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AWESOME-tober-fest 2013: Herbert West – Reanimator by HP Lovecraft (1922)

Posted in books, Halloween, movies, pop culture with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2013, Book Report, books, Halloween, holiday, HP Lovecraft, monsters, movies, pop culture, zombies on October 7, 2013 by Paxton

Today I’m going to look at a short story by one of horror’s most celebrated writers, HP Lovecraft. I’ve not really read any of his stuff before, so I thought this would be as good a chance as any to rectify the situation. I found a collection of his stories on Paperbackswap.com last year. That collection is called The Road to Madness: The Transition of HP Lovecraft.

The collection includes Lovecraft’s novella At the Mountains of Madness which Guillermo Del Toro has been trying to set up as a film adaptation for many years. But the story I was actually looking for was Herbert West – Reanimator. It was this short story on which the classic 1985 horror film The Re-animator starring Jeffrey Combs is based.

I, for one, love that cheesy horror film from 1985. So, I thought that since I was doing zombies for my Halloween theme, I’d not only revisit the awesome Re-animator movie but I’d also read and review the original Lovecraft short story.

And now I’ve read it. To be honest, the story isn’t the best. It’s not terrible, it’s just sort of fast paced and feels more like an outline of a larger story. The short story is broken up into 4 parts. While reading, it really felt like Lovecraft was repeating himself across the four parts as he continually describes Herbert West’s looks (slight in build, glasses, blond hair) and the events of the previous part of the story. In action that only takes place in about 50 pages, it gets a little annoying. I assumed while reading that this must have been originally serialized in a magazine and Lovecraft was just “refreshing” the reader’s memory from last time. And after some research I see that I’m right. The story was originally published in four parts in the amateur magazine Home Brew in 1922.

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The story is very clearly based on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. A brilliant but single-minded and unorthodox scientist, Herbert West, conducts arcane and taboo experiments on human bodies trying to reanimate dead tissue. The story is told by a narrator who has been Herbert West’s assistant/apprentice for many years. It starts off with experiments while the youths are in medical school and each part tells a different time in their lives when they begin their experiments anew. The story is told by the assistant from some unknown time in the future as he’s looking back on the events which led to Dr Herbert West’s disappearance.

Don’t get me wrong, I liked the story, I guess. There is potential there and this story is much more serious in tone and dark in nature than the movie which infuses lots of humor into the story. I guess, for better or for worse, that I just know the Re-Animator movie so well that the original story just seems odd to me.

Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.

AWESOME-tober-fest 2013: Return of the Living Dead (1985)

Posted in 80s, monsters, movies, pop culture, zombies with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2013, Halloween, holiday, monsters, movies, pop culture, reviews, zombies on October 4, 2013 by Paxton

Today I return to what I remember as one of my favorite zombie movies, The Return of the Living Dead. I saw it a few times back in the day and loved it. I even had the poster on my bedroom wall for years. I personally don’t think zombies are that interesting of a monster (have I said that a few times this month?) so I like it when a movie plays with the genre and gives you something you don’t expect. Like humor. This is a funny zombie movie.

Anywho, back in the day, I was unaware of the interesting history behind this particular movie and it’s origins with the godfather of zombie movies, Night of the Living Dead.

After the success and controversy over Night of the Living Dead, director George Romero and writer John Russo parted ways. Romero left with the rights to make his “of the Dead” sequels and Russo received the rights to any “living dead” movies.

After Russo’s split with Romero, in 1978 he wrote a serious Night of the Living Dead sequel called Return of the Living Dead. Russo shopped this around to studios as a script. It was bought by producer Tom Fox. Tom Fox gave the book to Dan O’Bannon who re-wrote the script to be more humorous and further differentiate it from Romero’s movies. This new humorous and irreverent zombie movie bears little resemblance to Russo’s original story. The movie was originally supposed to be in 3-D and directed by Tobe Hooper. However, Hooper dropped out and O’Bannon went ahead as director.

The movie was finally released in 1985.

