A For Effort. Eh For Execution

I've said it time and time again: setting your genre film in the olden days will automatically make it more interesting. Aside from removing the annoyingly obligatory "No service!"shout-out, a pre-automobile driven society gives way to more tension, more limitations, and an environment even less fit to fight supernatural horrors than the one we all know.

In other words, I added the new Bloody Disgusting release Exit Humanity to my queue because it was a Civil War era zombie film. What could go wrong?

Quick Plot: Narrated by an always welcomed Brian Cox, Exit Humanity is assembled from the diary of Edwin Young (a solid Mark Gibson), a battle-scarred soldier who caught a glimpse of the undead while shooting the other side on the mountains of Tennessee. Six years later, he experiences new horrors when he returns from a hunting trip to find his wife and son zombified, as well as a good portion of the nearby community. Edwin embarks upon his own mission to research and exterminate the new population of flesh-eaters, eventually venturing out to spread his son's ashes at a peaceful waterfall that soothed him during the war. 

Along the way, Edwin befriends Isaac, a fellow zombie hunter looking for his sister, who has been kidnapped by a rogue group of Confederates (led by genre stalwart Bill Mosely) using a tired medic (Pontypool's Stephen McHattie) to work on a cure. Edwin, Isaac, and his sister Emma escape to find solace in a local healer's home (played by Dee Wallace, and yes, the genre cred meter just burst).

Let's examine what we have so far:

-A fascinating and underused time period

-A superb cast of proven horror actors

-Zombies

Mixing these ingredients should yield a pretty delicious pie, right? 

Well...

Written and directed by John Geddes, Exit Humanity is an ambitious film, one that clocks in at nearly 110 minutes and feels determined to make you feel each one. With Jeff Graville, Nate Kreiswirth, and Ben Nudds' soaring score and the sometimes pretentious narration, Exit Humanity is certainly aiming for epic status. But unlike something like Stakeland (which FELT big even on a small budget), the elements of this film never quite add up to something as grandiose as it wants to be. Gibson is a strong lead, but too much of the early scenes are devoted to Edwin screaming at God, while later montage-ish sequences that are supposed to show developing relationships never resonate with any true depth. Though we get some strong zombie chases here and there, the undead seem to randomly fade in and out as an actual threat. Part of what makes a historical-set horror film so effective is knowing that antiquated weaponry and technology might not be advanced enough to handle the threat. But in Exit Humanity, rarely do the shuffling hordes of extras even feel that dangerous.

That being said, Exit Humanity has to be admired for some of its more unique touches. Throughout the film, Geddes interjects expressionistic style animation, presumably as drawings from Edwin's journal. The artwork is quite striking, even if its more modern look never quite gels with the 19th century feel of the rest of the film.

Based on its premise and cast, I wanted to like Exit Humanity and by golly, I just, well, kind of didn't. The film looks quite good, with its woodsy setting never tipping its Confederate hat to reveal a low budget. Lots of credit does go to Geddes for taking his time to create something unique to the zombie genre without ever settling for easy gore. Unfortunately, the incredibly labored pacing just never clicked for me. The sentiment was there, but while the landscape and soundtrack worked so hard to establish Edwin's crew's misfortunes, I just never cared enough about them as individuals to stay involved with the molasses moving narrative.

High Points

Dude: it's the 1870s!

Low Points

...a time when movies took themselves far too seriously

Lessons Learned

There ain’t no cure for monstrous behavior

Leather jackets have always been in style, be it 1987 or 1871

As Cold Mountain already taught us, one could not find better healthcare in the 19th century than in the secluded forest cabin of a female hermit

Rent/Bury/Buy

I don't want to discourage anyone from checking out Exit Humanity. I give Geddes a lot of credit for tackling a tired genre with a fresh approach, and between the surprisingly strong production value, reliable cast, interesting artwork, and an extras-loaded DVD, the film offers quite a lot for horror fans with an appreciation for something new. Overall, it didn't quite work for my tastes, but this is a better than average straight-to-DVD horror movie that could certainly please plenty of viewers. I feel bad not being one.

