Midnight Movie of the Week #199 - Cemetery Man

Most horror fans I know are quick to point out how lackluster the genre output of the 1990s was.  As with any time and any genre, there were several very good films released during that time span. (A few years back I listed these as my favorites.)  But, with fond memories of the 1980s in our minds and several impressive serious horror films hitting audiences in the new millennium, it's easy to see why the '90s are held in such contempt.

The horror subculture that might have taken the biggest hit in the 1990s was the Italian horror scene, which peaked with Argento, Fulci, and Bava through the '60s and early '80s but produced very few horror hits after the '80s ended. The biggest outlier to this train of thought is certainly Cemetery Man (originally titled Dellamorte Dellamore in its native tongue), which stands out to me as one of the most interesting horror films of its time and place due to its bizarre tone and chaotic plot.

British actor Rupert Everett, who would go on to much success starring romantic comedies like My Best Friend's Wedding and doing vocal work for Shrek movies, is at Cemetery Man's center as Francesco Dellamorte, the caretaker of an unholy cemetery where the dead often rise and walk seven days after their demise.  Many horror films would present a man in this position as an empowered hero, but Dellamorte just seems kind of annoyed by his predicament, sulking through much of the film and struggling to put much effort into sending the dead back to their graves. Cemetery Man uses his indifferent attitude as a platform to great things and Everett is a perfect fit for the moody and disinterested role.

There is one thing that inspires Dellamorte to feel passion, and that - of course - is a woman with huge breasts. She's played by Anna Falchi, who might be the most perfectly endowed woman in horror history, and her place in the caretaker's life drives the film toward the darkly comic tone that pushes it to surprising heights as a star-crossed romance and as an existential fantasy. Falchi first appears and captures the caretaker's heart as a widow who is turned on by the dead, and later shows up in two more roles to throw more salt on the wounds of Dellamorte's tortured love life.  The sexual encounters between the two leads are presented in ridiculously humorous ways - think of that awkwardly hilarious sex scene from Watchmen and you'll start to get the idea of what the director does here - but the caretaker's obsession with this woman through all of her different incarnations is always presented as a serious and somewhat deadly affliction for him.

While this sad sack is wondering what he has to do to hold on to the most beautiful pair of breasts woman he's ever seen, everything around him is increasingly bizarre and wild. His assistant and closest friend is a large bald man named Gnaghi who can only grunt and who also develops an obsessive love for the young daughter of the mayor after he vomits on her. Everyone around the cemetery seems rather uninterested in the fact that these "returners" continue to come back from the grave so Dellamorte can shoot them in the head, and the personification of Death even shows up to warn the caretaker that he should "stop killing the dead."

Everything in the film could be played for straight up laughs, and if that didn't work the story could also have been taken to gory extremes for the horror crowd. But director Michele Soavi seems to have an almost Shakespearean approach to the material, and the spirit that he gives Cemetery Man might be the biggest key to establishing the film as one of the most fascinating horror films of its era. A tonal comparison could be made to Peter Jackson's much loved Dead Alive, but the more human and less slapstick approach gives Cemetery Man a more tragic, thought-provoking edge over other splatter films like it.

Initial viewings of Cemetery Man may puzzle viewers - especially after the abstract ending - but returns to the film have really made me appreciate just how much this quirky horror film has to offer. It pushes the boundaries where many horror films stand pat, and never really suffers from its more abstract and existential choices. It's a movie that you don't want to look away from, and not just because you might see Falchi's God-given gifts at any moment. (Seriously, when she has a shirt on it looks like she's smuggling tetherballs.) The dark comedy, the ill-fated romance, and the zombie splatter all fit together perfectly here, establishing Cemetery man as a one-of-a-kind winner.

Midnight Movie of the Week #173 - Let Sleeping Corpses Lie

Let Sleeping Corpses Lie might be one of the five best zombie movies in existence, and yet nobody ever seems to talk about it. There are plenty of reasons this could be the case - "It's almost 40 years old" and "there's no big stars in it" are acceptable, but stupid, examples - but I'm most concerned that the movie is a horror film that suffers from a bit of an identity crisis.

