickey has already locked on to the newly discovered survivors as his own source of salvation and he won’t take no for an answer. Despite Ben’s constant protests, Mickey wants to track down Frank, Annie and the others at all costs: not only does he get a whiff of the civilization he so desperately misses but, with Annie, he gets a hint of that other thing he desperately misses…female contact.

As Ben and Mickey continue to move through the destroyed landscape of what used to be a familiar country, constantly on the watch for ambushing zombies, they find their own burgeoning friendship tested and strained at every twist and turn in the path. Will the two ever be able to set aside their differences and become united in their goals? Will Mickey be able to rejoin the civilized society that he always carries so close to his heart, via his ever-present Discman, or will he spend the rest of his days in the wild, gradually giving his own humanity over to survival instincts? And what, exactly, are Frank and Annie trying to hide from them? What is the truth behind “The Orchard” and will it spell salvation or doom for our hardy protagonists?

Low-key, understated and pitched at a glacial pace, Gardner’s film isn’t what one might call a “thrill-a-minute” ride. What it lacks in visceral action, however, it more than makes up for with intelligent, character-driven drama. The focus here is squarely on the humans, not the monsters: for almost the entirety of the film, give or take a few choice setpieces, the zombies remain in the background of the action, serving as omnipresent threat but allowing Ben and Mickey to take the reins. In some ways, it’s a similar tactic to Gareth Edwards’ Monsters (2010), in which the massive beasts became secondary to the human drama at the film’s core. The Battery is, first and foremost, about the ways in which Ben and Mickey navigate around their world. which is an important distinction from most low-budget zombie films.

Despite this focus on the dramatic aspect, however, Gardner and crew don’t shortchange the horrific aspect. The zombies are all well-realized, with effective makeup, and the violence, although infrequent, is always gritty and physical. When the film wants to pull out the stops, it has no problem doing so: the setpiece involving Ben and Mickey trapped in a car by a veritable army of the undead is as tense as they come, culminating in a truly brave six-minute shot that handily recalls the tent scene in Bobcat Goldtwait’s recent Willow Creek (2013). By not making the zombie action the center of the film’s universe, it makes the scattered horror moments that much more effective: I can’t stress enough how radically different this is from most low-budget zombie fare.

In many ways, The Battery is a two-man show: although we meet a couple other characters, including the aforementioned Annie and a carjacker (played by Niels Bolle), the vast majority of our screentime is devoted to either Ben or Mickey. As with many low-budget films (particularly horror films), this could have been the kiss of death: as a lifelong horror fan, “outstanding acting” isn’t usually something I usually associate with these types of movies, at least not at this level.

Rather than being a deficit, however, the performances in The Battery end up being one of the film’s greatest benefits. Quite simply, Gardner and Cronheim have fantastic chemistry: not only do we buy these guys as real people but we also buy into their developing friendship, warts and all. There are certain moments, such as the minutes-long scene consisting of nothing more than Ben and Mickey brushing their teeth, that feel like nothing less than getting a front-row seat to real-life, albeit one where the occasional zombie pops into view. Both actors give unique life and characterization to their respective roles (Ben is the “asshole,” Mickey is the “nice guy”) that extends beyond easy stereotyping and feels a whole lot more like real acting. In this aspect, The Battery reminded me of another exemplary indie horror film about a friendship, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s extraordinary Resolution (2012). Like Resolution, the characters in The Battery feel 100% authentic, which works wonders on selling the inherent “unreality” of the zombie apocalypse.

While the cinematography in the film is never much more than decent (aside from a few scattered standouts), the sound design is actually pretty brilliant and flawlessly integrated into the fabric of the film. The big conceit here, that Mickey’s Discman provides the score in “real-time,” is pretty damn awesome: that the musical selections are so varied and exceptional (incorporating everything from traditional blues to Neutral Milk Hotel-ish sonic collages) really kicks the whole film up a notch, resulting in scenes and moments that could best be described as “thoroughly kickass.” The montage of Ben and Mickey bumming around the countryside, set to an old blues stomper, is beautifully evocative, as is the wild, chaotic abandon that fuels the scene where Ben gets wasted and dances in front of a mural. Gardner and crew understand that sound design is as integral a part of a film as the visuals and The Battery provides a great crash course in just how to accomplish that.

All in all, I was massively impressed by The Battery: for a low-budget, independent zombie flick, this is just about as artistic and exceptional as it gets. While the film doesn’t always break new ground (Mickey’s obsession with Annie is particularly tiresome and “old hat”), it strikes out on its own path often enough to prove how much Gardner has to say. For some viewers, the slow pace and relative lack of action might be slightly off-putting but more patient audiences will realize one important fact: you have to learn to crawl before you walk. By taking its time and easing into the horror, Gardner’s film demonstrates that it has the stamina to go the distance. Here’s to hoping that Jeremy Gardner and his team continue to pump out effective, well-made little films like this: for a genre that can often be more smoke than fire, there will always be a need for movies that are actually about something.

The Battery may a road movie set during a zombie plague but, in the bigger scheme of things, it’s really about human interaction and the ways in which we’re all intertwined, whether we like it or not. I’ll take that over another bloody disembowelment any ol’ day of the week.

5/25/15: Zom-Beavers Wander By the Lake

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Al Kaplan, Bill Burr, Brent Briscoe, cabins, cheating boyfriends, cinema, Code Monkeys, Cortney Palm, dark comedies, dark humor, directorial debut, Ed Marx, electronic score, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, girls only weekend, goofy, gory films, horror, horror-comedies, Hutch Dano, isolation, Jake Weary, John Mayer, Jon Kaplan, Jonathan Hall, Jordan Rubin, Lexi Atkins, Movies, multiple writers, Peter Gilroy, Phyllis Katz, practical effects, Rachel Melvin, Rex Linn, Robert R. Shafer, silly films, sorority sisters, toxic waste spill, Troma films, writer-director, Zombeavers, zombie films, zombies

There’s a point in Jordan Rubin’s ridiculously fun Zombeavers (2014) where our hapless heroes need to execute one of those standard “shoring up the defenses” scenes that’s as much a fixture of siege films as the actual siege itself. Working together, the group goes through all the familiar motions: moving dressers against doors, nailing boards across windows, frantically working to keep what’s outside from coming inside their small, isolated cabin. Despite their best efforts, however, it seems to be a losing battle, the gist of which isn’t lost on one of the exasperated survivors: “You do realize that the whole point of a beaver is it chops fucking wood, right?”

It’s an astute observation but, more importantly, it’s a damn good line and pretty much par for the course in a debut feature that’s always more intelligent than it seems, never quite as crass as it means to be and an easy step above similarly goofy horror-comedy fare. Writer-director Rubin comes from a long background as a writer on TV comedies (most notably the crude but effective Crank Yankers and several late night shows, including Craig Kilborn and Carson Daly) and his script (co-written with Al and Jon Kaplan, who also handled the fabulous score, just as they did with the criminally under-rated Code Monkeys) is consistently smart, if constantly silly. The biggest coup? Rubin and company manage to take a fairly dumb concept (zombified beavers) and inject just enough genuine tension and action to keep the whole thing from floating away into the ether. Zombeavers may be the class cut-up but it sure as hell ain’t the class dunce.

Kicking off with a fantastic gag involving a heavily disguised John Mayer and comedian Bill Burr as less than attentive truck drivers, we immediately get the nuts and bolts of the tale: a mysterious barrel falls off the truck, proceeds down a river and winds up at a beaver dam where it’s inspected by a couple of cute beaver puppets. If you grew up in the ’80s, you probably know what mysterious barrels that fall into rivers do and, by Jove, that’s just what happens here: exit the cute, friendly little beavers…enter…the zombeavers!

Our cannon fodder, in this case, consists of a trio of sorority sisters, Mary (Rachel Melvin), Zoe (Cortney Palm) and Jenn (Lexi Atkins), who’ve headed into the woods for a “girls only” weekend. Jenn has just seen a photo of her boyfriend, Sam (Hutch Dano, grandson of Royal), canoodling with a strange girl (or, at least, the back of her head) and Mary and Zoe want to help take her mind off her misery. Or, to be more accurate, Mary does: for her part, Zoe is the kind of amazingly snarky, sarcastic and just plain shitty character who can either make or break a film and she’s a complete blast.

