Forest of the Damned

DVD Review: ZOMBIES
15 – 94mins – 2006
Story by: Boaz Davidson
Screenplay by: Ben Nedivi
Directed by: J. S. Cardone
Starring: Lori Heuring, Scout Taylor-Compton, Chloë Grace Moretz, Geoffrey Lewis, Ben Cross, Craig Vye, Chris Jamba, Julie Rogers, Martin McDougall, Michael McCoy
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[SPOILERS] The quintessential rule of Zombie Film School 101, obvious to any fan of the popular horror sub-genre, is that zombies are the reanimated, braindead corpses of the recently perished; lumbering, rotting cadavers with one sole aim: to feast on your flesh and slurp down your intestines like stringed sausages. They aren't your family or friends anymore, merely people-shaped shells. Shells with teeth.

By that logic, the long-departed juvenile miners in Zombies who haunt the Pennsylvanian forests surrounding the abandoned mine they were buried in 100 years previous aren’t strictly zombies at all. Heck, they don't even pass on their unearthly infliction through biting! Cannibalistic ghosts, yes – ghastly, gore-guzzling ghouls even – but not zombies; even if the petrified locals do (mis-)use the blanket term in lieu of a more fitting description. But trust interfering studio heads not to care a jot about the details, believing a film with a bold-but-generic title would sell better than one called Wicked Little Things. The fools.

Making a Killing

Blu Review: I SELL THE DEAD
15 – 84mins – 2008
Written by: Glenn McQuaid
Directed by: Glenn McQuaid
Starring: Dominic Monaghan, Larry Fessenden, Ron Perlman, Brenda Cooney, John Speredakos, Heather Bullock, Alisdair Stewart, Angus Scrimm, Joel Garland, Aiden Redmond
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Making light work of some truly dirty dealings in much the same vein as John Landis’ tame-but-tolerable take on a true story Burke & Hare, this low budget grave-robbing period comedy – a promising debut from Irish writer/director McQuaid which pre-dates the Pegg/Serkis vehicle by over eighteen months – throws an additional ingredient into the casket some thirty minutes in when the cadavers start coming back from the dead!!

The supernatural/horror elements aren’t overbearingly dominant, but they settle symbiotically with the offbeat characterisation of immoral-but-good-natured dead peddlers Arthur Black (Lost’s Monaghan) and Willie Grimes (Fessenden). However, a throwaway scene in which a peculiarly frozen stiff transpires to be a little grey man who all too quickly is beamed up to his mothership and disregarded with a shrug does feel like a frivolous step too far for the sake of a mild chuckle.

We join the story in media res (that’s in the middle of the action for all those who don’t speak Latin), with Willie having already been executed for the crimes of tomb raiding and murder. Five hours before Arthur is due to follow suit and kneel beneath the guillotine (despite his assertion that he is innocent – of the murder charge, at least), unorthodox priest Father Duffy (Season of the Witch’s Perlman) pays a visit to the condemned man’s cell and we learn of the grisly business that brought him to this point via a series of fragmented flashbacks.

As endearing as these cheeky chaps are, Arthur’s abridged life story does feel a little meandering at times (time is precious as he nears the chop, yet he considers it imperative to describe an ale-chugging contest at the local boozer to his transcribing visitor), but the alcohol-smuggling Father reels him back on focus by demanding to know more of Arthur and Willie’s clashes with rival band of enigmatic corpse hawkers “The House of Murphy” – for reasons that soon become clear…

The film’s low budget is effectively stretched with a profusion of moody, mist-shrouded moonlit locales which are creepily atmospheric if sparsely decorated, while a neat aesthetic idiosyncrasy sees a number of artistic shots and character profiles morph into comic book-style illustrations. It’s a polished touch which helps accentuate I Sell the Dead’s fundamental tongue-in-cheek absurdity, even if it doesn’t lend itself to any narrative function.


In a CR@B Shell: An affable and distinctive calling card for filmmaking newcomer Glenn McQuaid, I Sell the Dead is a charmingly lightweight post pub time-passer which outdoes Burke & Hare on laughs, even if the zombie horror component could have done with a bit more bite.
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Scareport

DVD Review: QUARANTINE 2: TERMINAL
15 – 86mins – 2011
Written by: John Pogue
Based on the motion pictures “Quarantine” and “[REC]”
Directed by: John Pogue
Starring: Mercedes Masöhn, Josh Cooke, Mattie Liptak, Ignacio Serricchio, Noree Victoria, Bre Blair, Lamar Stewart, George Back, Phillip DeVona, Julie Gribble, Erin Smith, Lynn Cole, Tom Thon, John Curran, Andrew Benator
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As redundant remakes go, 2008's Quarantine is up there with the most pointless of them. It's not a substandard film by any stretch, it just didn't need to be made. It is by-and-large a shot-for-shot replica of superior Spanish P.O.V. zombie horror [REC], but with characters speaking in English for Western audience's too lazy/stubborn to read subtitles.

The one area in which the Hollywood adaptation differentiated from its source material was that it removed any suggestion that the zombification of the trapped tower block residents was at all sacrilegious or supernatural. When Spanish sequel [REC]² (reviewed HERE) followed that very path to a wholly surprising but no-less satisfying end, assumptions were that Quarantine 2 was a no-go; after all, it would have been impossible to suddenly piggyback onto the “demonic possession” plot and still make sense.

And so it was something of a surprise to find out that Hollywood were making a follow up; albeit a direct-to-DVD project which was completely separate from [REC]² and it's divergent mythology. Quarantine 2: Terminal, as the title suggests, moves the action away from the claustrophobic locale of the cordoned-off apartment building, following an independent group of people as they board Trans Sky Air night flight 318 from LAX to Nashville – on the very same night that the authorities take extreme measures to contain the mystery ailment in downtown LA.

Upon hearing the synopsis, I was beyond tempted to title my review “Flight of the Living Dead” or “Plane Deadly”, however the crew only remain on board for a mere 20minutes, with the deterioration and uncontrollable behaviour of passenger Ralph Bundt (Back) causing the Captain (Curran) to make an emergency landing before the petrified travellers alight into an abandoned terminal, only to discover that the exits are locked and they are isolated in quarantine...