Identity crisis is a bizarre diagnosis for a movie, so allow me to explain. For starters, it's a movie that seems to have a different title for every viewer. In the UK, it's The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue. But in other parts/times of the UK it was called The Living Dead. In the United States the film was called Don't Open the Window at one point, and titles from other parts of the world translate to all kinds of things. My favorite example of this is the original Spanish title - Non si deve profanare il sonno dei morti - that translates to Do Not Speak Ill of the Dead.  I don't know the history of the movie and its release, but it seems like it's been given more names than The Artist formerly known as The Artist Formerly Known as Prince.

As if that's not confusing enough, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie also seems kind of like a homeless film. Most horror fans would look at the film and say "Oh, that's an Italian horror flick" and they'd be wrong....kind of.  The film was directed by Jorge Grau, a Spaniard, produced in Italy and England, and features a cast made up of plenty of Italians, Spaniards, and even American Arthur Kennedy as a stodgy detective. The other primary cast members are half British/half Italian Ray Lovelock (who has a fantastic name and a fantastic beard) and Spanish born Cristina Galbo, who seem to have chemistry together despite being obviously dubbed. Which is kind of a microcosm of why the film works so well, because all of these random ingredients are here, yet they inexplicably fit together.

A majority of the credit must be given to Grau, a director that I'm not very familiar with but one that I respect immensely. In an introduction filmed for the DVD release of the film, Grau sends a wonderful message to horror fans about to see the film for the first time. "I hope you have a bad time" and 'I hope you get very scared and that you suffer profoundly" aren't things most directors would say to their audiences, but Grau seems almost cheerful as he reminds us that his intention is to make us squirm.  There's something about this little nod from the director that has stuck with me for years, and really made me admire the guy's eye for horror.

The other reason I love the guy is for how perfectly he balances all the things I want from a zombie movie throughout his film. Let Sleeping Corpses offers an actual plot, a ton of atmospheric tension, and just the right amount of gore to keep me fascinated. Don't let the European shine fool you, because Grau's film doesn't go for Fulci levels of blood splatter. It does, however, feature some perfectly executed attacks and enough organ-ripping to keep you disgusted, all while still managing to feel like a nightmare for the characters involved. 

The plot has an ecological explanation for the zomificiation epidemic, and some of the symbolism Grau uses to make his point is a little too on-the-nose at times. But the heavy handed segments of the film can be forgiven, as they are a wonderful excuse to move the story to some vibrant country settings and one of the most realistically dreary graveyards in horror history.  A lot of zombie movies skip the reason why zombies are happening, but Grau's film does a good job of having a reason and not getting too caught up in it. Above all else, this film is a fever dream of undead madness, not a social commentary.

I'm not sure I was very scared, nor did I suffer profoundly, but I still can see where Grau was coming from when he made this fine horror film. Let Sleeping Corpses Lie is always entertaining and never insulting, with great special effects - those zombie eyes do haunt me - and a nice pace.  It's an odd little zombie film that feels like the bastard child of Romero and Bava, but that doesn't stop the film from being one of the most underrated horror films of the 1970s. No matter which title they decide to use or which country they attribute the film to, most horror fans should fall in love with this one.

So, About That Zombieland "TV" Series....

It's hard to believe that Zombieland is nearly four years old. At the time of the film's release I thought it felt a lot like a movie that would grow a cult following, and these days I feel like it's almost underrated in the realm of horror comedies. Cruel irony has humanity still ruling the Earth while the lead character's beloved Twinkies have gone extinct, but the movie still holds up surprisingly well thanks to a smart script and one heck of a cast.

Since its release two of the four primary cast members - Jesse Eisenberg and Emma Stone - have gone on to bigger and better things (by my estimation, Stone will make that Anne Hathaway-ish leap to critical darling within the next two years and Eisenberg still has miles left on his tires, especially if he stays in David Fincher's good graces), while Woody Harrelson continues to be Woody Harrelson and Abigail Breslin looks like she just might survive the transition from child star to legitimate young actress.  The film had a perfect storm of a cast, and the stars seemed to mesh perfectly with director Ruben Fleischer who, surprisingly to me, has been at the helm of a couple of duds (30 Minutes or Less and Gangster Squad) since this one.

