Slice, Dice and Grindhouse

Cine Review: MACHETE
18 – 105mins – 2010
Written by: Robert Rodriguez and Álvaro Rodríguez
Directed by: Ethan Maniquis and Robert Rodriguez
Starring: Danny Trejo, Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez, Robert De Niro, Steven Seagal, Jeff Fahey, Lindsay Lohan, Tom Savini, Cheech Marin, Don Johnson, Shea Wingham, Daryl Sabara, Gilbert Trejo
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Stretched out from the most bonkers (and thus intriguing) of the faux trailers sandwiched betwixt the infamous 2007 Rodriguez/Tarantino double feature extravaganza, Machete is – as expected – a preposterous but pleasing fanboy's love letter to trashy, bad taste 70’s B-movie cinema. But I guess you already knew that from the threesome in the swimming pool scene… *Bom chicka wah wah*

Clearly a pet project of Robert Rodriguez’s (he stepped down from directing duties on his Predators reboot, which was shooting simultaneously), Machete could all too easily have been one niche gamble too many after Grindhouse’s muted reception and multiplexes unanimous decision to separate the two entities spoiled the auteur’s illustrious endeavours. Yet this Danny Trejo vehicle (I never imagined I’d say that before!) is a wild n' spirited cheese fest which will always find an audience.

Incorporating all of the footage from the wacky teaser into an even wackier expanded storyline concerning Trejo’s aging vigilante ex-federale crusading against a racist senator’s (gamely hammed up by screen great De Niro) attempts to deport all Mexican immigrants, Machete is a no-holds-barred orgy of bangs, bullets, blades, boobs, banter, bribes, beddings, beheadings and bungled assassination attempts.

Old school genre fans will be whooping with delight at appearances from Cheech Nash Bridges Marin, Tom Dawn of the Dead Savini and B-movie legend Steven Seagal – Machete is essentially an even tackier spoof of The Expendables, so naturally the plot is completely superfluous next to the in-your-face action and relentless impropriety.

It’s a scratchy-screened, jumpily-edited comic book world where exposed intestines can be used as rope swings, burned baddies make thermometers overheat and the corrupt get their comeuppance while the hero always gets the girl, no matter how old he is and how smokin’ hot and waaaay out of his league she may be (Alba, Michelle Rodriguez, Lohan and her screen mom – together!). Right, that's it, I’m off to draw permanent marker wrinkles on my face and grow a honking great handlebar moustache… *Bom chicka wah wah* indeed.


In a CR@B Shell: A mash-up of brash trash, but a whole heap of vulgar fun regardless. You’ll either “get” Machete or you’ll get mighty offended, either way you may require a stash of beer to make it through this criminally comical tongue-in-cheek actioner.
aaaaa

Two-Dimensional Terror

DVD Review: CREEPSHOW 2
15 – 89mins – 1987
Written by: George A. Romero
Based on stories by: Stephen King
Directed by: Michael Gornick
Starring: Tom Savini, George Kennedy, Dorothy Lamour, Frank Salsedo, Holt McCallany, Paul Satterfield, Jeremy Green, Daniel Beer, Page Hannah, Lois Chiles , David Beecroft, Tom Wright, Richard Parks
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Five years after George A. Romero and Stephen King brought us five tales of jolting terror in 1982's Creepshow anthology, the masters of horror returned to bring us another issue of camp comic scares presented by demonic storyteller The Creep (Tom Savini). Second time around Romero took screenplay duty and Creepshow's cinematographer, Michael Gornick, was promoted to director. Budget restrictions (what more should we expect when indie auteur Romero is involved?) saw the original film's five strip set-up reduced to a trio of King-inspired shorts.

A cartoon wraparound bringing back Billy (Domenick John), the avid reader of the eponymous tome from the first film, interjects the live-action stories with a clichéd story of bullies never prospering... with giant Venus Flytraps. Given the film's graphic inspiration, it was a nice idea to incorporate hand-drawn animation, and I fully accept that these serialised skits would make the most of their artistic (and budgetary) freedom, but the moralistic story felt far too childish and ridiculously OTT, and it lessened the impact of the more mature – though equally unrealistic – live-action vignettes. And that's saying a lot...

Old Chief Wood'nhead: The wooden statue of a Native American (Dan Kamin) comes alive to deliver vengeance for an elderly couple needlessly murdered by a gang of lowlife thugs in a bungled raid on their southwest store.

This first story starts surprisingly slowly, allowing the audience to warm to Ray (George Kennedy) and Martha Spruce (Dorothy Lamour), a kind-hearted and hard-working couple you can't help but admire. This bond makes their slaughter at the hand of vain, delusional ringleader Sam Whitemoon (Holt McCallany) and his braindead cohorts all the more cruel and hard to watch. The lengthy burglary scene leaves little time for the Chief's bloody retribution to have much impact, and the majority of his rampage is only shown in silhouette or off screen (such as Sam's apt demise). Also: what's the point of having a possessed wooden bodyguard if you have to die before he step's off his podium? A great concept then, but "Old Chief Wood'nhead" was averagely executed.