I suppose it would have been a very short film had the crew remained airborne for the duration – the toilet and cockpit aside, how many places are there for a plane-load of people to hide from rampaging flesh-eaters? – but it couldn't have been any worse than Snakes on a Plane. My fear that without an original notion for the spread of the plague would leave Quarantine 2 no better than the glut of bog-standard B-movie genre flicks which inundate the bargain bins every week thankfully proved to be unfounded, as writer/director John Pogue has concocted a novel concept which ties in well with the original Quarantine and sets this series apart.

To say any more would diminish the twists, red herrings and double bluffs which are prevalent throughout this impressive low budget entry. But rest assured that the cosmopolitan characters are varied and have arcs all their own, while the dead-eyed, foam-gushing victims may not be the most terrifying I have ever witnessed but they do pose a very real threat to the shrinking survivor's safety. Finally, the discovery of a pair of night vision goggles leads to a proficient nod to the handheld camera technique employed in the original but dropped here; a further example of the inventiveness normally absent from such generic fare.


In a CR@B Shell: By no means a zenith in the zombie genre and not a patch on [REC]², nevertheless, as far as straight-to-shelves horror sequels go, Quarantine 2: Terminal impresses for crafting a back story all its own which ties into its derivative predecessor but doesn't rely upon it to succeed. Nifty, dynamic and expansive, this flight from hell isn't the excruciating plane w[REC]k it could so easily have been.
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Break In, Break Out & Break Apart

Now that I'm back with LoveFilm (oh how I've missed you, promise me we'll never be apart again, etcetera), the rate with which I receive and watch films has increased - and therefore so has my review load. So here are three concise critiques which see Russell Crowe break into a prison, eyeless reanimated beasts break out of the earth and the ghost of a deformed madman breaking people apart. Now there's diversity for you...

DVD Review: HATCHET
18 – 82mins – 2006

A host of retro splatter film icons (Tony Candyman, Final Destination Todd, Robert “Freddy Kreuger” Englund, Kane “Leatherface”, “Jason Voorhees” Hodder, Friday the 13th Part VII director John Carl Buechler) and some sensationally cruel death sequences (people pulled apart, a girl taking a sander to the face, a woman split in two from the jaw down) do wonders to cover up a simple one-dimensional plot in this gleefully twisted love letter to old-school American horror films from up-and-coming auteur Adam Green.

It’s a glossy production for sure; the image is much cleaner than the grittier and more plausible Frozen (Green’s other major horror release, reviewed HERE), while the camera never shies away from the buckets of gore and twisted prosthetics. The humour is also snappy and tongue-in-cheek (“Can you spot me for this?” “Why, you out of money?” “Nah, I just refuse to pay for this shit!”), while the short runtime means things never outstay their welcome (particular not the all-too-sudden mid-scene cut at the end).

The only downside is that the linear storyline is far too conventional: as the motley crew of tourists, wannabe porn stars (really), camera men and sullen locals board a dodgy haunted swamp tour on the Louisiana Bayou, you can instantly predict who will survive and who will make tasty cannon fodder for the ghost of maniacal and mutilated Victor Crowley (Hodder), whose legend is far more real than any of the unsuspecting saps suspect…

CR@B Verdict: aaaaa

DVD Review: THE NEXT THREE DAYS
12 – 135mins – 2010

Not a film I was in any great hurry to see (hardly the right attitude, I know, but I’ve got to be up front), but having been handed a copy with a strong recommendation I thought I’d give it a chance. As I suspected, I can’t claim to ever being enraptured by it, but it’s an adequate-enough thriller, if a little overlong, implausible and somewhat predictable once you’ve read the synopsis. Hardly a glowing reference, is it?

Paul Casino Royale Haggis adapted and directed Russell Crowe and Elizabeth Banks in this remake of the 2008 French thriller Pour Elle (Anything For Her). Following an altercation at work, Lara (Banks) and John (Crowe) Brennan’s house is intruded by police and Lara is arrested for murder. Over the course of the next three years all appeals fail and John slowly becomes obsessed with the notion that the only way Lara will ever get out to see her son (Insidious' Ty Simpkins) grow up is if she is broken out of prison. So starts his criminally far-fetched plan…

At over 2hours in length, I was surprised at how much of the plot was crammed into the first all-too-brief scene, while John goes from inept novice to fugitive genius all-too-quickly. Much like him, we never for a second suspect that Lara is actually guilty, but that doesn't stop the police from being as incompetent as the “miscarriage of justice” plot demands. The film’s major failing, however, is in its pace, which covers “The Last Three Years” in a snowballing flash before defrosting at a crawl as the plan nears fruition in “The Last Three Days”.

CR@B Verdict: aaaaa

DVD Review: THE PACK (LA MEUTE)
18 – 81mins – 2010

A misty, murky and mysterious little French horror which does a grand job of challenging your genre expectations by changing course thrice during its succinct duration. What begins as an off-kilter road movie – goth traveller Charlotte (Émilie Dequenne) picks up grubby hitchhiker Max (Benjamin Biolay) and they stop at a ramshackle truck stop owned by hick matriarch La Spack (Yolande Moreau) – descends into hillbilly torture porn in a Wrong Turn vein before the eponymous creatures are unleashed to wolf down some revitalizing human plasma in a tense “man versus the monsters” climactic stand-off.

The blind, soil-dwelling zombie miners are a wickedly gruesome bunch (think The Descent’s Crawlers morphed with Romero’s lumbering Living Dead-ites) but they are criminally underused – Franck Richard’s film spends so much time detailing Charlotte’s hunt for the missing Max, her off-hand statement to the retired eccentric local sheriff (Phillippe Nahon; so far removed from your expectation of law enforcement that he may as well be in La Horde) and her eventual capture, that the blood-thirsty mole-men only show up once in the entire first hour.

Finally, a nifty attempt at a curveball epilogue works really well at taking the story full circle (and being startling and just a little bit freaky all at once) until that old chestnut of “it’s just a dream” decimates the impact and makes the diversion feel more like a disjointed deleted scene which has accidentally been edited into the main feature by mistake. It makes for a crushingly disappointing finale to what should have been the most crucial scene in the film.

CR@B Verdict: aaaaa

Monster Mystery Science Fiction Theatre 1979

Cine Review: SUPER 8
12A – 112mins – 2011
Written by: J. J. Abrams
Directed by: J. J. Abrams
Starring: Joel Courtney, Riley Griffiths, Ryan Lee, Elle Fanning, Kyle Chandler, Gabriel Basso, Zach Mills, Noah Emmerich, Ron Elard, Glynn Turman
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In the (fictional) backwater town of Lillian, Ohio in 1979, young amateur film-maker Charles (Griffiths) cajoles a group of his closest friends and classmates into starring in, and helping him execute, a George A. Romero-inspired zombie movie for inclusion in a local competition. Using the 8mm home movie format of the title, budding director Charles' crucial midnight train station scene is interrupted in disastrously spectacular fashion when a pick-up truck driven by their old Biology teacher (Turman) deliberately drives onto the tracks, derailing a passing military train right before their petrified eyes.