The movie is sort of a humorous side-quel to Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. As explained in the beginning of the movie, the zombie ghouls in Romero’s movie were caused by a chemical called Trioxin. When the army was cleaning up the bodies and contaminated soil, some of their trucks mistakenly delivered their cargo to the Uneeda Medical Supply warehouse where they sat for like 20 years until two warehouse workers mistakenly crack open one of the drums, release the chemical and cause corpses to start rising from the grave again. And all hell breaks loose.

The zombies in this movie are a little different than the usual zombies you are used to. They can speak. There is a scene in which our heroes actually interrogate a zombie to find out why they eat humans. Several times zombies use a CB radio to call more paramedics and cops so they’ll have more brains to eat. Oh, and this movie was the genesis of the idea that zombies eat brains. Romero made his zombies cannibals who ate human flesh. These zombies can eat flesh, but they NEED brains and many walk around screaming “BRAINS!” You even see a few zombies using tools like hammers and clubs. They can also open doors and set up elaborate traps like using a pulley to pry open locker doors where people are hiding. It’s a little odd to see that now because most zombies these days can’t speak and shamble along just grunting. But I kinda liked it.

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If nothing else, this movie is fun. Low rent and cheesy, but fun. The main teens are a bunch of punkers, suitably dressed and named things like Suicide, Meat, Trash, etc. Of course, Linnea Quigley plays the slutty Trash and spends the middle part of the movie mostly naked running from zombies. Then running around as a zombie. The character of Freddy is played by Thom Matthews who the very next year would go on to play Tommy in Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives. Then, in 1988 he’d appear in the sequel, The Return of the Living Dead Part II, but as a completely different character. Not sure how that works as I haven’t seen any of the FOUR sequels they made to this movie. But I plan on giving them a chance.

And if you haven’t seen this movie, and you like cheesy 80s horror, then give this movie a chance. It’s still pretty entertaining.

And I can’t say enough how good the original soundtrack is with punk and hard rock and roll tracks all over it with bands like The Cramps, 45 Grave, TSOL and SSQ.

Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.

AWESOME-tober-fest 2013: The Purple Smurfs (1981)

Posted in 80s, cartoons, monsters, pop culture, TV shows, zombies with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2013, cartoons, Halloween, holiday, monsters, pop culture, The Smurfs, TV shows, zombies on October 3, 2013 by Paxton

The sixteenth episode of Season 1 of The Smurfs cartoon was called The Purple Smurfs. It aired in October 1981. purple_smurfs_title This particular episode of The Smurfs has become infamous as the “zombie smurfs” episode.

We start off with Papa Smurf waking up on the wrong side of the smurf this morning. He gets pissed at all his little smurfs cause they aren’t working hard enough and starts acting like kind of a smurfing smurf to everyone. Check him out below dressing down Lazy Smurf for sleeping on the job. I mean, the dude’s NAME is Lazy, why are you surprised?
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After bottling up the continued mental and verbal abuse of Papa Smurf, Lazy Smurf goes off to chop some wood in the forest and encounters the rare and elusive “purple fly”.

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Yes, that’s its name, “purple fly”. I know because Papa Smurf calls it that later in the episode. The “purple fly” bites Lazy on the tail which turns him into a mindless purple smurf monster that only says “GNAP!”

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Zombie Lazy Smurf goes on a smurf tail biting rampage and starts turning the entire village into purple smurfs. Papa starts freaking the f**k out as all of his precious smurfs are getting smurfed into zombies.

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At first, Papa Smurf is able to identify the problem; the “purple fly” biting Lazy Smurf. But it’s been so long since this has been a problem that he can’t remember the solution (what?!). So Papa gets a team to go out into the woods to find this “purple fly”. It’s unclear whether this “purple fly” is only 1 fly or a whole species of fly. However, if there were a bunch of these things flying around the forest you’d think they would have been a problem in more recent memory and Papa would know what to goddam do about this situation. But he doesn’t so he has to improvise.

