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AWESOME-tober-fest 2013: Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive (1992)

Posted in monsters, movies, nostalgia, pop culture, zombies with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2013, Halloween, holiday, monsters, movies, nostalgia, pop culture, reviews, zombies on October 18, 2013 by Paxton

Today I’m going to take a look at Peter Jackson’s 1992 cult zombie film, Dead Alive.

Suprisingly, I’d never seen this movie before. I used to be a big gore hound in the late 80s. I’d heard of it at the time, but never had a chance to watch it. I like Peter Jackson’s films for the most part. The first Peter Jackson movie I ever watched was probably The Frighteners with Michael J Fox and I loved it. I even saw his ultra-cult hit Meet the Feebles. So I’m a little behind the curve on this particular movie. But with my zombie Halloween theme this year I thought this would be the perfect time to rectify this situation. So I watched it.

And I didn’t just love it. Don’t get me wrong, there were some funny and weird moments that I enjoyed. I probably would have enjoyed this even more if I had watched it with a bunch of buddies and beer or had I watched it back in the 90s. But, let’s not dwell on what I didn’t like, I’ll talk about some of the stuff I enjoyed.

I liked the leads well enough. Timothy Balme as Lionel was suitably awkward and Diana Peñalver was adorable and cute as Paquita. The crux of the story is an interesting origin for the zombie plague. It all starts with a rare mutant animal called a Sumatran Rat-Monkey that is created by plague rats raping tree monkeys. Yes, you read that right. One of these disgusting looking Rat-Monkeys is, mistakenly, I think, shipped to a zoo in New Zealand.

ratmonkey

In New Zealand, awkward and nebish Lionel meets Paquita who fall in love, but Lionel’s overbearing mother disapproves. While spying on the couple at the zoo, Lionel’s mother is bitten by the Rat-Monkey and turns into a flesh eating undead monster. Everyone else thinks she dies, but Lionel secretly keeps her in his basement along with a live-in nurse who the mother also turned into a monster. Soon, other victims become monsters and are put in the basement. Eventually it gets out of hand when Lionel’s shady uncle shows up looking to get a share of Lionel’s inheritance.

That’s only like half the plot. So much goes on that’s weird and nearly indescribable. You really have to see it.

At one point, Lionel is attacked by a group of punks in the graveyard. His mom attacks them, turns them into monsters and then a priest shows up and famously shouts, “I kick ass for the Lord” and uses karate to kick the monsters’ collective asses. It’s a pretty great scene.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2013: The Plague of the Zombies (1966)

Posted in Halloween, holiday, monsters, movies, pop culture, zombies with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2013, Halloween, Hammer Studios, holiday, monsters, pop culture, reviews, zombies on October 15, 2013 by Paxton

I am a huge fan of Hammer’s gothic horror movies so I try to incorporate them in every one of my AWESOME-tober-fest celebrations. This year, I get to include their one crack at a zombie movie, The Plague of the Zombies.

By the mid 60s, Hammer Studios had run out of Universal horror movies to remake, so they had to start coming up with their own stuff. Hammer decided to do a movie based on the voodoo concept of the zombie. They took inspiration from the 1932 Bela Lugosi movie, White Zombie. So, in 1966, two years before Romero’s genre defining Night of the Living Dead, Hammer released The Plague of the Zombies. Hammer’s zombies, like most zombie movies before it, were created through voodoo and black magic. They are the undead, but they aren’t quite the cannibalistic walking dead you’re familiar with. They are just, “the walking dead”, period. No brain/flesh eating whatsoever. They are animated by black magic to do the bidding of the witch who resurrected them.

Here are the title screens.

POZ 00 POZ 01

The movie starts with with a voodoo ceremony. We see the grand wizard there in his royal getup. The scene is underscored by this rhythmic drumming that is being performed by actual natives. Presumably from Haiti, as we learn later that this is where our movie’s particular voodoo comes from. Check out that drummer. He is COMMITTED to this role. Get used to this Haitian drummer. He and his friends (there are about three of them) will show up throughout the movie.

POZ 02 POZ 03

An elderly doctor summoned by one of his former students to a small town to help him diagnose and help stop a rash of people dying with odd symptoms. It seems people have been dying and no one can figure out why. Least of all the young doctor.

So the old doctor’s daughter convinces him to travel to the village to help and at the same time they visit an old friend of the daughter who happens to be married to the young doctor. Things and people seem strange in the village, which they discover is run mostly by a wealthy squire. The doctor and pupil investigate the deaths and uncover many crazy goings on all tied to the enigmatic squire.

That’s the basic setup. Two doctors investigating strange deaths in a small town. Not much else going on. The actors are fairly good, but none of the Hammer regulars are in attendance (ie Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, David Prowse).

Let’s take a look at a few screenshots from the movie.

Here are the good doctor and his former pupil during their investigations of the town.

POZ 10

The only attractive woman in the movie is the young doctor’s wife who dies very early on.

POZ 14

The squire in charge of the town looks an awful lot like Guy Pearce.

POZ 06

Here’s another shot of the voodoo zombie ritual including the gussied up Grand Wizard. Oh, and there are those drummers again. And they are a-drummin’. Hammer Studios must have gotten a good deal on them.

POZ 13 POZ 07

The young doctor’s wife turns out to be a victim of Guy Pearce up there. So she dramatically returns from the dead. I like the zombie makeup they use. Looks pretty creepy. Very similar to the Exorcist makeup (scratch that, reverse it. This movie came first).