While they settle in, the girls meet a local hunter, Smyth (Rex Linn), who flips the tired, old “leering redneck” cliché on its head by admonishing the young ladies’ skimpy bathing suits and “weird tattoos” rather than wolf-whistling. They also find the beaver dam from the beginning, although it’s now covered in neon-green “beaver piss,” so they keep their distance. As the “friends” play Truth or Dare, a pounding at the door begins as a fright but culminates in that other, great slasher film cliché: the crashing of the girls’ night out by their loutish boyfriends. Seems that ultra horny Zoe can’t go a weekend without screwing her equally horny boyfriend, Buck (Peter Gilroy), so she secretly invited him, along with Mary’s boyfriend, Tommy (Jake Weary) and good, old, cheatin’ Sam.

With our crew assembled, it’s only a matter of time before the zombeavers rear their vicious little heads and, before they know it, our young lovers are knee-deep in ravenous, dead-eyed little dam-builders. When the group is forced to split-up, it seems that tragedy is looming ever nearer over the horizon. As they must deal with not only the very real outside threat but their own internal struggles, a new wrinkle emerges: this is a zombie film, after all, and we all know why it’s a good idea to keep those fellas at arm’s length. Will our plucky heroes be able to pull together and kick beaver ass or have they just been dammed?

On paper, Zombeavers is a thoroughly ridiculous, silly concept, akin to something like Sharknado (2013) or FDR: American Badass (2012): after all, this is a film about zombified beavers…gravitas might seem slightly out-of-place, here. Thanks to a pretty great script, however (it’s probably one of the most quotable newer films I’ve seen), Zombeavers functions as more of a high-concept parody/homage than a lunk-headed bit of SyFy fluff. While it’s not in the same vaunted company as the stellar Tucker & Dale vs Evil (2010), Zombeavers is pretty equitable to Mike Mendez’s fun Big Ass Spider! (2013) in that it mixes fun, dumb gags with more clever, subtle marginalia. One of my favorite bits in Zombeavers is a throwaway gag that features a teenage fisherman wearing a “#1 Dad” ball cap: it works on a number of levels but, most importantly, it’s the kind of absurd detail that makes the film’s world feel so much more complete than it could have, something akin to the immersive worlds of Troma films.

Rubin and company throw a lot of schtick at the screen (particularly once we get to the last act “twist” that introduces a whole other, outrageous element to the proceedings) but most of it actually sticks, unlike something like the obnoxious, tone-deaf Sharknado. Part of this has to do with all of the aforementioned nifty little details but the whole thing would collapse if there wasn’t an incredibly game cast propping it up. Luckily, Zombeavers is filled with actors who perfectly understand the razor-thin line between “campy” and “stupid” and manage to (mostly) walk it with ease.

While the central trio of Melvin, Palm and Atkins are set-up as rather feather-headed (particularly Melvin’s Mary), they have tremendous chemistry together: their scenes have such a quick, snappy pace to them that they handily recall films like Mean Girls (2004) or, to a lesser extent, Heathers (1988). While Melvin’s exquisite comedic timing and Atkins’ slightly ethereal bearing fit like a glove, the real standout is Palm’s Zoe. Time after time, Palm manages to swipe the film right from under the others, whether it’s the bit where she gleefully doffs her bikini top only to cover herself up when a bear looks at her or any of her perfectly delivered bon mots (her deadpan rejoinder of “Maybe you should try going down on me more often,” to Buck’s “I’ve never seen a real beaver before” is so perfectly delivered that it hurts).

As befits their characters, the guys are pitched as pretty unrepentant, obnoxious horn-dogs but it works, for the most part, although Dano never seems to connect with his character in any meaningful way: his delivery always seems awkward and slightly off. Although Weary’s Tommy doesn’t get as much to do, Gilroy’s Buck is another highlight, just like his equally churlish girlfriend. While Gilroy’s delivery doesn’t always work (there are some definitively odd things that he does, beat-wise), he almost hits an Andy Kaufman-lite vibe when it does. His “my dick is asleep” bit starts out irritating but becomes oddly amusing (and weirdly charming) but moments like his bizarrely energetic sex scene (screaming “You’re way too hot for me!” as he enthusiastically humps away) or any of his great throwaway lines (“Who the fuck is crying on vacation day?!”…”I’ll see you in the bone zone!”) are all but essential to the film’s overall vibe.

And back to that vibe: one of the most notable things about Zombeavers is that, despite the assumed crudity of the concept and execution, the film is anything but a collection of stupid “beaver” jokes and frat boy humor. If anything, Rubin’s script constantly pushes against those stereotypes, walking a fine line between embracing the clichés and setting them on fire. This isn’t to say that Zombeavers is wholesome family fare (penis-chomping, eye-gouging and Zoe’s boobs abound): it is to say, however, that Rubin and crew are smart and savvy enough to know that raunchy humor doesn’t have to be braindead…there’s nothing in this film that comes close to approximating the inanity of the aforementioned SyFy tripe, no matter how hard they try.

As should be plainly obvious, I was quite taken with Zombeavers: as a directorial debut, it’s even more impressive. While not everything worked, the elements that really worked tended to soar: the last fifteen minutes of the film are so damned perfect that I, literally, cheered. Since the film ends with a direct, clever set-up for a sequel (there are other things in the woods besides beavers, after all), I’m hoping that Rubin can capitalize on what worked here and come roaring out of the gate on the next one. After all: any guy that can see the inherent, soul-shattering evil of those flat-tailed, buck-toothed bastards…well, he’s pretty alright in my book.

2/9/15 (Part One): Stay Frosty, My Friends

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Ane Dahl Torp, Army of Darkness, auteur theory, Ørjan Gamst, Bjørn Sundquist, cabins, Charlotte Frogner, Christian Wibe, co-writers, Colonel Herzog, dark comedies, Dead Alive, Dead Snow, Dod Sno, Einsatz, Evy Kasseth Røsten, favorite films, Film auteurs, foreign films, friends, gore films, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, horror franchises, horror movies, horror-comedies, isolation, Jenny Skavlan, Jeppe Beck Laursen, Lasse Valdal, Matthew Weston, Nazi zombies, Nazis, Nightmare City, Norwegian films, Peter Jackson, ski vacation, Stig Frode Henriksen, stolen gold, Tommy Wirkola, Vegar Hoel, writer-director, zombies

There may not be many guarantees in this world but here’s one that you can take straight to the bank: Nazis will always make great cinematic villains. After all, what other group is so synonymous with complete and total evil, so unburdened with any easy notions of humanity or morality? For filmmakers, Nazis are real-world vampires and boogeymen, historical realities where the “black hats” are so intrinsically part of the package that there’s never a need to sugarcoat or offer any sort of counterpoint: after all, what person, in their right mind, is actually going to stick up for these ghouls? Who’s going to raise their hand and protest the traditionally black-and-white presentation of these blood-thirsty bastards? If you think about it, Nazis are just about the best, purest personification of evil we’ve got: pure, undiluted hatred, with no possibility for empathy or sympathy.

While filmmakers learned long ago that Nazis make sure-fire villains, horror filmmakers have managed to one-up this notion of “ultimate evil” by taking it to its logical conclusion: ravenous Nazi zombies. What’s worse than a Nazi, after all, than a flesh-eating Nazi that can’t be killed? From cult classics like Shock Waves (1977) and Zombie Lake (1980) to more recent films like the Outpost series (2008-2013) and Blood Creek (2009), genre filmmakers have been mining this vein for some time, albeit with decidedly mixed results. For the most part, however, these films all have one thing in common: they portray their undead Nazi menaces as terrifying, dead-serious threats.

This tendency towards a more serious tone is completely obliterated by Norwegian writer-director Tommy Wirkola’s massively entertaining Dead Snow (2009), an honest-to-god horror-comedy that manages to make the threat of undead Nazis both suitably terrifying and impossibly funny. Similar to the early splatter-comedies of Peter Jackson,  Wirkola’s outrageous tale about a ski vacation gone very, very wrong is a high-energy romp filled with gory effects, incredibly rude humor and some of the most kickass action setpieces in the game. When the film falls short, it’s a slightly silly, rather predictable variation on traditional zombie films. When Wirkola and company lock into a groove, however (which is most of the time), Dead Snow is absolutely relentless, ridiculously fun and one of the very best horror films of the ’00s.