So Papa and his “purple fly retrieval team” go to the EXACT spot in the forest that happens to contain this rare zombie creating fly. He then captures it with a net that has holes that are clearly big enough for the fly to escape, but doesn’t for some reason.

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Papa starts experimenting on the fly but can’t seem to figure out a cure for the purple zombie smurfs. And these zombie smurfs are getting worse. They are spreading like wildfire and they have become incredibly smart. Zombie Hefty Smurf actually steals some blue paint and paints himself to look like a regular smurf so he can move around and bite smurf asses covertly. Like a ninja. A zombie smurf ass biting ninja.

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Not sure how or why the heart tattoo on Hefty’s right arm isn’t painted over with blue. I don’t think paint works like that.

So eventually, while fighting the purple smurfs, all of the smurfs are transformed into zombies except Papa Smurf. And, of course, he’s surrounded.

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He manages to escape that ring of purple smurf zombie death (check out zombie Smurfette in the upper left) and gets to his little hut where he keeps the cure. But not before he gets bitten and turned himself. Just as his hut catches on fire. The Smurfs are DOOOOOOOOOMED!!

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What happens? Tune in next time, same smurf time, same smurf channel.

Honestly, this is a fun episode. I enjoyed the purple smurf shenanigans. It had much of the zombie tropes you’d see in low budget horror movies of the 80s. And surprisingly, this entire cartoon story is based on a storyline that appeared in the original Smurf French comic strips back in 1959 (a full NINE YEARS before Romero’s Night of the Living Dead).

Check out this episode if you have a chance. It’s easily found online.

Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.

AWESOME-tober-fest 2013: Image’s The Walking Dead comic (2003)

Posted in comic books, monsters, zombies with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2013, Cavalcade Comics, comic books, Halloween, holiday, monsters, zombies on October 2, 2013 by Paxton

In 2003 Image Comics released the first issue of The Walking Dead, a comic written by Robert Kirkman. The comic sort of became a phenomenon among the comic reader crowd. Robert Kirkman was the up and coming star for Image. He also wrote the comics Invincible and The Astounding Wolf-Man as well as the original Marvel Zombies storylines.

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Even though I’m a huge Kirkman fan and have read the previously mentioned books, I never once had picked up an issue of The Walking Dead. It was getting a bit out of control. With the popularity of the TV show and the books taking off, everyone was telling me it was the greatest thing ever. Why hadn’t I read it? You NEED to read it. It was getting old and I just shut down. If too many people at once tell me how great something is I tend to turn on that thing and say, “You know what, F**K you, Walking Dead. You think you’re better than me?” I mean, Chris Lockhart and Jeff Brown over on the Geek Fallout podcast fawn all over this franchise so much I fully expect to see them at a commitment ceremony standing next to the Omnibus editions. So for several years I had a chip on my shoulder about this comic (and the TV series, really).

This “chip” is one of the reasons I didn’t choose zombies as my Halloween topic last year; to avoid having to read these comics or watch the show. And, the MOMENT I decided on zombies for THIS year, I knew I couldn’t avoid it any longer. So I sucked it up and acquired the first 5 volumes of trades for the series. These trades collect the first 30 issues of the title.

I figure 30 issues is enough to form an opinion about the comic series. And it’ll help me decide if I want to spend the time watching the show.

So, as you can see by my long, rambling intro, I had NO IDEA what this comic was about other than zombies. So I dove in and started reading. The comic is extremely well written, but I wasn’t surprised about that as I’m a big Kirkman fan anyway. The characters are interesting and it actually, for the most part, feels like what would probably happen if there was a zombie apocalypse. However, the story becomes exceedingly bleak and dark the further you go into the series. It almost becomes a chore to read. This stark bleakness is absolutely one of the series’ strengths while simultaneously being it’s biggest weakness. There’s just no hope. Things keep getting worse.