POZ 09 POZ 11

I read in a few places where the 1985 movie Return of the Living Dead claims to have originated the “zombie clawing itself out of the grave” shot. However, here in 1966, Hammer did it first.

POZ 12

This was a neat movie. Cool to see this version of zombies two years before Romero released his classic. I like this movie, but I like most all of Hammer’s movies. I like their style and atmosphere. Just something about these Hammer movies are fun and interesting to watch. The colors are always vibrant and the sets are greatly designed. However, I’m not going to lie, the movie is a bit dull in the middle. They try to explain the Haiti and voodoo away in some fast exposition and there are other characters showing up that aren’t really explained. This caused a bit of confusion for me.

However, that aside, while this isn’t as engrossing as either of Hammer’s first Dracula or Frankenstein movies, it’s still pretty good.

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

AWESOME-tober-fest 2013: The Re-animator (1985)

Posted in 80s, Halloween, holiday, monsters, movies, pop culture, zombies with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2013, Halloween, HP Lovecraft, monsters, movies, pop culture, reviews, zombies on October 11, 2013 by Paxton

Today I’m going to talk about the 1985 cult horror film classic, Re-animator starring Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton.

I have seen this movie previously. I watched it numerous times during my Fangoria “horror” phase. In the late 80s-early 90s I was a “gore hound”. I loved splatter films. Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Evil Dead. All of them. Fangoria was my favorite magazine and it clued me in on many other awesome horror movies that were out for me to rent on the burgeoning VHS rental market. This was one I discovered in the pages of that awesome magazine.

Re-animator is based on the original Lovecraft short story, Herbert West – Reanimator. It’s not a direct adaptation, though. The movie takes many of the characters and some of the situations and re-imagines them a bit. While the Lovecraft story is sort of an homage to the original Shelley Frankenstein, the movie is a parody of both the Lovecraft and Shelley stories. It takes the elements of horror and the macabre from Lovecraft’s story and infuses much dark humor into the situations.

Some might think that this movie doesn’t fit into the traditional “zombie” genre. Herbert West is re-animating the dead, so his creations are, in effect, zombies. Though maybe not the mindless brain-eating zombies popularized by Night of the Living Dead and Return of the Living Dead. You could probably also throw this movie into the “mad scientist” genre.

The plot revolves around Herbert West. Newly arrived at the Miskatonic University medical school. He rents a room from Dan Cain, student and boyfriend to Megan, the daughter of the medical school dean. Things start going awry when Dan discovers that Herbert is performing medical experiments with a brand new serum he’s invented for bringing the dead back to life. Dan and Megan are drawn into Herbert’s deadly machinations as the bodies not only begin to fall, but continue to rise up again.

I can see the elements of Lovecraft’s story that were re-imagined as I watch this movie. Herbert constantly wanting fresher dead bodies, Dean Halsey becoming a zombie and being institutionalized and reanimating a head separate from the body. Now that I’ve read the story it’s cool to see this in the movie I know so well. The story in this movie covers roughly the first two parts of Lovecraft’s story.

As the movie started, I was sort of surprised at how blatantly the score rips off Herrmann’s Psycho score with the violins. And, for what is essentially a B-grade horror movie, the effects hold up fairly well. And while the acting is understandably, not great, the performance of Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West is nothing short of awesome. He plays the role with such earnest seriousness it makes the craziness all around him seem that much more crazy.

This film is sort of famous for the “head” scene later in the movie (you should know what I mean). And it’s every bit as awesomely weird and crazy as I remembered. So, yes, this film still holds up pretty well for me. I enjoyed watching it again. The film did well enough that it got like three sequels. I haven’t watched any of them.

However, the title of the first sequel should clue you into how much of a Frankenstein parody this series really is; Bride of Re-animator.

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

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2013: The Walking Dead TV series (2010)

Posted in monsters, pop culture, TV shows, zombies with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2013, Halloween, holiday, monsters, pop culture, reviews, TV shows, zombies on October 9, 2013 by Paxton

In October 2010, AMC debuted the TV series The Walking Dead based on the comic of the same name by Robert Kirkman. I read the comics, so I thought I should check out the show. There are currently 3 seasons existing and the fourth season starts in Oct.

wd01

The show, for the most part, follows the setup of the comics. Rick Grimes wakes up from a coma to find the world has been plunged into a post-zombie apocalyptic nightmare. He sets out to reunite with his family and gathers more survivors who walk around searching for food and shelter together. All the while fighting off the roaming packs of zombies that cover the landscape.

Pretty good premise. Anyway, I started watching the first season which consists of only 6 episodes and I couldn’t make it past 2 episodes. The pilot was good, if not riveting. But by episode 2, I didn’t really care anymore. The actors don’t suck, but they aren’t electric either. The zombies are mostly boring (but again, I’m not a huge fan of zombies anyway). I sort of like the premise I guess, but it’s just not grabbing me. I’m not fully engaged. It makes me sad because I’d like to keep watching to see what happens when the fugitives reach the prison and we meet The Governor (from the comics). But the show isn’t really good enough to continue.

As a matter of fact, I care so little that I don’t feel like even trying to pick this show apart. I’m not even sure if there were things I would pick apart. I just didn’t connect with the show and I have a lot of other stuff I’d rather watch that engages me. So this review is going to end a bit short. Sadly.

So personally, I can’t really recommend this show, but it’s getting a lot of love online and I guess people really love it. I, however, don’t.

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

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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.

homebrew_v1-1

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.

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