You Better Watch Out!...Even though you can't actually see

After the gloriously awful debacle that was Silent Night, Deadly Night 2, I imagine the franchise’s producing studio decided to tread lightly by ditching the controversial axe-wielding Santa Claus in favor of a tamer, “psychologically” menacing thriller more fitting of the turn of the decade. Gone was Garbage Day and abhorrent nuns. In was the dangers of hitchhiking and itty bitty scalpals.

Oh, and a whole lot of boredom littered with future minor celebrities, dangerously tight jeans, and snotty blind girls with mouths in need of Life Buoy soap.

Quick Plot: It’s been six years since the Garba--er, Christmas massacre committed by Richard “Ricky” Caldwell. A nefariously experimental scientist has kept the man formerly of expressive eyebrows (now embodied by a young Bill Mosely doped up on NyQuil) in a vegetive state, his head opened with a clear plastic beanie covering his brain in a manner reminiscent of Dr. Badvibes on the early ‘90s animated series C.O.P.S. Dr. Newberry tries to understand more about the operations of comatose victims by sending a vaguely psychic, extremely bratty blind teenager named Laura into Ricky’s subconscious. 

While there, Laura gets to relive a few highlights from the original film, including the infamous Santa car trouble/mother rape that was observed by the infant-aged Ricky in perfectly clear close-up. I’m somewhat forgiving of sequels that rely on flashbacks because you often need to guide viewers new to the series, but is it too much to ask for a sequence that a character actually witnessed? Especially when the entire point is to show the memories of our main villain, currently being seen by our new “protagonist?”

Moving on, Jenny--who happens to have been orphaned in a tragic plane crash, which I suppose is intended to provide us with sympathy for a hugely unlikable heroine--heads to grandma’s house for the holidays, hitching a ride with her big brother Chris (he who possesses an immaculate perm and even godlier furball of a chest) and new girlfriend Jerry (pre-Mulholland Drive amnesiac Laura Harring). Grandma, by the way, lives a fairy tale existence in a gingerbread house, wearing a Christmas decoration worthy bun while basting a juicy turkey, baking a gooseberry pie, and feeding random strangers with big heads and blank stares.

Yup, said silent caroler is none other than Ricky and eventually--reeeeeeeally eventually, after lots of forced conversation plus a rendezvous with a way-too-cheerful detective attempting to sell his partner a phone plan--the scrappy orphans engage in a slow and suspensless showdown with the non-Santaesque mental patient.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Sorry. I fell asleep and dreamt I worked at a magazine printing plant inserting those subscription renewal tabs inside each issue. It was so much more interesting.

I didn’t quite care for this entry in the Caldwell saga, mostly because it was just so...blah. Nary a sacred sacrament of the yule season is abused, and the only real reference to Ricky’s initial inspiration comes with a brief flashback. Unlike part 1 or something like Christmas Evil, there’s no mention of the “naughty” list and thus no real motivation for our killer to slay. He just shambles through pleasant winter weather seeking a woman we can’t even stand. 

It’s admirable enough that filmmaker Monte Hellman tried to put the story back on track with an actual script, but there’s just nothing to enjoy about Silent Night, Deadly Night III. The coma angle isn’t itself uninteresting, but we’ve seen it done to better effect in films like Bad Dreams  (which itself isn’t even that good of a film), while the kills are limited to gunshots and mild stabbings. Bah ho-hum. 

High Points

This is probably more of an oversight or budget restriction, but in an age of standard and overused sound cues, I actually appreciated the silence of some of the ‘scarier’ scenes

Low Points

It’s a minor quibble in a film rich in low points, but how dare a sequel that follows “2” then switch its title to the roman numeral III format? Like recasting Eric Freeman wasn’t bad enough!

I haven't wanted to punch a lead character so much since Natalie Portman helped destroy the Star Wars universe with her valium-induced performance

Lessons Learned

Being blind is no reason to not have impeccable make-up skills

The best way to find a missing grandmother is to get naked and take a soapy bath with your new girlfriend

It’s easier to survive a brutal stabbing than ten seconds of strangulation, but a knife wound is far more lethal than a few gunshots. Think of it like rock/paper/scissors, but less sensical

Upon meeting a blind person, the first conversational query should not be “So, how long have you considered yourself handicapped?”