By the time I finished the fifth trade, I had just met The Governor and his fortress-like city. This character is great, but exceedingly ruthless. He does many despicable things to some of our heroes. However, the character was charismatic and fascinating to read. It sort of made me want to read more. So, even though, like I said, I was getting weary of the sadness of the story, I was consistently intrigued enough in the events to continue reading. I was both relieved and disappointed to reach issue #30. But, that was where my collection ended, so I couldn’t move forward even if I wanted to.

Like I said, I liked the books. At some point I’ll continue reading, but I think I’m taking a bit of a sabbatical from this story. Again, great writing and the minimalist black and white artwork only adds to the atmosphere. If you haven’t, definitely give this comic a chance. But be aware, it’s not for the timid.

Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.

AWESOME-tober-fest 2013: I finally watch Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Posted in monsters, movies, zombies with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2013, Halloween, holiday, monsters, movies, reviews, zombies on October 1, 2013 by Paxton

And AWESOME-tober-fest 2013 begins! I thought it would be most appropriate if I started off this year by watching one of the seminal zombie flicks of all time. It’s considered the genre standard and I’ve never watched it. That’s right, I’ve never watched Romero’s classic zombie flick, Night of the Living Dead.

When I decided to do zombies this year, I realized there was no getting around it. I’d pretty much have to watch Romero’s original zombie classic. So I grabbed a copy of the movie, sat down with my thoughts and gave the flick a spin. Let’s see if I think it deserves all “the hype”.

While it’s not the first movie to use the zombie, it is the first to create the modern concept of the zombie as a flesh eating ghoul. Before this movie, zombies were people who were under the control of a voodoo witch doctor via black magic. Most notably in movies like Bela Lugosi’s White Zombie. This movie introduced zombies as the reanimated dead feasting on living flesh (not just brains, these ghouls were cannibals).

The movie is legendary for its copyright problems. It seems the filmmakers forgot to put a copyright mark on the film. And according to the laws at the time, this let the film fall into the public domain which is why you see 3000 different releases of the movie featuring different footage, new footage, colorized and with any number other bells and whistles. So I decided to just watch the original theatrical cut. It’s the easiest to find. Since it’s public domain, it can legally be uploaded to YouTube. And it’s there.

After all of these years, what did I think? It’s not bad. I appreciate the historical significance of the movie, but putting that aside, it’s only an okay movie. What struck me watching it was how much it reminded me of the original Universal Monsters movies like Frankenstein or Dracula. Filmed in black and white with a very old fashioned orchestral score, the movie had the atmosphere and tone of one of the old classic monster movies. Since I’m a huge fan of those movies, that certainly helped my enjoyment. I like the portrayal of the ghouls. Shambling, undead monsters out to consume human flesh. They are a little smarter than I expected because in a few scenes they wind up using tools. For instance, one ghoul uses a rock to bash in a window. That’s something you don’t normally associate with Romero’s zombies. The main actor, Duane Jones, was actually pretty good. It’s surprising to see an African-American actor get this type of a role in a movie in 1968. But seeing as how this movie was total indie from the ground up, I guess that made it easier to do.

Did I have any problems with the movie? Yeah. Like the ghouls, the movie tends to shamble along aimlessly in the middle. There are endless scenes of Jones’ character nailing boards over doorways and windows in the house the group of survivors have chosen as sanctuary. And some of the supporting cast are not very good actors. I guess you expect that to a degree, but the competence of Duane Jones as Ben further showcases the other actors’ deficiencies.

If I had seen this movie in my hey day as a horror hound, the late 80s-early 90s, when I was voraciously reading Fangoria and watching movies like The Re-animator and Friday the 13th, I probably would have loved it. As it is, watching it today, I only liked it. What may also count against this movie is that zombies aren’t really my favorite monsters. Inherently, they are boring to me. Unless something different is done with the zombie like was done in Shaun of the Dead or Zombieland, then I really don’t have much interest in it. And that’s mostly what this movie suffers from for me. Being boring.

However, thanks to this year’s AWESOME-tober-fest, I’m finding affection for many zombie things; like the comic The Walking Dead, but that’s more the exception than the rule. And that’s a review for another day…

Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.