In the flaming aftermath, the crash site is littered with a plethora of curious white cubes, while the US Air Forces' swift attempts to shut down the area and keep the local community in the dark despite a growing number of mysterious phenomena only piques the groups' curiosity: just what was that train carrying – and where has it escaped to...?

A homage to the magic and wonder conjured up by the classic Steven Spielberg adventure films of yesteryear (E.T., Close Encounters, The Goonies – hence the retro setting), with an added injection of Lost mastermind Abrams' trademark head-scratching mystery and a fair dollop of CGI monster madness straight outta Cloverfield; Super 8 is – despite its amalgamated inspirations – a bold and invigorating breath of fresh air in this cluttered and vapid Summer blockbuster season (Transformers: Dark of the Moon, take a bow).

Sitting down in the cinema to watch a film which hasn't already given away its entire plot in an over-excessive, spoiler-heavy marketing campaign is an exciting feeling, evoking in me a sense of wonder which made me feel like a wide-eyed little kid again – a rare feat in this leak-heavy internet era where no work of art is safe from being ruined by the impatient hacker-savvy masses. Beyond this, even during the film, Super 8 still tries its utmost to hide its “surprise reveal”, keeping the treasure just out of shot or behind conveniently placed signposts until deep into its third act.

If I'm totally frank, I must admit that when the treasure was finally revealed and the pieces of the puzzle started fitting together into a coherent picture, I did find myself slightly disappointed. I won't spoil it for those who are yet to watch, but I will say that a saccharine sweet ending straight outta E.T. just seemed too neat and tidy for a film which had derived so much fun from keeping the audience guessing for ninety percent of the running time. One line of contrived dialogue in particular really irked me.

But mild anti-climax aside, Super 8 is by-and-large a sensational and tense sci-fi mystery thriller. As Charles relays to his best friend and number one make-up guy, Joe Lamb (Courtney), as he hands him a rewrite of his ever-changing zombie script: “the train scene is important because it makes the audience care for the characters. You want to see them live because they've got someone who loves them to go home to” – and, heeding his own advise, care for Abrams' characters you unquestionably will.

Protagonist Joe's heartbreaking back story (his mother was killed in a work-related accident just four months ago) and its ramifications for his under-pressure Deputy father (Chandler), first crush Alice (Fanning) and her brutish lout of a dad (Elard) frame the drama and adds considerable and identifiably humane weight to the ongoing out-of-this-world mayhem. Furthermore, these characters act like real people: they bicker, they fight, they argue, they banter and they tease – you'll continually find yourself tittering at the authentically grounded dialogue (particularly from the smart-mouthed kids), and this helps makes the horror all the more personable.


In a CR@B Shell: Surviving a train wreck, dodging the military, uncovering a long-quashed secret – and still these kids find the time to make a zombie movie and be hella funny! It's a pity the climax slightly sullied what was otherwise an exhilarating and unpredictable experience, but I'd nevertheless have no qualms in rewarding Super 8 a super 8/10 – which translates to a respectable 4 ticks outta 5 from this CR@B.
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What the Fulci?!

DVD Review: THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY (QUELLA VILLA ACCANTO AL CIMITERO)
18 – 82mins – 1981
Story by: Elisa Livia Briganti
Screenplay by: Dardano Sacchetti, Giorgio Mariuzzo and Lucio Fulci
Directed by: Lucio Fulci
Starring: Catriona MacColl, Paolo Malco, Giovanni Frezza, Ania Pieroni, Silvia Collatina, Giovanni De Nava, Dagmar Lassander, Teresa Rossi Passante
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Well... it makes a modicum more sense than City of the Living Dead (reviewed HERE), but that doesn't mean that this final instalment in Italian cult director Lucio Fulci's "Gates of Hell" trilogy is a better film. Sadly, The House by the Cemetery seems like a more amateur effort and less adventurous endeavour than superior predecessor The Beyond (reviewed HERE); and it doesn't even have as many splatter-stuffed set pieces to fall back on, with the characters spending what feels like half the slimline runtime calling out each other's names!

That isn't to say that when the claret runs it doesn't gush unreservedly (just check out the rabid bat scene for proof of that), but the hack n' slash sequences are fewer and further between in this haunted house oddity. Medical researcher Dr. Norman Boyle (Malco) relocates to the creepy graveyard-adjacent abode, reluctantly accompanied by his anxiety-prone wife (MacColl), and frightfully dubbed son, Bob (Frezza). However, the creaky old mansion hides many dark secrets, including the zombified corpse of the maaaaad scientist, Dr. Freudstein (De Nava), who must feast on the flesh of the living to remain in his undead state.

Fulci isn't exactly renowned for his narrative coherence, but even with a plot as low-key as House's, still it is plagued by plot holes: Bob sees the spirit of Mae (Collatina), Freudstein's daughter, who warns him not to enter the cursed house, yet this friendly ghost does nothing to stem the horror except animate a beheaded mannequin (Pieroni) to be the child's live-in babysitter (despite his mother being at home the entire time)!! Whether as a red herring or simply to facilitate his eye fetish, Fulci demonizes Ann (as the babysitter is known) with frequent ocular close-ups and inferences that she is in line with the evil undead doc; until she gets beheaded. Again.

Furthermore, as Norman's research leads him to make shocking discoveries into Freudstein's unlawful history, he inexplicably burns the damning evidence rather than using it to help his cause!! What possible reason could he have for destroying the truth when his own family are in jeopardy? Freudstein's prolonged existence, also, feels like horror merely for horror's sake, with no reason given for his afterlife rages. He doesn't even leave the cellar for Fulci's sake!

Couple these narrative aggravations with less skilled direction and a modest story which is half-baked at best, and while you may not have the trilogy's worst effort, it says a lot about a cult horror film when the scariest thing in it is the terrible dubbing of a little boy's voice!


In a CR@B Shell: A lame finale after The Beyond delivered an epic middle chapter, The House by the Cemetery stretches a short story-sized script into a feature film yet doesn't bother to flesh out the fretful ruminating with more gore – and there's only one potato-headed zombie!! Romero's crown as “Grandfather of the Dead” was never in doubt.
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In Sickness and in Health...

