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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.

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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: 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.

Linnea Quigley

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.

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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.

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Review of Oz Book 15: The Royal Book of Oz (1921)

Posted in books, Classic literature, movies, Wizard of Oz with tags Book Report, books, movies, Oz books readthru, pop culture, reviews, Ruth Plumly Thompson, Wizard of Oz on September 5, 2013 by Paxton

L Frank Baum died in May 1919. Baum’s final Oz book, Glinda of Oz, wouldn’t be published until 1 year later in 1920. With Baum now gone, Reilly & Lee, decided to continue the Oz series with a new author. They selected Ruth Plumly Thompson to write the fifteenth book in the series. John Neill would return to illustrate the book as he had the previous thirteen books. However, Baum would get author credit on the cover and not Thompson.

It has been said that this book was written off the final Oz notes Baum left in his typewriter after he died. It has never been proven without a doubt that Baum even left final Oz notes. Regardless, it is pretty much a given that this book is all Thompson. Thompson trying a bit to write in the style of Baum, but still 100% Ruth Plumly Thompson. I really love Neill’s cover for this book.

The story itself is interesting. HM Wogglebug, TE gets the idea that he is going to chronicle the royal lines of Oz in a book called, of course, The Royal Book of Oz. While pitching the idea to Ozma, Wogglebug insults Scarecrow (former ruler of Oz and current Emperor of the Winkies) by saying he wasn’t born from a royal family and, in fact, has no ancestry. It is interesting to note that this is the first time that we see outright annoyance and dislike towards HM Wogglebug. In earlier books, characters would imply that he’s tiring to listen to, but nothing outright. In this book, the characters effectively come right out and say, “We don’t f**king like you. Go away.” Especially after he insults the Scarecrow.

So the Scarecrow runs away from the Emerald City back to the pole on the farm Dorothy found him. He slips down the pole to the Silver Islands that exist way below Oz (and far enough down to not be considered a part of Oz).

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Scarecrow tumbles down the bean pole to the Silver Islands

We learn the background of the Scarecrow and how he is the vessel for the spirit of the leader of the Silver Islanders. We meet his family and learn how he came to be on the pole when Dorothy found him. However, as these things tend to do, events turn sour and Scarecrow is trapped in Silver Islands and Dorothy and company must set out to find him. And we learn other cool things like Oz characters CAN die if they are taken out of Oz. It’s Oz’s magical fairyland properties that are keeping its citizens effectively immortal. And we get to meet Sir Hokus of Pokes, an elderly, valiant, well-meaning knight who would show up in three more Thompson Oz books (one with the character center stage) and one of John Neill’s books.

Like I said, on the surface, I like this plot. I like learning back story to a main character. We see a similar back story for the Tin Man in The Tin Woodman of Oz. However, and I hate to say this, but the entire endeavor feels hollow. It feels like Thompson is mimicing Baum’s style but can’t replicate his heart. There is so much sincere, heartfelt innocence and imagination in Baum’s books, you can’t help but love them. This book felt like a shallow copy. Thompson used less of the puns and clever dialogue Baum was known for while simultaneously using multiple plot threads that Baum rarely used. So I guess, in a way, she didn’t really follow Baum’s style at all.

Overall, I was just bored with this book. I wasn’t engaged in the story and for the last half just wished it was over. This is the first time that has happened in my reading of the Oz books. There were one or two Baum books I didn’t fully enjoy, but I was never bored or wished it to end. So, no, I can’t really recommend this. However, John Neill’s artwork is again the centerpiece. Truly great illustrations.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t envy anyone following in Baum’s footsteps. And this was Thompson’s first effort. Thompson eventually wrote 18 more books after this so I assume she gets better the further she moves out of Baum’s shadow. Looking at the list of her books, a few of them do look interesting; The Cowardly Lion of Oz, The Yellow Knight of Oz and maybe Pirates in Oz, We’ll see how many I actually get to.

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