Dead Snow kicks off with that hoariest of old tropes, the group of friends heading to the country for some rest and relaxation. In this case, the location is the snow-covered Norwegian countryside and the friends are the usual mixed group of character types: we have couple Martin (Vegar Hoel) and Hanna (Charlotte Frogner); wise-cracking horror movie buff Erlend (Jeppe Beck Laursen); Hanna’s cousin, Chris (Jenny Skavlan); outdoorsy Vegard (Lasse Valdal), who’s dating Sara (Ane Dahl Torp), whose family owns the cabin that they’re headed to; Roy (co-writer Stig Frode Henriksen) and Liv (Evy Kasseth Røsten). For the most part, they’re all likable characters, although most are sketched as lightly as one would expect for this type of genre offering: Martin is a doctor-in-training who faints at the sight of blood, Chris is the “hot girl” who falls for the resident nerd, Erlend always has a relevant bit of horror movie trivia for any particular situation, etc…Again, nothing we haven’t seen before, although it’s a refreshing change of pace to have a horror ensemble that’s this likable: only the hardest of hearts would root against this batch of cheerful goofballs.

Since the film’s very first scene depicts Sara fleeing through the woods, pursued by shadowy, malevolent figures in vintage Nazi regalia (to the tune of “Hall of the Mountain King,” which is just about as epic as it sounds), we’re already hip to some strange happenings in these here parts, but we get our official confirmation when a mysterious stranger (Bjørn Sundquist) shows up at the cabin to pour Pernod all of the partying youths’ ice cream. Turns out that the area they’re in has a bit of a bad history: a particularly ruthless Nazi battalion, led by the stone-cold Colonel Herzog (Ørjan Gamst), terrorized the locals there during the waning days of World War II. After the locals turned the tables and massacred the Nazis, Herzog and a group of his men escaped into the snowy mountains, never to be seen again. According to the stranger, the group, known as the Einsatz, still lurks up there, somewhere, waiting for unwitting victims to wreck their ageless vengeance on.

We wouldn’t have a movie if our plucky heroes took good advise, however, so they kick the stranger out and keep partying. When Vegard takes off to look for his tardy girlfriend, however, we get that other reliable horror convention: the splitting of the group. As the various friends go about their business, monstrous figures lurk in the shadows until everything comes to an explosive head (literally) and the group finds themselves under frenzied assault from a mob of zombified Nazis, led by the rotted but impossibly serene undead commandant. When the zombie mayhem kicks in, it never quits, rocketing our group (and us) full-throttle towards their inevitable rendezvous with ultimate evil. Our plucky heroes will need to fight back with everything they have, however: Herzog and his minions are on a mission straight from Hell and woe to anyone who gets in their way.

From beginning to end, Wirkola’s Dead Snow is an absolute blast of pure, undiluted fun. I’ve already mentioned the resemblance to Jackson’s early films, although Dead Snow is anything but a Dead Alive (1992) rip-off, even though both films share similar DNA. If anything, the film often plays like a far more splattery version of Raimi’s goofy Army of Darkness (1992): Army of Darkness even features a Deadite general who bears more than a passing resemblance to Dead Snow’s Herzog. There’s a good-natured tone to the carnage and chaos that completely belies the often show-stopping violence: you wouldn’t think that a scene involving a character rappelling down a mountain-side, using intestines for rope, would be silly and giddy but, in Wirkola’s hands, it most certainly is. Nothing in the film is watered down and no one is safe, lending a bracing sense of unpredictability to the proceedings: any character has the potential to be eviscerated at any moment and the film has a blast playing with these expectations.

Similar to Lenzi’s zombies in Nightmare City (1980), Wirkola’s zombies are fast, ferocious and more prone to stabbing you to death than trying to take a chomp out of your ankle. While I’ve never been the biggest fan of “fast zombies” (or smart zombies, for that matter), the ones in Dead Snow work brilliantly. In many ways, the film is extremely action-oriented, even for a zombie siege film: similar to how Dario Argento filled his films with “murder setpieces,” Wirkola’s is filled with white-knuckle fights against the resurrected Nazis. While there are a few instances of more measured, atmospheric horror (such as the excellent scene where Chris is stalked in the outhouse), most of the film involves the zombies chasing down and butchering their prey right out in the open, as the poor humans put up whatever resistance they can muster.

And muster resistance, they do: if you don’t find yourself jumping from your seat on a regular basis, fist raised to the sky, as Martin and the others kick zombie ass…well, I feel kinda sorry for you. Whether it’s the awesome bit where Vegard attaches a machine gun to his snow-mobile or the truly epic battle between Martin, Roy and about a million dead Nazis, Dead Snow is one great set-piece after another. When the film really gets going, it rarely stops, inching on the brakes only to highlight some of the film’s more overtly humorous aspects.

The humor, of course, is the other thing: while many horror-comedies completely botch the chills-to-giggles ratio, Wirkola and co-writer Henriksen prove as apt with the funny stuff as the runny stuff. While much of the humor revolves around gross-out gags and decidedly immature, politically incorrect observations about the world at large, there’s an underlying element of razor-sharp, insightful, pitch-black satire that serves as a sturdy foundation. One of my favorite scenes here (or in any movie, to be honest), involves the classic bit where Martin must deal with getting bit: after successfully going through all the usual motions, via a quick-cut montage, he stands victorious, only to immediately get bit by another zombie. It’s a brilliant gag that works on many levels (Dead Snow has lots of fun playing with standard zombie flick clichés) but is completely sold by Hoel’s all-in performance as Martin: his frustrated howl makes me spit-take every time I watch the film.

While the film is extremely well-made (the cinematography is quite attractive and the excellent score, courtesy of Christian Wibe, really heightens the action), it’s the incredibly game, likable cast that really puts this over the top. To a tee, none of the characters are unduly obnoxious (although Martin has a few quirks, like almost suffocating his girlfriend while messing around, that are admittedly worrisome) and we come to genuinely care for all of them. We spend the most time with Martin, our defacto protagonist, but they’re all a hoot, really. I’m particularly fond of Valdal’s “Spicoli by way of the great outdoors” take on Vegard: he cuts a helluva heroic swath through the evil Einsatz and never even looks like he breaks a sweat, which is a pretty sweet trick.

Ultimately, Dead Snow is just about as good as it gets for this kind of film. Genuinely funny, gory enough to impressive the hounds, full of likable, memorable characters and possessed of some seriously badass villains, everything about Wirkola’s sophomore film (his debut was a Norwegian “re-imagining” of Kill Bill (2003), believe it or not) is top-notch entertainment. While some critics bemoaned Wirkola’s followup, the tongue-in-cheek Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013), I found that film to be equally delightful, establishing the writer-director as a budding auteur along the lines of Peter Jackson or Frank Hennenlotter. Wirkola would go on to turn Dead Snow into a franchise with the equally excellent, English-language Dead Snow 2: Red vs Dead (2014), proving that he’s no flash-in-the-pan. Suffice to say, no one rides the solid line between horror and comedy quite like Wirkola does: as long as he’s driving, I’ll be more than happy to ride shotgun.

12/27/14 (Part One): Tongue Through Cheek

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Bruce Campbell, Chad Herschberger, cinema, co-writers, Doc of the Dead, documentaries, documentary, film reviews, films, George Romero, goofy, Greg Nicotero, horror films, interviews, Max Brooks, Movies, Night of the Living Dead, pop culture, Robert Kirkman, SImon Pegg, The Walking Dead, Tom Savini, voodoo, writer-director, zombie invasion, zombies

Sometimes, it’s not what you say but how you say it. Take, for example, documentary filmmaker Alexandre O. Philippe’s Doc of the Dead (2014). Chock full of fun interviews, interesting tidbits and plenty of in-depth history about the genesis and evolution of the zombie in both film and pop culture, there’s a lot to like here. Despite all of the good information, however, Philippe’s film still nearly sinks under the weight of its frequently flippant, mocking tone, especially when the film drops any “serious” pretensions and devolves into a series of silly zombie invasion spoofs and tedious musical skits.