… I will endeavour to blog. This poor CR@B has been struck down by a flu-like virus for the past few days (pity me!), so until I’m back to full strength, here is a quick-fire roundup of my latest viewings:

TV Review: EXTREME GHOSTBUSTERS – VOLUME 1.1
PG – 273mins – 1997

Any ‘Busters lovers fearing a next generation takeover in the eternally-impending second sequel to everyone’s favourite 80’s supernatural comedy should surely be pacified by this animated 1997 dry run, which saw four college students strap on the proton packs and go phantom zapping in lieu of three-quarters of the original gang.

The Real Ghostbusters veteran Egon Spengler (Maurice Futurama LaMarche), secretary Janine Melnitz (Pat Musick) and gluttonous ghoul Slimer (Billy Futurama West) return to provide continuity between series, with paranormal proff. Spengler taking on the role of mentor to his new team of whizz kids: Kylie (Tara Strong), Garrett (Jason Marsden), Eduardo (Rino Romano) and Roland (Alfonso Ribeiro).

Some may complain that the emphasis on equality in the new members is pandering to contemporary equal opportunities (Kylie is a gothic girl, Garrett wheelchair bound, Eduardo a Latino and Roland African American), but the characters nonetheless have their own personalities and don’t fall back on lazy clichés (Garrett, for instance, is an extreme sports nut who has a self deprecating attitude towards his disability which borders on annoying).

The series’ greatest strength lies in its dialogue, which zings with banter between the misfit cohorts, who must learn to work together to save Manhattan from supernatural activity. The inundation of cultural references have quickly dated the show, but this is still a fun addition to the franchise which proves you don’t *need* Peter Venkman for ‘Busting to make you feel good.

CR@B Verdict: aaaaa

Blu Review: THE GHOST
15 – 128mins – 2010

Based on a Robert Harris novel of the same name, and adapted for the screen by the author and director Roman Polanski, The Ghost is a drawn out, slow-burn thriller full of political intrigue. Which isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy it (particularly worthy of praise is the minimalist score by Alexandre Desplat which mimicks the character’s tuneful ringtone to tremendous effect), just that the bloated midsection could have done with a major edit to not make the conclusion feel so rushed.

Ewan McGregor plays a British ghost-writer who is drafted in to complete the memoirs of former Prime Minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan), after his predecessor died in a ferry accident before the project was finished. The top secret assignment is clouded in privacy, and McGregor’s ghost is drawn into a dark secret concerning Lang which coincides with the ex-PM being accused of war crimes by the British foreign minister (Robert Pugh). Does his late predecessor’s error-strewn manuscript hide the clues to this mystery, and is their more to his death then accidental drowning?

The film exudes a composed, almost tranquil, ambience which makes it remarkably effortless viewing, but the mystery plot does drag on somewhat to little revelatory effect. The ending, also, requires a stretch of credibility, coming somewhat out of the blue after two hours of meandering amateur sleuthing. Nonetheless, this is an aptly produced thriller, even if the writer-turned-detective-on-isolated-island concept did strongly remind me of Steig Larsson's superior The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

CR@B Verdict: aaaaa

Blu Review: RESIDENT EVIL: AFTERLIFE
15 – 97mins – 2010

The fourth instalment in this never-ending zombie arcade series offers little that 2007's part three (Extinction, reviewed HERE) didn’t already bring to the screen, other than the en vogue 3D gimmick which inflated its box office gross.

Milla Jovovich returns as superhuman Alice, who takes her newly discovered army of clones to Tokyo to settle the score with Umbrella Corps. Chairman Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts), before flying to Alaska to rendezvous with Claire Redfield (Ali Larter) and company at the infection-free haven known as “Arcadia”. Typically, nothing quite goes to plan.

Rolling on directly from Extinction’s conclusion, and setting up yet another follow-up with a frustratingly open-ended, ostensibly futile finale [sic] for the hero’s to undoubtedly escape from, what most annoyed me about Afterlife was how spectacularly it fails to stand on its own: this is less a self-contained sequel and more a mid-game level in the shoot ‘em up inspired franchise. Thus: wholly unsatisfying.

Wentworth Miller channels his Prison Break persona as Claire’s locked up bro Chris, but their relationship stalls from the off due to Claire’s amnesia, leaving him to be no more relevant than any other survivor, while unaccounted mutations nabbed from the fifth videogame mean that every zombie now has tentacles shooting from their face (!), while a hooded, axe-wielding bastard shows up out of nowhere with no explanation whatsoever. It may look pretty, but Afterlife fails on any level deeper than superficial.

CR@B Verdict: aaaaa

Hotel Paranorma

Blu Review: THE BEYOND (E TU VIVAI NEL TERRORE - L'ALDILÀ)
18 – 87mins – 1981
Story by: Dardano Sacchetti
Screenplay by: Dardano Sacchetti, Giorgio Mariuzzo and Lucio Fulci
Directed by: Lucio Fulci
Starring: Catriona MacColl, David Warbeck, Sarah Keller, Antione Saint-John, Veronica Lazar, Anthony Flees
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Talk about irony: no sooner had I finished ripping Lucio Fulci's 1980 zombie abomination City of the Living Dead a new (hell) hole (you can read my rant HERE), then LoveFilm whisked me the second film in his unholy trinity as if it were a high priority on my rental list (it wasn't). I wasn't much looking forward to diving back into this kooky director's diverse oeuvre *quite* so soon, but for all its thematic similarities to its predecessor, The Beyond is actually a surprisingly steep step up in all regards.

Heroine of the original, Catriona MacColl, returns again (as she does in part three, The House By The Cemetery, also. Yes, that's on my LoveFilm list too!), albeit in a completely unrelated role. Here she plays Liza Merril, a woman who has inherited a long-deserted hotel in Louisiana, completely oblivious to its unholy history: it was built over one of the seven cursed gateways to Hell. Bummer.

Despite numerous supernatural “accidents” (all involving major blood loss, body disfiguring, eye-piercing, and – on more than one occasion – acid burning) and countless ominous warnings from a shuddersome blind woman (Keller) to keep the hell away from the ghostly guest house, Liza is undeterred in her renovation project – until the dead start to walk the Earth.