The Raft: Four disposable teens with hackneyed personalities (jock, slut, shy girl and eco-warrior) take an out-of-season trip to a lake to smoke weed, swim in the freezing waters and get laid on the titular wooden device. However, an unidentified blob monster has other plans and strands them in the middle of the lake before picking them off one by one and dragging them under the surface...

The weakest of the three segments, “The Raft” is let down in three key areas. Firstly, by a supernatural predator which looks more like a few old plastic bags floating in the river then the “oil slick” it keeps getting mistaken for. Secondly, I appreciate that the teenagers are meant to be naïve and they are playing clichés of the helpless victims who always get killed off, but when even the nicest and most “normal” guy, Randy (Daniel Beer), fondles his dead mate’s girlfriend while she sleeps, having just seen two of their friend’s murdered, I failed to have an iota of sympathy for any of them. Thirdly, the plot is as thin as a line drawing: the monster is never explained, the characters fail to think up an escape plan and the whole story is terribly one-sided. “The Raft” suffered from a lack of substance or plot progression; the kids don’t even attempt to see if their alien adversary has a weakness, preferring to simply wait it out until death. Good plan(!)

The Hitch-hiker: Businesswoman Annie Lansing (Lois Chiles) is in a hurry to drive 20 miles in an impossible 7 minutes to avoid her rich and punctual husband (Richard Parks) from suspecting her infidelity with a male gigolo (David Beecroft). Losing control at the wheel, Annie runs down a hitchhiker (Tom Wright), panics and leaves him for dead. Only he isn’t prepared to let her get away with it… "Thanks for the lift, lady!"

Ramping up the tension and the gore-factor, “The Hitch-hiker” is far and away the most satisfying of the three tales: a paranormal fable of revenge where we are rooting for the bloodied and mangled remains of a man wronged. It is also successful in playing with our sense of reality – has Annie’s state of shock lead her to hallucinate the disturbing events? – before justice is, ahem, wheeled out. Though quite how Annie ever made it home before her husband is beyond me...?


CR@B Verdict: As fun as this comic book horror can be, Creepshow 2 offers little depth to its lightweight chills. The animated intermissions also negate the live-action terror, with only “The Hitchhiker” delivering any darkness in an otherwise bright, camp extravagance.
**.5

Another Bite at the Zombie

DVD Review: NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1990)
18 – 92mins – 1990
Written by: George A. Romero
Based on the original film written by: George A. Romero and John Russo
Directed by: Tom Savini
Starring: Patricia Tallman, Tony Todd, Tom Towles, McKee Anderson, William Butler, Bill Mosley, Katie Finneran, Heather Mazur, Pat Logan
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Given the recent slew of ostentatious horror remakes of questionable necessity and debatable quality (Nightmare on Elm Street , Psycho, The Hitcher, My Bloody Valentine 3D, Prom Night – need I go on?), it is understandable that you would approach any modernization of a genre classic with great trepidation. Nonetheless, this early ‘90s adaptation of George A. Romero's hallowed Night of the Living Dead is certainly not to be groaned at, granting a modern audience who would have scoffed at the black and white, budget-conscious 1968 effects a reason to look over their shoulder as they visit the cemetery; they’re coming to get yooouuu, Generation X-Box!

Obviously, Night 1990 isn't in the same groundbreaking league as the archetypal original with which it shares its name, but it is still a spirited and claustrophobically chilling triumph. Tellingly, the remake wasn't a studio-enforced cash-in on the cult zombie brand, but had the full backing of the “Grandfather of the Dead”. Indeed, Romero co-produced and rewrote the script he originally worked on over two decades earlier with John Russo, while effects supremo Tom Savini – having previously lent his gory stylisation to Dawn... (1979) and Day of the Dead (1985), to much acclaim – got the chance to complete the trilogy (ish), and was even handed directing duties. Additionally, Romero roped in a lot of the team who helped him realise his 1968 vision to recapture the magic all over again.

The plot, for the most part, sticks to the original’s winningly simple outline: a small group of strangers hole up in a backwater Pennsylvanian dwelling to survive a paranormal onslaught as the recently deceased rise from the grave and go on an insatiable hunt for human flesh. More credible and repugnantly gory make-up aside, where Night 1990 differs most apparently is in the characterisation, particularly that of lead female Barbara (Patricia Babylon 5 Tallman), who was criticised in the original for being rather, well, useless (the shock of the supernatural scenario sends her into a state of shock for 90% of the film, which, apparently is sexist and demeaning to females everywhere). This time around she is a more proactive and dynamic heroine who is handier with a gun and more forthright.