When Doc of the Dead isn’t taking cheap potshots at the sillier aspects of its subject matter (zombie survivalists, zombie porn and the like), it’s quite an interesting, fast-paced film, if decidedly lightweight. Philippe and co-writer/editor Chad Herschberger utilize the standard formula of plenty of “talking head” interviews (George Romero, Simon Pegg, Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman, Mel Brooks’ son/World War Z scribe Max Brooks, et al) alongside lots of film clips and the odd historical/epistemologial segment to give a pretty thorough overview of zombies in Western film, TV and pop culture.

I stress “Western,” since the filmmakers manage to completely bypass such admittedly rich zombie treasure troves as the Italian gore films of the ’70s and ’80s and any of the over-the-top Asian zombie films that have cropped up in the past decade or so.  While this would have, undoubtedly, broadened the focus of the film, I can’t help but feel that at least some mention of these other films would have been appropriate, if for no other reason than to point out how universal this particular horror trend has become in the past 40 years.

Foreign omissions notwithstanding, my biggest and most critical complaint regarding Doc of the Dead has to be all of the silly digressions, goofy skits and tongue-in-cheek stupidity that sits uncomfortably next to the more serious scholarship. I’m not claiming that all documentaries need to be serious or even that a zombie-themed documentary could ever be completely serious…we are talking about re-animated corpses, after all, so some measure of suspension of disbelief is required, no matter how you tackle the subject. I will firmly state, however, that the split-tone in Philippe’s film made it impossible for me to ever be completely on-board. For every cool story related by Romero or interesting observation (zombie cinema is one of the only horror genres to develop from folklore rather than literature, for example, which is pretty interesting, when you think about it), there’s a dumb segment involving amateur re-imaginings of Night of the Living Dead (1968), a zombie music video or silly interview with survivalists about the best weapons to use in case of a zombie attack.

The biggest problem with this tactic, quality of the goofy segments notwithstanding (and the quality really can be extraordinarily shabby, especially when compared to the relative polish of the rest of the film), is that it makes it seem as if the filmmakers don’t really care about their subject matter. This was the same team that put together The People vs George Lucas (2010), so they definitely have a reputation for irreverence, but the goofy tone just seems out-of-place most of the time. I found myself enjoying the “serious” parts of the film enough that I wanted more consistency but the inherently inconsistent nature of the film just made me tired and frustrated, by the end: I wanted more scholarship but the filmmakers wanted more “funny” scenes of badly made-up zombies stumbling around in domestic scenarios.

Ultimately, I didn’t hate Doc of the Dead: there’s too much good stuff here to completely write off the film. I just wish that Philippe and crew had been able to maintain a more consistent tone or, barring that, were able to craft something as humorous and entertaining as Mark Hartley’s Machete Maidens Unleashed (2010), which managed to be both scholarly and flat-out funny. Fans of zombies in film, TV and pop culture will find plenty to enjoy about Doc of the Dead (although most fanatics will have heard most of this stuff before) but the film is too lightweight to make much of an impact beyond the true believers…and the truly patient.

10/31/14 (Part Four): All Hail the Pumpkin King!

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31 Days of Halloween, A Christmas Story, Alberto Ghisi, Anna Paquin, anthology films, Brett Kelly, Brian Cox, Britt McKillip, cinema, Connor Levins, cult classic, cult films, Dylan Baker, father-son relationships, favorite films, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, Glen MacPherson, Halloween, Halloween night, Halloween traditions, holiday classics, horror, horror films, Isabelle Deluce, Jean-Luc Bilodeau, kids in peril, Lauren Lee Smith, Leslie Bibb, long-delayed films, Mark Freeborn, Michael Dougherty, Moneca Delain, Monsters, Movies, Peter Greenaway, Pulp Fiction, Quinn Lord, Rochelle Aytes, Sam, Samm Todd, serial killers, Tahmoh Penikett, Tony Wohlgemuth, Trick 'r Treat, werewolves, Wes Anderson, writer-director, zombies

What is the true meaning of Halloween? I don’t mean the historical origins, mind you: we could sit and debate pagan ceremonies, harvest festivals, etc…til the cows come home and still not get any closer to the actual answer. As we should all know by now, holidays have a way of shedding their original meanings over time, of morphing into decidedly different entities than they once were. Just as the concept of Christmas has, over time, become more secular/commercial and increasingly divorced from its religious origins, so, too, has the concept of Halloween lost much of its pagan origins and become something much more universal.

But none of this answers the original question: what, exactly, is the true meaning of Halloween? If I may be so bold, I think that I have the answer. Halloween is ghosts and curses, trick or treating and costumes. It’s parties, pranks, candy, the color orange and the long, slow death of Fall. Halloween is the one time of the year where everyone in the world, horror fans and neophytes alike, relish every possible opportunity to scare themselves senseless. Halloween is about ancient traditions, scary movies and jack-o’-lanterns.  It’s about becoming someone/thing other than what you are, if only for a night. Halloween is all about having fun…but it’s also about the realization that death is only ever a stone’s throw away, hiding off in the shadows to pounce on the unwary. What is Halloween? Halloween is writer-director Michael Dougherty’s flawless Trick ‘r Treat (2007), a film that manages to encompass everything great and terrible about the holiday into one neat little package. Think of Trick ‘r Treat as the equivalent to A Christmas Story (1983), one of those films that just sums up a time of year so perfectly that you can’t imagine celebrating without it.

Structurally, Trick ‘r Treat is an anthology film, albeit one more like Pulp Fiction (1994) than Creepshow (1982): rather than feature several separate stories, one after the other, all of the tales in Trick ‘r Treat are interwoven together. Characters from one story appear in the periphery of other segments: incidents seen from one angle are given a 360-view once we’re privy to all the details. The effect, quite frankly, is stunning: Dougherty creates such a unified vision that Trick ‘r Treat ends up being one of the most three-dimensional horror films ever…we really get to know the characters involved because we see so many different facets of them. The one constant that unites it all? The ever-present specter of Halloween and the diminutive, instantly classic presence of Sam, one of the greatest modern horror creations in recent memory.

Sam, clad in what appears to be a scarecrow’s garb, complete with burlap-sack mask, flits into and out of each of the film’s various stories. The stories themselves, ranging from a young woman’s (Anna Paquin) sexual awakening to the tragic story of a school bus full of drowned children, are familiar but are all given unique twists and turns courtesy of Dougherty’s exceptional script. Sam, the very embodiment of the holiday, serves a variety of roles throughout the film: avenging angel, detached observer, gleeful participant, mischievous prankster, cold-blooded killer.  We never know quite when or where he’ll pop up next but pop up, he always does, ready with a rakish tilt of the head and that terrifying lollipop-knife of his.

I mentioned earlier that Trick ‘r Treat is a flawless film and I stand by that bold admission: there’s absolutely nothing about the film that ever takes me out of it for even a moment and each viewing ends with the desire to start the whole thing over. The acting…the filmmaking…the script…even the opening credits, styled like an old EC Comic, ala Creepshow…are all absolutely perfect. It’s quite handily become one of my favorite films and is one of the few movies that I can unequivocally recommend to anyone, regardless of individual tastes: if you like movies, you will like Trick ‘r Treat…I guarantee it, as Justin Wilson used to say.

From a filmmaking standpoint, Trick ‘r Treat is absolutely gorgeous and brilliantly made: the production design and art direction (by Mark Freeborn and Tony Wohlgemuth) are simply stunning, especially in eye-popping scenes like the yard full of jack-o’-lanterns or the ridiculously creepy scene where the kids find the half-submerged school bus. Glen MacPherson’s cinematography is nothing less than beautiful, giving the film a feel that’s pitched halfway between Wes Anderson and Sam Raimi. Truth be told, Trick ‘r Treat’s entire mis en scene reminds me of Anderson’s work (or, perhaps, even the work of legendary filmmaker Peter Greenaway): every scene and shot is so immaculately composed that it almost feels as if one has stepped into a perfect, miniature diorama.