Of course, yet again, it's all an elaborate excuse to splash the red stuff and feed the director's ocular fetish in ever-more distastefully sickening scenarios, but the smaller character base and simplified linear plot means events feel more cohesive and purposeful to the journey's end rather than incomprehensible abstract diversions from logic as they did in the hopelessly disjointed City.

A black and white prologue set in 1927 revealing the unlocking of the gateway and subsequent mob crucifixion of the painter responsible is wonderfully artistic in a B-movie pastiche sense, working well as a framing device which is counterbalanced by the protagonist's belated arrival in “The Beyond” at the film's futile but open-ended climax; an epically atmospheric swirling mountainous landscape of dead bodies soundtracked by the shrieks of the eternally tortured.

For a film billed as a “zombie horror” it must be noted that the shuffling stiffs don't actually show up en mass until five minutes from the end, but don't let that deter you; there are plenty more unrestrained paranormal atrocities to keep horror nuts happy – including a bonkers scene in which (for reasons completely unclear) a concussed man (Anthony Flees) is attacked by a clutch of tarantulas which proceed to sting his face and bite his flesh! It's a monstrously visionary notion which would have been all the more terrifying if half the arachnids hadn't been laughably puppeteered props! Still, half the fun of these vintage cult oddities is chuckling at the cheese...


In a CR@B Shell: Despite being produced just a year after City, The Beyond feels like the work of a far more experienced director; the script is sharper, the scares more complimentary to the narrative and the ghastly effects more polished (well, except the spiders). I still think he's barmy, but perhaps I was too hasty in writing Fulci off...?
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Galloping Cadavers

Blu Review: CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD (PAURA NELLA CITTÀ DEI MORTI VIVENTI)
18 – 93mins – 1980
Written by: Lucio Fulci and Dardano Sacchetti
Directed by: Lucio Fulci
Starring: Christopher George, Catriona MacColl, Carlo De Mejo, Antonella Interlenghi, Giovanni Lombardo Radice, Fabrizio Jovine
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I didn't rush into transcribing my initial reaction after watching this bizarre – and understandably controversial – 1980 zombie flick on Monday night; I had to mull over my thoughts, suppress my rage and attempt to make some semblance of sense of cult Italian director Lucio Fulci's City of the Living Dead before writing my review. Of course I failed, because I've come to the conclusion that it is impossible to make sense out of a work so unconcerned with narrative cohesion that it may as well be a medley of ever-more shocking visual scares instead of even bothering to feign interest in a logical narrative structure.

The plot, for what it's worth, concerns the attempts of two concerned couples who – for reasons all their own – must travel to the remote village of Dunwich, New England to locate the tomb of a priest (Jovine) who hanged himself and thus, by committing such a grievous sin, opened the Gates of Hell (incidentally, that is an alternate title for this many-monikered monstrosity). Can the four clued-up citizens – among them journalist Peter Bell (George) and psychic Mary Woodhouse (MacColl) – close this portal to the underworld before All Saints Day, or will the undead rise to take over the earth?

Despite it's derivative title, please do not confuse this glory-stealing shambles – the first in a trilogy, no less – as a part of George A. Romero's infinitely superior "Living Dead" series. Whereas Romero used his zombies as a cleverly striking metaphor for his harsh social commentary, Fulci doesn't seem to have any clear idea of what the hell he is doing, instead throwing a plethora of grotesque set-pieces at the camera in the hope that everyone is too busy freaking out at the gore to notice nothing makes a jot of sense! Well, I did.

Okay, to be fair, as the film progresses and the two couples converge and formulate something vaguely resembling a plan, the disjointedly fragmented shards of narrative do start to fuse together somewhat, but by this point in the film I had lost all hope of logic and was simply watching in a gore-thirsty braindead state akin to the reanimated dead, who, I may have forgotten to mention, seem able to beam themselves in and out of thin air for no reason whatsoever – and you had a problem with zombies who could run?!

As well as teleporting zombies who seem more concerned with crushing skulls than eating them, Fulci also gets carried away with all manner of other illogical visualisations of the macabre: Mary dies – of fright – at a séance and awakens to find herself buried alive, a squatter with a fetish for self-inflating sex dolls (don't ask) finds the decomposing corpse of a baby then never mentions this again, a woman is forced to vomit up all her internal organs simply because she looked at the spirit of the dead priest, our protagonists find themselves in a storm of maggots, a wall is pierced with shards of glass and starts to bleed, a man's head is impaled on a rotating drill, and on more than one occasion women start to cry blood. Why? Heck knows, but Fulci does seem to have a tiresome obsession with eyes...

I'm sure gore-hounds will have a field day with this gleefully unrestrained freakshow (the censors certainly did), but as a film fan who appreciates a bit of meat on his cinematic bones, City of the Living Dead was an abominably shallow mess which has little to recommend it beyond an atmospheric score with funky guitar undertones. Much like Craven's sorrowful My Soul to Take, this cult “classic” feels like a lot of extremely visceral ideas were cobbled together and a “plot” worked around the carnage. And don't even get me started on the scream which heralds the end credits; as an attempt to insinuate the horror isn't over (despite it unquestionably being so) it fails spectacularly and just adds to the list of confusing illogicalities which plague this rotten drivel.


In a CR@B Shell: Sickeningly sadistic set-pieces and an atmospherically fog-shrouded ambience barely rescue Fulci's nonsensical Euro-trash from being an all-out disappointment, but don't go looking for any symbolic depth in this bizarre surrealist nightmare of a “narrative”. Avoid like the (un)dead.
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Televangelists

Blu Review: [REC]²
18 – 81mins – 2009
Written by: Juame Balageuró, Manu Díez and Paco Plaza
Directed by: Juame Balageuró and Paco Plaza
Starring: Jonathan Mellor, Óscar Sánchez Zafra, Ariel Casas, Alejandro Casaseca, Pablo Rosso, Pep Molina, Andrea Ros, Ális Batllori, Pau Poch, Juli Fábregas, Nico Baixas, Javier Botet, Carlos Olalla, Manuela Velasco
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[SPOILERS] I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I laud 2007 Spanish zombie horror [REC] as a modern day genre masterpiece. Tense, claustrophobic and pant-wettingly terrifying, the “found footage” method made for such an immersive experience that you became completely oblivious to the fact you were reading subtitles (which kinda makes the quick fire Hollywood cash-in – sorry: shot-for-shot remake, Quarantine, a wholly unnecessary experience).