Hospitals should probably require emergency contact numbers from their outpatients

Psychologists who decorate their offices like tropical rain forests may produce schizophrenic flashes in their patients’ fragile minds

Untrained actors can best act blind by squinting and tensing their lip muscles

Rent/Bury/Buy

Silent Night, Deadly Night 3 is now available in a triple pack with parts IV & V, so any completist will want to purchase the set solely for nostalgia. If memory serves, the next two films are far more enjoyable than this rather bland entry, so skip Part III and devote 90 minutes instead to more noble pursuits, such as building a mutant killer snowman or watching the 7 minute Garbage Day scene on loop.

There's really no better way to spend your time this December.

Repo! The Aggressive Opera!

As a firm believer in organ donation, a lifetime lover of musicals, a proud owner of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Seasons 2-7 (because I refused to pay the same price for the shortest season, even if i did get all the others at a bargain price of $16.99), and, in case you haven't guessed it, a fairly enthusiastic fan of horror, the concept of Repo! was almost too good to be true:

Quick Plot: In the near dystopian future, the demand for fresh body parts has grown so large that a corporation has started a megamillion financing company to pay for those transplants with very steep interest rates. Paul Sorvino and Sarah Brightman lend operatic cred, Anthony Stewart Head provides the eye and soulful voice candy, and the director of Saw 2 tosses in all the leftover bits from Tobin Bell’s autopsy. The casting of Paris Hilton was almost a relief; nothing could be perfect.

And Repo! isn't. But I still love it.

Maybe you will. Maybe you won't. This could be the dictionary definition of a polarizing film because there's no way to enjoy it if you can't get past its rock opera-iness. Or the ridiculous plot, brain squishing, grave robbing, Spy Kids alum, and Bill Mosely’s dance moves. Anybody that says they hated this film, I can't argue. It's loud and crass, messy and cheap, over-the-top and proud of itself. But c’mon: there’s an exclamation point in the title with no real logic (Repo! The Genetic Opera makes me want to rename some past titles like Pinball! The Who’s Tommy, Barber! Sweeney Todd’s Victorian Tale and fix Broadway’s Spring Awakening to Fuck! The Teen Sex Musical). I normally don’t approve of aggressive grammar, but this one just tries so hard and hey, maybe it’s an homage to past musicals of yore like Oklahoma! and Oliver!

High Points:
Sarah Brightman has always been a kind of dark-haired step-child of the theater world, but she is right at home in the world of this film, with an incredibly haunting voice and gorgeous look.

Picture the Nixon mask Patrick Swayze wore in the opening scene of Point Break. Now cut out the mouth and listen to it sing with a wacky and foppish Italian accent. That’s Ogre’s Gabi, and it’s kind of a beautiful and horrifying thing.

Seeing Anthony Stewart Head singing and in black leather is sort of like fan fiction wish fulfillment pornography for the Buffyverse...and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that

Low points
Of all the musical lines this film, the single one I can’t get out of my head is Bill Mosely's “I will find a hole and fuck it.” That’s a tad inconvenient in real life.

Lessons Learned:
The near future will kind of suck, but at least opera will make a comeback

Much like today, the lending crisis will yield some rather serious consequences for the general public, with dismemberment and gutting replacing foreclosure and bankruptcy.


It is possible for goth guys to be kinda hot, providing they have rich singing voices

Rent/Buy/Bury
Buy it, if nothing else, to send a message to studios that horror fans crave and will accept something different. As much as I'm giddily counting the days left to see Jason’s rebirth*, I would much rather get a Repo! cycle or surge in crossover genre experiments than another 12 films with the same story and stock characters for the next 12 years. If people complain that Saw is the same recycled garbage Halloween after Halloween then those folks need to prove that they want and will pay for something else.


*Generally, my opinion on remakes is one of disdain and annoyance, but the Friday the 13th series has never actually been good (despite the softest of spots I hold in my heart for Part 8, where Jason takes over a Canadian New York City) so as far as “reimagining” goes, I say go for it. It can’t be worse than Part 5, and maybe 12 times is the charm.