Ultimately, there’s not a whole lot more for me to say about the film: I love it unconditionally and that’s pretty much all there is to it. Prior to seeing Trick ‘r Treat (which was inexplicably dumped straight-to-DVD after being delayed for years), I had always considered Carpenter’s classic Halloween (1974) to be the perfect representation of the season. There’s so much care and craft in Dougherty’s feature-debut, however, such a complete and genuine love for all things Halloween, that it’s impossible not to see Trick ‘r Treat as the ultimate Halloween film, bar none.

What is Halloween? Quite simply, Halloween is Michael Dougherty’s Trick ‘r Treat: all hail the Pumpkin King and long may He reign!

10/31/14 (Part Two): The Unblinking Eye

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31 Days of Halloween, Amy Lalonde, auteur theory, Chris Violette, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Diary of the Dead, Film auteurs, found-footage films, George Romero, Greg Nicotero, horror franchises, Joe Dinicol, Josh Close, Land of the Dead, living dead, Megan Park, Michelle Morgan, Night of the Living Dead, Philip Riccio, R.D. Reid, Scott Wentworth, sequels, Shawn Roberts, student films, Tatiana Maslany, voice-over narration, writer-director, zombie apocalypse, zombies

At one point in Diary of the Dead (2007), George Romero’s fifth official “Dead” film, one of the characters wonders what compels us to stare at an accident but not offer assistance: we’ve become a society of cold, removed observers, she notes, as dead on the inside as the walking corpses that relentlessly hunt the living. It’s a thought-provoking observation and one that seems especially prescient in this era of social media and “cellphone journalists.” These days, Good Samaritans appear to be a thing of the past, concert-goers watch bands through their phones while standing three feet from the stage and the general public can receive nearly 24/7 celebrity updates via Twitter, Instagram, etc. Technological advancements have made it so that humans are more inter-connected than at any previous point in our history: never before has it been more possible for complete strangers on opposite sides of the world to “talk” than it is now. This, of course, makes it even more puzzling when close friends sit next to each other and text rather than, you know…speaking: never before have we been more connected yet simultaneously unplugged from the “real world.”

Like all of his “Dead” films, Romero’s Diary of the Dead is anything but a straight-forward zombie flick: Romero, after all, was the guy who inserted social commentary into the very DNA of the zombie film all the way back in 1968 with the incendiary Night of the Living Dead, taking on race relations, global unrest and the Vietnam War with equal aplomb. The follow-up, Dawn of the Dead (1978), took the very notion of consumerism and capitalism to task as survivors of the global zombie epidemic hole up in an abandoned shopping mall and live like royalty while the mindless flesh-eaters gather en masse outside the gate like so many rotting barbarians. Day of the Dead (1985) further explored Romero’s fascination with the notion of “evolving” zombies, as the undead gained more human attributes even as the actual human characters descended into a cartoonish maelstrom of prejudices, misplaced rage and violent tendencies. Romero followed up Day of the Dead twenty years later with the action-oriented Land of the Dead (2005), which tackled the eternal war between the haves and the have-nots, with the rich barricaded away from the world in a literal ivory tower before being turned into a smorgasbord by the living dead.

With Diary of the Dead, Romero takes an unflinching, if achingly obvious, look at the world of media and journalism, particularly the “infotainment” that has replaced our formerly unbiased news coverage as of late. Jason Creed (Josh Close), the student filmmaker at the heart of Diary’s storyline, has a very simple reason for being so compelled to finish his documentary about the zombie crisis, “cleverly” entitled “The Death of Death”: he wants to make sure that the truth makes it out there, somehow, amidst all the “conventional news resource bullshit.” In an era where it can sometimes be difficult to make out any individual voices, thanks to the excess of information bombarding us from every angle, Jason wants to be the voice of truth, a beacon in the wilderness: that he’s willing to constantly put himself and his friends in harm’s way to do so might make him some sort of martyr…or it might make him just as dangerous as the shuffling dead that continue to pop up everywhere.

Utilizing a found-footage aesthetic for the first time in the franchise’s history, Romero throws us right into the middle of the zombie apocalypse and gives us a front-row seat to the chaos, thanks to Jason’s unblinking camera and the host of other media (cell-phone videos, security cameras, news broadcasts) that help fill in gaps in the story. In some ways, Diary of the Dead serves as a kind of prequel to the other films (albeit one with a very different timeline), since it purports to show the period of time right after the dead begin to overtake the living. This ends up putting it in roughly the same time-period as Dawn of the Dead (1978), although the action has been wholesale moved forward about 30 years, which must certainly be the cost of doing business with a series that first kicked off in 1968.

As Jason and the rest of his film-crew, including Tony (Shawn Roberts), Ridley (Philip Riccio), Francine (Megan Park) and Eliot (Joe Dinicol) are out in the woods shooting a low-budget mummy epic (along with their film professor, Prof. Maxwell (Scott Wentworth)), reports begin to pour in about the dead returning to life and attacking the living. After opting to abandon his school project in lieu of turning his camera on the events around them, Jason leads his group back to their school so that he can meet up with his girlfriend, Debra (Michelle Morgan, whose voice-over narration quickly wears out its welcome). Everywhere they turn, however, there seems to be nothing but mounting danger. To make matters even hairier, the students notice that news broadcasts of the events are now being edited and given particular spins, slants which have nothing to do with disseminating the truth and everything to do with pushing forward an agenda.

Tension rises within the group, however, when Jason’s constant filming begins to wear on everybody: at one point, he even stays with his camera as its charging while the rest of his group are off trying to save one of their own. For Jason, his documentary is the only thing that matters now, a time-capsule that can explain the disaster to whoever manages to follow them. The rest of the group, however, tend to see things a bit differently: to them, Jason is hiding behind his camera in order to avoid facing the terrible reality that surrounds him. “There will always be people like you who want to document,” Prof. Maxwell scoffs at one point, venom dripping from every syllable. Even Debra begins to take her boyfriend to task, arguing with him about his unceasing focus on filming above and beyond everything else, including their personal safety. As the group begins to fracture and splinter, they all agree to make their way to the supposed safety of Ridley’s luxurious house. When they get there, however, they discover that their nightmare isn’t winding down: it’s just beginning.

Unlike Land of the Dead, Diary of the Dead is a distinctly more horror-driven enterprise, lacking the over-the-top action setpieces and overwhelming firepower of the fourth film while returning to the social commentary of the second film. On the surface, this would seem to make Diary a better “Dead” film than Land but, alas, that’s not necessarily the case. The acting here, for the most part, is a decided step down from the previous film, bringing us dangerously close to the over-the-top thespianism of Day of the Dead. The zombie elements, while well-done, almost seem a bit perfunctory, although there are two suitably gruesome setpieces involving a barbecued State Trooper and jar of acid to a zombie’s acid, respectively, that are pretty damn impressive. As with Land of the Dead, Greg Nicotero handled the zombie fx, which lends this a similar look, if on a decidedly lower budget.

One of the biggest issues with Diary of the Dead ends up being its highly melodramatic and constantly hectoring tone: so much of the film seems to devolve into amateurish young actors shouting at each other and sticking cameras in their faces that it sometimes has the feel of a student production, which is rather ironic considering the storyline. Michelle Morgan and Josh Close, in particular, get rather difficult to take seriously by the end since they’re both so damn intent on proving how serious they are: Debra’s voiceover is a constant presence in the film and, while it may deliver the occasional thought-provoking whopper (such as the aforementioned bit about modern folks and their detachment), it’s just as often prone to deliver ennui and vaguely revolutionary talk that does nothing but detract from the visual aspect of the film.

Unlike previous efforts like Night of the Living Dead or Dawn of the Dead (or even Land of the Dead, for that matter), the “message” in Diary of the Dead is right upfront and constantly shoved in the audience’s face: mainstream media is nothing but bullshit fear-mongering and independent news sources, whether individuals with cell-phones or underground agencies, are the only source for truth in an increasingly confusing world. It’s a great, valid message, one that I (personally) couldn’t agree more with. On the other hand, Romero is so heavy-handed with the message, so constantly “on-point” that it becomes wearing, after a while: the film is kind of like a street-corner preacher with an apple-box and a megaphone, shouting at passerby as they try to scurry away.