Written and directed by the same team of filmmakers (always a good start), and following immediately on from the bleak and abrupt events which closed the shutter on the original, [REC]² delivers a similarly apprehensive atmosphere by returning to the quarantined apartment building in downtown Barcelona to once more face the dead-eyed hordes of rabid inhabitants.

We’re again in shaky-cam point of view mode as an unsuspecting team of SWAT-like GEO’s equipped with helmet-mounted cameras are led into the seemingly deserted hellhole by Ministry of Health official Dr. Owen (Mellor), who isn’t entirely honest about his intentions… It is here that [REC]² makes a daring departure from traditional zombie flicks – and you’ll either love its ingenuity or consider it a leap of faith too far; either way, the film loses none of its intensity or fury as the source of the epidemic is revealed.

There’s not a crashed space probe or leaking vat of nuclear waste in sight – these zombies (if, indeed, that classification even applies?) are possessed by demonic spawn, and “Dr.” Owen is in actuality a priest on a mission from the church to purge the Anti-Christ through the recitation of religious mantra and locating a vile of restorative blood from the original source; namely, the gangling Medeiros girl who dragged reporter Angela (Velasco, who returns here) into the darkness in the penthouse loft in [REC]’s unnerving final reel.

Swapping perspective between the dwindling team of GEO’s and a trio of dangerously curious teen pranksters (Ros, Batllori, Poch) who sneak into the building moments prior to quarantine via the sewer system, [REC]² pulls no punches in its unrestrained carnage as even small rage-infected children are not safe from a shotgun to the head. The speed with which the possessed attack may not be in keeping with George A. Romero’s shuffling corpses, but the heart-racing panic which grips you when the raging beasts surge is undeniably chilling. Watch out, also, for a ceiling-crawler who moves against gravity with spider-like agility.

From Exorcist-like conversations with the tricksy and deceptive devil to night vision-aided hunts in the dark for answers the light “blinds you from seeing”, this kinetic sequel is certainly not afraid to stalk new ground, which is a remarkable achievement when the cameras barely leave the confines of the tower block.


In a CR@B Shell: A fearlessly courageous diversion from subgenre tradition and inventive expansion of concepts only glimpsed in the first film, [REC]² also doesn’t disappoint on delivering yet another frantic and fraught first-person fright fest of frenzied flesh-feasters. Highly [REC]ommended.
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Walkers' Ready Slaughtered Stiffs

TV Review: THE WALKING DEAD – THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON
15 - 292mins - 2010
Developed by: Frank Darabont
Based on the comic book series by: Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard
Executive Producers: Frank Darabont, Gale Anne Hurd, David Alpert, Robert Kirkman, Charles H. Eglee
Starring: Andrew Lincoln, Joe Bernthal, Sarah Wayne Callies, Laurie Holden, Jeffrey DeMunn, Steven Yeun, Andrew Rothenberg, Chandler Riggs, Irone Singleton, Michael Rooker
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Genres carry with them certain weights of expectation. For instance, tradition dictates that comic books are action-packed and visually resplendent creations which stretch the limits of the imagination with all manner of supernatural and superhuman heroes and foes. Likewise, zombie horror flicks feature an abundance of limb-trailing, flesh-chomping, gore-splattered set-pieces which turn the stomach and jangle the nerves. “They’re coming to get you, Barbara...” and all that jazz.

Being a zombie horror show based upon a renowned comic book series, AMC’s The Walking Dead had twice the responsibility – nay, thrice, with feature film director (and ace adaptor) Frank The Shawshank Redemption Darabont at the helm – to kick some major ass. Things certainly started promisingly in the epic pilot “Days Gone Bye” (#1.01), which sees our protagonist, Georgia sheriff deputy Rick Grimes (Andrew Teachers Lincoln adopting a US twang) awaken from a coma in hospital only to find everyone has deserted him and everything has gone to hell, a la 28 Days Later. Alas, as this promising series progressed, I must confess to being *slightly* let down.


Regulars to The CR@B Shack will know of my near-fanatical appreciation of George A. Romero’s Living Dead saga (see my reviews of Night (1990), Land, Diary and Survival of the Dead) – to say I was pumped for a weekly dose of undead post-apocalyptic carnage is an understatement. And yes, The Walking Dead does look amazing, with the washed-out colour palette perfectly complimenting the desolate wasteland which once was a bustling hive of humanity, and the cinematic special effects are leagues above what a small screen budget would normally accommodate. But season one still failed to sate my gorehound appetite for a number of key reasons.

I am all for directors underlining their visual glamour with satiric depth – Romero peppered all his horror films with stinging societal critiques (decaying zombies = decaying society) – but The Walking Dead seemed far too wrapped up in the human drama aspect, much to the detriment of any legitimate chills. For instance, “Guts” (#1.03) sees Rick join a small group of survivors in Atlanta , only for T-Dog (Singleton) to be viciously pummelled by racist hick Merle (Rooker). In “Tell It to the Frogs” (#1.04), survivor Shane (Bernthal) attacks an uncouth wife-beater to within an inch of his life, while “Vatos” (#1.05) sees a group of hostile city survivors kidnap Greg (Yeun) only for both parties to learn that appearances can be deceiving. Surely, when the world has come to an end, these people have slightly larger concerns than the colour of a man’s skin?


Furthermore, at a mere six episodes, this premiere season was simply too darn short – there was a lack of flow as plot points came to the fore then disappeared completely (leaving many to remain wide open), and because of this the vague story arc – initially of Rick finding his wife (Callies) and son (Riggs), then of the continued survival of the camp – suffered greatly. I’m not au fait with the source story, but these six episodes did not feel like a complete series with any sort of conclusive element.

As the series ends, Rick is still completely clueless to his wife’s awkward love affair with best mate Shane, Merle has escaped in the group’s van never to return, lone wanderers Morgan and son Duane haven’t made it to the camp, Jim’s (Rothenberg) prophetic sunstroke delusions have led to no major revelations, and – most disappointing of all – the decision to leave the forests and convoy to military base the CDC in the hope of finding a cure in “TS-19” (#1.06) granted us a wholly anti-climatic finale which wielded absolutely no kind of breakthrough to the pandemic whatsoever.

I appreciate that real life doesn’t always provide neat answers to every single question, and people do pop into your life then leave just as suddenly, but serialised television requires such conclusions to satisfy the audience; otherwise why do we return week after week if we’re just left hanging? Granted, a second season has been confirmed (to consist of a much more appealing 13 installments) and some plot points will be picked up again there, but a season should be able to stand up on its own as a complete entity, and unfortunately, in that respect, The Walking Dead’s opening season shuffles and lumbers and eventually loses its legs altogether.