A further derivation from its source material is the morning-after epilogue, which substitutes the genuine controversy of having survivor Ben (now played by Tony Candyman Todd) mistaken for a zombie and shot down by trigger-happy yokels,* for enforced ‘shock’. Returning to the house of horror, Barbara murders self-centred survivor and all-round arsehole Harry Cooper (Tom Towles) as he climbs down from his private attic hideaway, before informing the hicks “Here’s another one for the fire”. Now, don’t get me wrong, the man was a belligerent, wife-beating, unsupportive monster who definitely had it coming, but for Barbara to murder a human so callously seems somewhat out of character. I mean, there’s forthright, and there’s forthright! But, hey, I guess a night battling the Living Dead is somewhat disillusioning to a person’s sense of morality, and who am I to judge until I have been in her position?


CR@B Verdict: Drained of the Cold War allegory attributed to the revolutionary original, but a visually effective zombie horror nonetheless; Night 1990 revises the character flaws which besmirched the ‘60s classic without bastardising the Living Dead brand.
***.5
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* Racism? According to George, Ben was originally written as a white man and the part simply given to the best actor, Duane Jones, who happened to be black.

The Zombies are Revolting!

Film Review: LAND OF THE DEAD – DIRECTOR’S CUT
18 – 93mins – 2005
Written and directed by George A. Romero
Starring: Simon Baker, John Leguizamo, Dennis Hopper, Asia Argento, Robert Joy, Eugene Clarke
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Two decades after the dead had their Day, legendary filmmaker George A. Romero returned to the series – and sub-genre – he created, with 2005’s Land of the Dead. Since the mysterious events first depicted in Night of the Living Dead (1968), civilisation has been obliterated by the reanimation of the recently deceased as flesh-eating zombies; America has become the land of the de-composing. In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the living have been forced to survive in fenced-in slums while the upper classes feign ignorance of the zombie apocalypse in the sanctuary of Fiddler’s Green, a luxury apartment complex lorded over by elitist tycoon Kaufman (Dennis Hopper).

Kaufman also financed the construction of Dead Reckoning, an armoured artillery vehicle built by Riley Denbo (Simon Baker) and used by Riley and his team on reconnaissance and supplies missions. When Kaufman refuses cocksure dogsbody Cholo (John Leguizamo) residence at Fiddler’s Green, Cholo steals Dead Reckoning and threatens to fire on the high-rising haven if his $5million ransom isn’t met. Drafting in Riley – along with his burn-victim friend Charlie (Robert Joy), outcast Slack (Asia Argento) and a trio of military goons – to intersect Cholo and bring home his four-wheeled asset, Kaufman believes his troubles are over, however the “stenches” (as the dead are referred to) seem to be remembering aspects of their former lives – including how to use weaponry – and they are on the move… toward Fiddler’s Green.

Land of the Dead is chock full of blood, guts, carnage and a big dollop of trademark Romero commentary, this time attacking class society. Money has let Kaufman play God – but who is he to decide who is welcome into paradise? The real saviour of the story is honest, hard working Riley, but he is far too humble to take credit. The rich inside Fiddler's Green are as distracted by commodities as the dead are by “sky flowers” (fireworks), however the dead are advancing and becoming more resourceful than the unworldly, material-obsessed living, amassing an arsenal of weaponry and leaving a trail of bodies on their (literal and metaphoric) journey. To further the biblical allegory, the “stenches” don't need to part the waves to cross the water into the isolated city, in one of Land's grandest and most atmospheric scenes

As leader of the zombie revolt, “Big Daddy” (Eugene Clarke) is the evolution of the iconic “Bub” from Day of the Dead (1985), the zombie who showed the first signs of cerebral processes, and Land offers a plethora of other welcome call-backs to the preceding entries in the series: zombie effects supremo-cum-actor-cum-director Tom Savini, whose biker character was savagely killed in Dawn of the Dead (1978), is seen in zombie form; actress Asia Argento (Slack) is the daughter of Dario Argento, cult horror filmmaker in his own right and co-producer and co-composer of Dawn; while the story for Land was partly deprived from a unused plot for Day.

Land is the first of the living dead films to be shot digitally and feature CGI-effects (a few of which are jarringly noticeable alongside traditional methods), and there are other modern touches which make this twenty-first century outting distinctly of its time: a lesbian couple are pulled apart while snogging, a girl has her belly button ring bitten off, Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright of spoof/tribute Shawn of the Dead cameo for their idol, and all manner of technological gizmo's crop up in the plot (such as the computerised interior of the Dead Reckoning, not to mention the homing device it is fitted with), which causes something of a headache for the continuity-obsessed fan* and probably explains why George 'reset' the timeline with 2008's Diary entry.


CR@B Verdict: It would be easy to dismiss Land of the Dead as the work of an ageing auteur still gripping on to the corpse of his heyday, but George A. Romero proves he still has the teeth to rip a fearsome and powerful yarn.
****
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*If this world has been zombie-infested since 1968, exactly who has had the time, money or interest in scientific advances amid the collapse of civilisation?