Where Diary really exceeds, surprisingly enough, is as a found-footage film. Romero addresses many of the inherent issues with found-footage films (added music/effects, unknown camera angles, constant filming during stressful situations) throughout the course of the movie and comes up with some rather reasonable twists on the formula. The film also handles its morbid humor in a more subtle way than Land of the Dead, recalling the drier tone of films like Night of the Living Dead or Day of the Dead. I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention that the final scene of the film is amazingly powerful, easily the equal of the iconic final moments of the original Night of the Living Dead. It has the quiet horror, subtle irony and terrible beauty that has always marked the best of Romero’s work, whether zombie-related or not…it’s a purely cinematic moment and, without a doubt, the strongest in the entire film. Were there more moments like the final image, perhaps my ultimate opinion on Diary of the Dead would be a bit more positive. As it stands, however, I always find myself a bit disappointed by this film: any Romero is a good thing, of course, but I can’t help but wish for a return to the glory days.

10/29/14 (Part One): Live By the Swatter, Die By the Stinger

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31 Days of Halloween, aliens, Brooke Nevin, Christopher Marquette, Deborah Geffner, E. Quincy Sloan, father-son relationships, flashbacks, giant bugs, giant insects, horror-comedies, human-spider hybrids, Infestation, Jim Cody Williams, Kyle Rankin, Linda Park, mutations, Ray Wise, reluctant hero, Wesley Thompson, writer-director, zombies

If there’s one thing that’s proven itself a time-tested, dependable trope in the sci-fi/horror world, it’s giant bugs attacking defenseless humans. It’s pretty much a no-brainer: most folks aren’t particularly fond of insects under the best of circumstances and the ones that are probably wouldn’t like them so much if they were the size of large horses. There’s something about bugs, in general, that’s almost alien: it’s no coincidence that so many filmmakers regularly use insectile elements in depictions of monsters and extraterrestrials.

Since the golden age of the giant bug movie in the ’50s, we’ve been treated to a pretty impressive menagerie of creepy crawly-focused films: audiences have thrilled as giant ants, spiders, wasps, cockroaches, scorpions, praying mantis, moths and ticks have all laid waste to the vestiges of human civilization. Science can’t help us…the military is defenseless…not much you can do about an “enemy” that outnumbers you a million to one, is there? To this long tradition of giant bug films, proudly add writer-director Kyle Rankin’s Infestation (2009), a snappy little horror-comedy that manages to overcome some rough patches and emerges as a fun choice for fans of the subgenre.

We begin “in the shit,” as it were, with an office building full of cocooned bodies and strange, beetle-like creatures roaming the halls, feeding on the captives. Our hero, Cooper (Christopher Marquette), has just fought his way out of his silken prison and has begun to free his co-workers, including Maureen (Deborah Geffner) and Jed (Jim Cody Williams). Via flashback, we learn that Cooper was actually sort of a lazy, do-nothing douchebag and that Maureen, his supervisor, had just fired him prior to the “event” that landed them all in their current predicament. That’s right, folks: we have ourselves another reluctant hero.

After freeing Maureen’s daughter, Sara (Brooke Nevin), Cooper leads the group, which now contains Leechee (Linda Park), Al (Wesley Thompson) and Al’s son, Hugo (E. Quincy Sloan), towards the presumed safety of his estranged survivalist father Ethan’s (Ray Wise) fortified bunker. All around them, the world seems to have gone to hell in a handbasket: giant wasp-things patrol the skies, swooping down to carry helpless victims away, while the beetle-creatures viciously attack anything they can hear, as they appear to be blind. To make matters worse, anyone who’s stung by one of the wasps becomes infected and gradually becomes a terrifying human-spider hybrid, adding a bit of a zombie element to proceedings.

Once at his father’s house, however, Cooper learns that Ethan isn’t particularly happy to see him. A power struggle ensues between father and son as both try to control the future of the group: Ethan wants to press on and find more survivors, while Cooper wants to plunge into the dark depths of the creatures’ nest and take on their queen, all in a desperate bid to safe humanity. Three guesses as to which path gets chosen and the first two, of course, don’t count.

For the most part, Infestation is lots of fun: the action is brisk and zany, the effects are actually really good (the human-spider hybrids are actually kind of amazing and made the 10-year-old boy in me super excited) and the cast is quite good. It’s always good to Ray Wise in anything and he certainly doesn’t disappoint here, turning in one of his trademark wise-ass/tough-guy roles but with enough paternal tenderness to sell his relationship with Cooper. Nevin holds her own as Sara, proving a gutsy, consistently interesting foil for Cooper. To be honest, only Marquette had to grow on me: for the first third of the film or so, I found Cooper to be nearly insufferable and I kept hoping that he’d get eaten and leave Sara as the defacto hero. No such luck, it turns out, although he did gradually reveal himself to be a more likeable character. A lot of this has to do with the writing, no doubt, but Marquette has a particular comic style that often reminded me of comedian Nick Swardson and could, in large doses, run rough-shod over the rest of the cast.

While the dialogue wasn’t always great and the film could, on occasion, be both clunky and inconsistent (the tone could swing wildly within the same scene, sometimes to the detriment of said scene), I really found myself drawn in by the energy and good-natured sense of fun. By the time everything wrapped-up with a gleefully gonzo homage to Aliens (1986), a set-up for an obvious sequel (Hugo looks off-screen, exclaims, and it cuts to credits) and a super-catchy Brit-poppy song over the end credits, I found myself quite fond of the film. While Infestation can, at times, have a bit of the feel of a Syfy film (albeit one of the better ones), it constantly strains against its limitations and is never less than entertaining. The biggest complement that I can pay the film is to say that I would gladly watch the (hopefully) inevitable sequel: if these are our new insect overlords, I’ll be happy to greet them with open arms.

10/27/14: Disease as Love, Death as Eroticism

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'70s films, 31 Days of Halloween, Allan Kolman, alternate title, apartment-living, auteur theory, Barbara Steele, body horror, Canadian films, Cathy Graham, cinema, David Cronenberg, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, Fred Doederlein, horror films, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Joe Silver, Joy Coghill, Lynn Lowry, Movies, parasites, Paul Hampton, possession, rape, Ronald Mlodzik, set in the 1970s, sexual violence, Shivers, Silvie Debois, Society, Susan Petrie, They Came From Within, Vlasta Vrana, writer-director, zombie films, zombies

In the world of horror filmmaking, it’s not uncommon for fledgling directors to first cut their teeth on low-budget zombie flicks: after all, ever since George A. Romero kicked the door in with his revolutionary Night of the Living Dead (1968), the walking dead have become an ingrained part of the horror industry, even bleeding over into pop culture over time. Over forty years removed from Romero’s modest black and white chiller, we now live in a day and age when graphic fare like The Walking Dead can become a hit television series: stick that in your pipe and smoke it, NYPD Blue!

Why do zombie films make such good “starter projects,” however? For one thing, zombie films lend themselves well to a low-budget aesthetic: as Romero proved, you don’t really need more than a willing group of actors, a dedicated location and rudimentary special effects to capture an audience’s attention…in fact, grainy, visceral images tend to heighten the impact of zombie films, not detract from them. The same can’t really be said for any other over-arching horror subset, for the most part, unless one is discussing slasher films: trying making a sci-fi-horror film “on the cheap” and see how effective it is. For another thing, zombie films readily lend themselves to a filmmaker’s desire to “shake things up”: individual filmmakers can mess around with the origin of the infection, the behavior of the dead, the general world around the characters, the internal politics, etc…and come up with a hundred different films off of the same basic “the dead get up and eat the living” log-line. It’s a generic “recipe” that can be turned into an awful lot of different dishes.

To this group of filmmakers who got their start with zombie flicks, be sure to add the inimitable, confounding, living legend that is Canadian body horror auteur David Cronenberg. Although Cronenberg’s first films were actually a pair of art features, he first gained notice with his third film (technically his first feature, as the others were right around an hour apiece). Shivers (1975), known in some circles by the far kitchier title They Came From Within, might be early Cronenberg, but anyone familiar with his career will see the through-line with little trouble: chilly, clinical, unemotional, obsessed with yet disgusted by sexual activity, full of skin-crawling body horror elements and ooky practical effects…in other words, classic Cronenberg.