In a CR@B Shell: Less a horror and more a heavy-handed comment on society which is so concerned with making humankind look like the villain that it fails to capitalise upon the real rotters. The Walking Dead has promise, but as a zombie nut, I was hoping for more bloody carnage and less survivalist drama.
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Wail of the Weeping Woman

DVD Review: DAMNED BY DAWN
15 – 81mins – 2010
Story by: Brett Anstey, Russell Friedrich, Rob Townshend
Screenplay by: Brett Anstey
Directed by: Brett Anstey
Starring: Renee Willner, Bridget Neval, Dawn Klingberg, Taryn Eva, Danny Alder, Mark Taylor, Peter Stratford
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Every week you'll witness a smattering of schlocky new genre releases dotted around the lower echelons of supermarket's DVD charts. Be they cheap cash-in sequels (such as the recent Mirrors 2) or small independent passion projects (such as the “After Dark Originals” series), few are worth shelling out your hard earned pennies for. There's a reason they didn't get a wide release, after all. Every now and then, however, one such cinema-evading spooker piques my novelty-susceptible interest – and 2010's Damned by Dawn, from intriguingly-monikered Australian's “The Amazing Krypto Bros”, certainly did that.

Admittedly, I was initially drawn to what I thought was a fanged vampire on the UK's whitewashed cover (see bottom pic), but a read through of the synopsis did little to dampen my interest; a soul-collecting Banshee with a scream to raise the dead sounded refreshingly original. And original Damned by Dawn undoubtedly is – even if my admiration was blotched by mild disappointment by the roll of the end credits.

As the life seeps evermore noticeably from her bed-ridden grandmother (Klingberg), twenty-something Claire O'Neill (Willner) returns to her father's (Stratford) run-down farmhouse for the first time in 18 months – with her boyfriend Paul (Alder) in tow. As Nana starts talking of a woman who will come to claim her soul when she passes, a spooked out Claire dismisses the creepy chatter as little more than illogical ravings – until the family are awoken by piercing shrieks in the middle of the night and their home is under threat from the recently risen dead; under the command of a wailing woman in white...

The screen continually cloaked in a dense fog, and the narrative unfolding entirely on the grounds of the eerie and isolated rural house, the filmmakers certainly cannot be accused of not summoning up a remarkably appropriate atmosphere. The Banshee – a blood-stained, ghost-faced, rag-wearing spirit – is a genuinely creepy creation. Alas, it soon becomes clear that her arsenal of abilities is strickly limited to floating and shrieking (the majority of which she does off screen) – making her no more fearsome than the ghouls she awakens.

On the subject of the ghouls – unearthed, supernaturally animated corpses – you have to admire the FX department for their budget-restricted effort, but, in truth, flying skeletons are not scary, and some of the atmosphere attributed to the Banshee is irredeemably eradicated by these ludicrous foes. Nonetheless, I will conceed to being impressed by the sequence in which Claire and her father speed away from the house in a car as countless airborne ghouls fly at the panic-stricken escapees.

Attempts to justify and add depth to the horrific events by tying the modern day phenomena to the O'Neill's family history by way of a black and white photograph, an heirloom urn and diary extracts from generations past are well meaning but ultimately fall short of lucid. As do the poorly-executed endeavours to grant the human characters with rounded personalities (the father's quickly forgotten kookiness; Claire's scarcely unmentioned secret). Ultimately, the film's greatest elements are the most gory (a gut-spewing, unrelenting zombie attack in the kitchen), and although the make-up is slapped on a little thick in parts, Damned by Dawn is an admirably gutsy independent chiller.


In a CR@B Shell: Small in scale but big in ambition, Brett Anstey's Damned by Dawn may forsake some of its unearthly ambiance with unintentionally gigglesome adversaries, but make no mistake – there is a gallant and damned spirited concept at the core of this low budget offering.
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Wait – I’ve got ANOTHER Life?!!

DVD Review: RESIDENT EVIL: EXTINCTION
15 – 90mins – 2007
Written by: Paul W. S. Anderson
Directed by: Russell Mulcahy
Starring: Milla Jovovich, Oded Fehr, Ali Larter, Iain Glen , Ashanti , Christopher Egan, Spencer Locke, Matthew Marsden, Jason O’Mara, Mike Epps
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Much like the T-virus infected adversaries who litter the streets of Raccoon City and beyond, the Resident Evil film series will just not die. No matter how many rounds of critical lambasting are directed their way, a couple of years later another one will shuffle and groan its way into the cinemas. It’s not even like the game’s fans think the big screen spin-offs hold a dismembered limb to their cherished console classics – so who is keeping this rotten saga lumbering on??

And breathe... Okay, rant over. After all that seething, it may surprise you to learn that Extinction – the third in the four (to date) part series – is my favourite Resident Evil film to date. Admittedly I have yet to see 2010’s Afterlife, but still “favourite” isn’t saying much: the 2002 original and follow up Apocalypse were dismal. And I’m a huge zombie nut. But then we are dealing with director Paul W. S. Anderson here (Alien vs Predator – need I say more?), who is still scribing this series even if he is no longer behind the lens.

I was impressed by the double bluff opening sequence which slickly introduced us to the mysterious “Project Alice” by cloning the original film’s mansion awakening, but once the real-but-psychically-enhanced Alice (Jovovich) – surviving off the grid for some five years since the devastating outbreak – is back to her usual slogging and slaughtering, the film regresses to a generic safe ground: it’s still watchable enough, it just feels so familiar.

The Umbrella Corporation’s aforementioned project – to find a cure for the rabid infection by extracting a genetic serum from clones of Alice – is shown in its experimental stage to humanize the zombies in scenes straight out of George A. Romero’s landmark Day of the Dead, while the clone breeding ground is discovered by Alice in much the same fashion to how Ripley sees a sea of failed test subjects in Alien Resurrection.