Kicking off with an effective faux-infomercial for Starliner Island, a self-contained community with everything from apartments to stores and recreational areas, we’re given a sneak peek into what will become our besieged farmhouse, as it were: Starliner Towers. We’re introduced to a number of characters, including Nick Tudor (Allan Kolman) and his wife, Janine (Susan Petrie); the apartment’s manager, Mr. Merrick (Ronald Mlodzik); resident physician Dr. Roger St. Luc (Paul Hampton) and his nurse/paramour, Miss Forsythe (Lynn Lowry); the Svibens (Vlasta Vrana, Silvie Debois) and, perhaps most importantly, Dr. Emil Hobbes (Fred Doederlein) and teenager Annabelle (Cathy Graham). When we first meet Hobbes and Annabelle, the good doctor is strangling the young woman, after which he cuts her open and proceeds to pour acid into her chest cavity before slitting his own throat. As we might gather, all is not sunshine and warm summer breezes here at Starliner Towers…not by a long shot.

As it turns out, Dr. Hobbes, along with his partner, Rollo Linsky (Joe Silver), was working on a way to use parasites as an alternative to organ transplants: the researchers wanted to breed special parasites to take over the organs in a sick person’s body, allowing them to opportunity to heal internally. Somewhere along the way, however, something went drastically wrong (or drastically right, as we’ll come to learn later): the parasites are now jumping from host to host, taking over their victim’s bodies and transforming them into mindless, sexually ravenous zombies. As more and more residents of Starliner Towers fall prey to the disgusting, fleshy slug-things, Roger and Nurse Forsythe, along with Dr. Linsky, must do all they can to remain uninfected, all while frantically searching for some cure to this disorder. In no time, however, the trio find themselves trapped in a house of horrors that’s one part orgy, one part stone-cold nightmare. This is no ordinary “zombie infection,” however: as the ill-fated protagonists will discover, what’s taking place may be as simple and terrifying as the next step in human evolution…an evolutionary move that may see humanity wave goodbye to its cosmic neighbors and embrace a way of life that can best be described as primal, animalistic and completely free of the niceties of polite society.

As with the majority of Cronenberg’s “body horror” films, Shivers can be a massively unpleasant piece of work, especially once one takes into account the added weight of the violent sexuality aspect: if you’re the kind of audience member who shudders at the thought of nasty little slug creatures crawling into every orifice imaginable, you might want to give this a wide berth. For everyone else, however, Shivers serves as an interesting reminder of where Cronenberg started, a particular psychosexual neighborhood that he still lives in, even though his most recent body of work has tended to minimize the sci-fi/horror elements while playing up his more violent tendencies.

Like The Brood (1979), Scanners (1981) and Videodrome (1983), Shivers is a chilly, spartan, clinical film, all blown-out whites, hard-shadows and insidious things happening in the background. It’s a meticulously crafted film, which is par for the course with Cronenberg, but it’s also a very detached film, so unemotional as to occasionally seem aloof. Paul Hampton, in particular, has a bearing about him that seems to speak more to extreme boredom and ennui than the “normal” emotions one might expect from someone under attack from mind-controlling parasites. Truth be told, much of the acting in the film is rather rough and detached, with the exception of genre-vet Barbara Steele, who turns in one of her typically hot-blooded performances as Mrs. Tudor’s friend, Betts. Shivers is also one of the few Cronenberg films, his adaptation of Stephen King’s Dead Zone (1983) being another, to feel distinctly dated and “of its time.”

For all of its rough edges and occasional tonal missteps (one scene involving a slug “jumping” at a woman is very silly and reminds of something Paul Bartel might have snickered his way through), however, Shivers is still undoubtedly a Cronenberg film. When the film is firing on all cylinders, such as the horrifying finale that handily presages Brian Yuzna’s equally yucky (if brilliant) Society (1989), it’s an unbeatable, claustrophobic nightmare. The notion of the “new flesh” that Cronenberg explored so brilliantly in Videodrome seems to get its genesis here, as does his career-long melding of disease, sex and bodily functions. Shivers is also a much more streamlined, “simple” film than Cronenberg’s later work, which helps to amplify the genre elements: in many ways, this is one of the auteur’s purest horror films, hands down.

Despite being a lifelong fan of Cronenberg’s horror films, I must admit to really relishing his more recent “non-horror” films like Spider (2002), A History of Violence (2005), Eastern Promises (2007) and A Dangerous Method (2011). As of late, it seems to me that Cronenberg has sharpened his already lethal skills into a fine, diamond-edged blade: his films may be decidedly less “icky” than they used to be, but the grue has been traded for devastating insights into the human condition that are that much more powerful for being delivered relatively straight-faced. That being said, however, I’ll always have a soft-spot in my heart for his early genre work, especially when I’m feeling down on the human condition, in general. As Cronenberg knows so well, despite all of our innovations, art, emotion and high-minded morality, we’re all just sacks of meat, at the end of the day: clockwork piles of blood, guts, sinew and muscle that may aim for the heavens but spend the majority of our lives wallowing in the muck.

10/22/14 (Part Two): The Second Time’s Not the Charm

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31 Days of Halloween, abandoned bunkers, betrayal, Black Sun, Catherine Steadman, cinema, Clive Russell, co-writers, Daniel Caltagirone, David Gant, Dog Soldiers, film reviews, films, horror, horror films, horror franchises, Julian Wadham, Michael Byrne, Movies, Nazi hunters, Nazi zombies, Nazis, Nick Nevern, Outpost, Outpost: Black Sun, Philip Rosch, Rae Brunton, Richard Coyle, sequel, set in Eastern Europe, Steve Barker, writer-director, zombies

Despite really enjoying Steve Barker’s “Nazi zombies vs mercenaries” chiller, Outpost (2007), I was more than a little wary when I heard that he would be releasing a sequel some five years later (late?). While the original Outpost featured an open ending, I assumed this was just a de rigueur “downer” finale and wouldn’t necessarily translate to an actual sequel: silly me. As it turns out, Black Sun (2012) would be but the first sequel released: shortly afterword, a third film, Rise of the Spetsnaz (2013) would be announced. Suddenly, Barker’s modest little zombie/war hybrid went from a stand-alone film to a veritable franchise. Too much of a good thing? Alas, as far as Black Sun is concerned, the answer seems to be a resounding “yes”: what seemed fresh and genuinely spooky the first time around has been beaten into a pulpy mess that vaguely resembles a Syfy-channel take on Outpost. In other words, pretty much the last thing anyone was hoping to find.

Beginning pretty much right after the proceedings from the first film, Black Sun wastes no time in tossing us headfirst into the increasingly complex storyline. We learn that Hunt (Julian Wadham), the unfortunate bureaucrat from the first film, was actually working for a group of modern-day Nazis who seek to use the mysterious machine to raise an army of the living dead in order to take over the world: the 4th Reich, if you will. Chief among the Nazis is the elderly Klausener (David Gant), one of the engineers who originally built the machine and a close confident of the undead commandant from the original film.

Our protagonist this time around is Lena (Catherine Steadman), a Nazi hunter who has taken up the mantle from her father and has been tracking Klausener and his supporters for years. Tracking them to the same part of Eastern Europe where the original Outpost took place, Lena runs into an ex-boyfriend, Wallace (Richard Coyle), who appears to be some sort of shadowy mercenary-type. The pair quickly falls in with another paramilitary group, this time led by Macavoy (Daniel Caltagirone), and soon find themselves back at that old familiar bunker. After spending the first 50 minutes of the film running around the countryside, Black Sun finally decides to get us to the good stuff and heads into the claustrophobic bunker for another all-out fight between good and evil. One of the members of the group isn’t quite who he claims to be, however, and a stunning act of betrayal may doom them all to the same fate as the poor mercs from the original film.

For the most part, nearly everything about Black Sun is a lesser version of its predecessor: the effects aren’t as good, the acting is more over-the-top (in particular, Wadham’s return performance as Hunt is a real vein-popper and extremely tedious) and the whole thing devolves into the kind of generic action sequences that are used to pad the run-time of various direct-to-TV “epics.” The storyline becomes needlessly complicated, shooting for something resembling the epic world-building of Hellboy (2004) but on a poverty-row budget.

While Steadman isn’t terrible as Lena, I really wish I could say the same thing about poor Richard Coyle. Despite being a huge fan of his work in the British sitcom Coupling, as well as his utterly delightful performance in Grabbers (2012), I found Coyle’s performance in Black Sun to be off-putting, irritating and tonally inconsistent. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, trust me (he’s easily one of my favorite character actors), but there’s nothing about his take on Wallace that notable for any of the right reasons. Steadman and Coyle have zero chemistry, which makes their backstory about being “passionate lovers” rather suspect: if anything, Wallace always seems like a suspicious asshole, rendering the “surprise” developments in his character pretty moot. Unlike the first film, where Ray Stevenson provided a ridiculously charismatic lead, neither Steadman nor Coyle have what it takes to rivet the audience’s attention.

The strangest thing about Black Sun’s failure is that the core creative team, director Barker and writer Rae Brunton, are back but the script is so much worse than the first film. Perhaps this can be chalked up to Barker sharing a co-writing credit with Brunton…perhaps the pair just realized they really didn’t have anything left to say on the subject. For whatever reason, however, Black Sun comes across as flat, needlessly silly and way too proud of mediocre action sequences for its own good: it’s like a formerly straight-A student bragging about scoring all Cs…it just doesn’t make sense.

Ultimately, despite wanting Black Sun to succeed, my earlier suspicions were right on the nose: rather than existing for any good reason, Black Sun seems to be just another sequel, attempting to replicate the original films successes without having a single new thought to get across. While there are plenty of good moments (some great) and pulpy thrills to be found in Black Sun, it’s such a huge step-down from the first film that I couldn’t help but be massively disappointed. Perhaps the third installment, Rise of the Spetsnaz, will correct the issues and get the ship sailing full-steam ahead. Unfortunately, my intuition tells me that one’s probably a stinker, too.

10/22/14 (Part One): When History Just Won’t Stay Buried

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31 Days of Halloween, abandoned bunkers, Brett Fancy, British films, cinema, Dead Snow, directorial debut, Dog Soldiers, Enoch Frost, ensemble cast, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, horror, horror films, horror franchises, Julian Rivett, Julian Wadham, Michael Smiley, Movies, Nazi zombies, Nazis, Neil Marshall, Oasis of the Zombies, Outpost, Paul Blair, Rae Brunton, Ray Stevenson, Richard Brake, set in Eastern Europe, soldiers, Steve Barker, UK films, zombies

Despite having seen so few good ones, I’ve always been a fan of Nazi zombie flicks. Chalk it up to seeing “classics” like Shock Waves (1977) and Oasis of the Zombies (1981) when I was I kid but I’ve always had a soft spot for shockers that feature the undead SS, especially when said films tend to take a more serious, dark approach. While Oasis, Shock Waves and Zombie Lake (1981) are all pretty silly entries in this particular subgenre, there have also been real gems like The Bunker (2001), Blood Creek (2009), the hilarious Dead Snow (2009) and The Keep (1983) (although The Keep is a bit of a cheat since it features Nazis and a demon but no Nazi zombies). Chief among these “good” Nazi zombie films, however, would have to be Steve Barker’s creepy, atmospheric feature-debut, Outpost (2007). Making good use of a strong ensemble cast and some genuinely eerie locations, Outpost is a rock-solid horror film that resembles Neil Marshall’s excellent Dog Soldiers (2002) yet manages to have an identity all its own.

Kicking off in present-day Eastern Europe, a fussy bureaucrat by the name of Hunt (Julian Wadham) hires a team of mercenaries to take him into a dangerous no-man’s land so that he can access a long-abandoned World War II-era bunker. Hunt tells the team that he’s after mineral deposits but merc leader DC (Rome’s Ray Stevenson) has his doubts, especially when his team appears to get fired on by unseen assailants. Returning fire with a zeal that should’ve laid a whole city flat, the mercenaries come to find that not only aren’t there any bodies in the nearby woods, there aren’t even any shell casings or signs that anything living was ever in the area.

Things get even eerier once the team descends into the bunker and realizes that nothing is quite as it seems. For one thing, the bunker appears to be an old Nazi fortification, as evidenced by the enormous swastika found in one of the chambers. There’s also an inexplicable room full of dead bodies, bodies which appear to belong to the poor, unfortunate locals in the area. Most importantly, however, the group also comes across a large, mysterious machine that appears to be part combustion engine, part science experiment. This, of course, is the reason that Hunt needed to come to the bunker: in the end, it always come around to some button-pusher’s hidden agenda, doesn’t it?

All hell breaks loose when Hunt powers on the machine and its seems to have the effect of raising the dead, unleashing an army of zombified Nazi soldiers upon the unfortunate mercs and their employer. Unlike the gut-munching zombies of Romero’s classic Night of the Living Dead (1968), these Nazis are the weapon-utilizing variety found in Lenzi’s Nightmare City (1980): in no time, the soldiers are locked in a desperate life-or-death struggle against creatures that shrugged off the mortal coil some time in the past but just can’t seem to stay dead. One zombie in particular, a mute, stone-faced commandant, appears to take charge of the undead legion, leading his troops in blood-thristy pursuit against the living. As DC’s men are picked off, one by one, he must uncover the secret behind the machine and figure out Hunt’s real reason for being there: otherwise, he’s going to be just another body for the war machine to roll over.

Similar to Marshall’s Dog Soldiers, Outpost ends up being an excellent, fast-paced and atmospheric war-horror hybrid that features some fantastic effects work (the makeup, in particular, is great), evocative cinematography and eerie sound design. The bunker location is a truly awesome setting and utilized to great effect by Barker and director of photography Gavin Struthers, in only his second full-length film. The filmmakers wring endless mileage out of the mercs slipping from one dark tunnel to the next, often lit by nothing more than the gentle glow of a light stick: to be honest, it never really gets old, testament to the importance of a good location.

In another nod to Marshall’s debut, the ensemble cast in Outpost is particularly strong, ably anchored by Stevenson’s authoritative performance as DC (in an odd coincidence, Stevenson’s partner-in-Rome, Kevin McKidd, was also in Dog Soldiers). The whole cast is solid, however, featuring reliable character actors like Michael Smiley, Richard Brake and Enoch Frost: their interactions ring true, for the most part, and it’s pretty easy to believe that these guys are not only former soldiers but current comrades, despite their often bristly relationships. Actually caring about the characters is one of the prime requisites for separating “decent” horror films from “good” ones and Outpost has this handily locked down.

While the “zombies using weapons” aspect was initially a little off-putting (I prefer my zombies to be old-school, meaning they shuffle, stumble and chew with their mouths open), it actually fits in perfectly with the film’s “soldier” theme and leads to some truly disturbing scenes, such as the one where the Nazis hammer bullets into one of the mercs. These Nazi are soldiers, first, and zombies second, which is actually kind of refreshing. Despite being more military than monstrous, the Nazis still manage to cut quite the terrifying figures: the scene where they slowly emerge from the woods, surrounded by fog and backlit by a blinding white light, is instantly reminiscent of both Carpenter’s classic The Fog (1980) and Bava’s stylish Demons (1985) and is a real corker.

Ultimately, Outpost succeeds so well because it has modest ambitions and executes them with a sturdy, self-assured hand. While the “mysterious machine” aspect of the film tends to get a little overly complicated (I’m still not quite sure what the logistics of the Nazi plan was supposed to be, although it was obviously nefarious), there’s no shortage of genuine chills and shocks to be found, making sure that the film stays firmly planted in “horror” territory. The ending even leaves the door wide open for a sequel, a promise which Barker would make good on a few years later with Outpost: Black Sun (2012), followed by a further entry, Outpost: Rise of the Spetsnaz in 2013, albeit one not directed by Barker.

And there you have it: a great setting, strong cast, smart script and creative kill scenes combine to make one helluva horror movie. While the early days of the Nazi zombie film might have been overly silly, it looks like Barker is helping to give them a little legitimacy. Here’s to hoping that the Outpost franchise continues to deliver quality chills into the distant future: for this guy, at least, you can never have too many Nazi zombies wandering around.