On a positive note, the schematic scene changes are stylishly executed, while the infected raven attack sequence is pretty cool (certainly better than the devil dogs, that’s for sure!), but the bulk of Extinction feels like a long-winded red-herring, with Alice joining Claire Redfield’s (Ali Larter) caravan of survivors on a Mad Max-style romp through the desert – only for Alice to drop out of the convoy as soon as the plan is established to head to the Arctic, leaving her free to face-off alone against a genetically mutated scientist (Iain Glen) in a replica of the “big boss” showdown against Nemesis from the last film


In a CR@B Shell: Anderson’s unintentional ode to genre classics is an adequately entertaining if totally unoriginal popcorn horror. Resident Evil: Extinction was everything I expected it to be – because I’d seen many of its core plotlines before.
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Mirth of the Living Dead

DVD Review: UNDEAD
15 – 100mins – 2003
Written by: Michael and Peter Spierig
Directed by: Michael and Peter Spierig
Starring: Felicity Mason, Mungo McKay, Rob Jenkins, Lisa Cunningham, Dirk Hunter, Emma Randall, Noel Sheridan, Gaynor Wensley, Eleanor Stillman, Robyn Moore
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Meteor showers, acid rain, a zombie uprising, killer fish, ghostly apparitions and alien abductions – you certainly can’t accuse the Spierig brother’s first feature of being uneventful. But anyone – myself included – watching this wild Australian horror in the wake of their 2009 breakthrough hit Daybreakers should not be expecting a tonally analogous ride. Pity, then, that Anchor Bay recently repackaged the film with a misleadingly dour cover...

Whereas the twin auteur’s future-set vampire apocalypse was a furiously severe and sombre horror, 2003’s Undead is a madcap tongue-in-cheek affair which packs as many laughs as gloriously embellished deaths into its 100 zany minutes. Strictly speaking it’s not a parody, although Michael and Peter do little to disguise their “splatstick” influences: this is essentially The Evil Dead (1981) mating with Bad Taste (1987) in George A. Romero’s cellar.

You can therefore be certain that you won’t be able to keep a straight face as the townsfolk of fishing community Berkeley start developing a taste for brain matter and a spiky extraterrestrial barricade quarantines the human survivors alongside their undead neighbours. Mungo McKay camps it up as the eccentric outsider Marion who is never short of a gun or twelve, leading the shabby mortal resistance against the torrents of supernatural activity.

Just when you think Undead can’t possibly get any wackier, the Spierig brothers throw in another comic book nemesis for our wearied protagonists to battle, bludgeon and behead. It’s all farcically over the top and riotous fun, but the busy plot does begin to feel rather scattershot in its approach, as if a multitude of genre elements are being shoehorned in just for the sake of it.

Nevertheless, anyone who fancies a chortle at a pair of bodiless legs stumbling aimlessly in search of a torso is in for a treat: Undead is unquestionably a tour de force of carnage and comedy. Lamentably, as the credits rolled I was left with a prevailing sense of frustration, trying desperately to work out how the haphazard plot strands pulled together to reach such a crazy conclusion. Perhaps I was paying too much attention…?


In a CR@B Shell: More farcical than frightening, Undead is a hyperbolic homage to old school horror comedy which is best watched in a braindead, booze-addled state.
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Cops and Rotters

DVD Review: THE HORDE (LA HORDE)
18 – 93mins – 2009
Written by: Arnaud Bordas, Yannick Dahan, Stephane Moissakis, Benjamin Rocher
Directed by: Yannick Dahan and Benjamin Rocher
Starring: Claude Perron, Jean-Pierre Martins, Eriq Ebouaney, Aurélien Recoing, Doudou Masta, Antoine Oppenheim, Jo Prestia, Yves Pignot
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Whenever a blockbuster blows up at the box office you can guarantee that a cascade of shlocky copycat releases with unashamedly similar covers will bombard supermarket DVD shelves to make a quick buck off of a certified brand name: Paranormal Activity had Paranormal Ascendancy (they even changed the title from 3AM), Avatar had child-friendly Battle For Terra and Sherlock Holmes had... Sherlock Holmes (though you'd be hard-pressed to muddle the two given how Sherlock vs. Monsters – as it is known in the US – has a friggin' T-Rex photoshopped across the cover!!).

You would be forgiven for thinking that French tower block zombie flick The Horde was a similarly public-duping rip off of Spanish tower block zombie flick [REC] and its recent sequel (indeed the pair debuted on UK DVD in the same week – way to go, Momentum!). You would be forgiven, but you would be wrong. Locale aside, whereas [REC] is a terrifying, claustrophobic first-person nightmare, The Horde is a more blatantly ballsy testosterone-fuelled gore-fest. Think 28 Days Later meets From Dusk Til Dawn.

The Horde's premise is so simple and the details so sketchy, it's clear that all plot points are just an excuse to have a madcap smackdown between cops, gangsters and zombies – and there's nothing wrong with that when the carnage is as wickedly fun and unreserved as it is here. We never do find out why the dead are coming back to live for a fleshy nibble, but it is a winningly vicious depiction nonetheless: the feral former-corpses are more like possessed coke-heads than shuffling meat piles.

As the ever-massing horde ravage the duelling human teams down to three-a-piece, the diverse survivors (cautiously) join forces to battle their way down the stairwell to ground level, slaughtering – and in one uncomfortable scene, torturing – as they go. With no-one willing to trust anyone else, the group dynamic is constantly shifting, until you realise that all but two of the characters are unsympathetic, backstabbing arseholes.

A word of warning: the police do not look or act at all like figures of authority, which does initially confuse. Their tower block siege is entirely motivated by revenge for a fallen comrade, while their “plan” of creeping in via the building's back-door wearing balaclavas and armed with guns seems unforgivably amateurish. Even the gang cannot believe how foolish the unit are for having no back-up. Were it not for their badges, I would have had a very hard time believe this “crack unit of elite officers” were anything other than rival terrorists.

Furthermore, latecomer Réne (Yves Pignot) – a racist, old-school resident with an axe in his hand and a sadistic twinkle in his eye – initially injects some humour into the film with his charismatic outbursts and in-your-face attitude, but he quickly irritates and his animated, over the top acting reminded me of the sort of stereotypical character you would find in a Studio Ghibli film.

But enough with the downside, because all of this is forgiven the minute the claret starts spraying, the limbs start flying and the action kicks in. This is where The Horde flourishes. Speaking of kicking, acclaim must go to Alain Figlarz, the film's choreographer, for some stunningly spirited combat sequences (for zombies that run can also fight back), even if the editor with the penchant for replaying the knockout blows from various angles and at various speeds really should be demoted to Steven Seagel vehicles forthwith...


In a CR@B Shell: A blistering and brutal bloodbath of bullets, bodies, biters and ballsy bad-asses: The Horde is a riotous and unsympathetic feast for hardcore horror hounds who demand nothing but carnage.
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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.