With the cast drawing so much attention and Fleischer getting a lot of credit for his work, Zombieland writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick were the relatively unsung heroes of the hit film. And here they are, four years later, milking the premise into an online pilot for Zombieland: The Series.  Presented by Amazon as part of their attempt to bring original shows to their always expanding website, Zombieland now exists as the template for an R-rated, thirty-minute-long sitcom.

The premise picks up where the film left off, if not in plot then at least in tone.  The same four lead characters are back, but they're played by a relatively unknown cast who do their best to mimic the famous folks they're replacing. This is probably the biggest struggle for a fan of the film like me, because - in case you didn't notice - that cast was sooooooo bloody perfect. It's kind of like that time when I wanted to go see the local theater troupe do Arsenic and Old Lace, until I realized that Cary Grant and Raymond Massey (or, better yet, Boris Karloff!) wouldn't be walking through that door.

That said, this cast isn't bad entirely. Kirk Ward has a young Rick Ducommon thing (and I mean that in the nicest way) going on as he fills the Woody role, while Maiara Walsh and Izabela Vidovic serviceable in the female roles. My biggest quibble is with Tyler Ross filling in for Eisenberg, because a) his tone seems a little too annoying, even in an already annoying role, and b) he seems to have taken the character in a more socially awkward direction than Eiseneberg did. Maybe this is what the writers wanted all along - it's their barbecue, they can flavor it however they like - but it's off-putting to a fan of the film.

The biggest concern with the show, from where I sit is I'm just not sure it can keep its legs under it. Despite all its charms, the film was a bit of a one-trick pony and I'm not sure the sarcastic and self-referential script would have worked without the cast and the film's manic pace. Watching a 29 minute introduction to the characters doesn't give me anything more than a feeling of "Oh wow, they're really milking those 'rules' for all they're worth and really hammering us over the head with blatant comedy."  I guess that's what sitcoms do, but it still left me with little reason to come back to the show. There's no hook that grabs your interest, just the promise of more senseless violence and inappropriate jokes. 

If you really want more of Zombieland, I guess the show might tickle your fancy. It's hard to draw a conclusion from one episode, but I can't really see the point of watching this when the movie's already out there.

Thankfully, you can decide for yourself if you like. The pilot is available for free viewing on Amazon, where they're taking feedback regarding which of several pilots they should produce. Take a look for yourself, if you dare.  And keep your copy of the movie on hand, because you'll probably feel like watching it instead by the time Episode Two premieres.

Midnight Movie of the Week #148 - Pontypool

One of the most unique and challenging horror films of the new millennium, Pontypool is a rare kind of treat that works on several different levels.  It seems like such a simple film - a radio DJ covers the strange events going on in a small Canadian town - but there are more things going on in this film than even I can keep up with.

The centerpiece of the film is clearly Stephen McHattie's performance as shock-jock-turned-morning-report-guy Grant Mazzy, a man who has clearly been sent to radio purgatory for sins that are never revealed to the viewer.  The film's choice to leave us in the dark regarding Mazzy's path to the small town of Pontypool is a great move, because it makes it easy for the viewer to think about other things and ignore any questions about the man in the middle.  As a result of this choice and McHattie's natural performance, Grant Mazzy becomes something of an underdog hero in the film. We know he's not a pure hero that we should root for - he does swear a lot and argue with his boss, after all - but he's got that charming antihero thing going on as he leads the film's charge.

Surrounding Mazzy, and taking up much of the film's landscape, is the outbreak. Or maybe I should call it an event, or an epidemic, or even a reckoning. As the film begins to roll, all we really know is that a woman is talking gibberish in the middle of a snow storm. But then the reports start to roll in to the station and Mazzy and company are tasked to make sense out of what's going on and then the fun part begins - because the viewer's imagination is asked to start working on its own image of Pontypool's big problem.

 

Director Bruce McDonald is definitely hiding his cards from the viewer - probably because it's a lot cheaper to talk about an uprising of flesh eaters than it is to show an uprising of flesh eaters - but at the same time he doesn't allow the film to get stagnant.  The film could have ended up feeling like a stage play but the director finds subtle ways to involve the viewer.  One of my favorite realizations about the film came when I noticed how the opening act is framed by a camera that seems to be constantly in motion, circling around our characters and occasionally changing its direction on a cut, a minor effect that seems to keep us moving around the characters despite the restrained setting.

By keeping its camera mobile while framing a small area and a small number of characters, Pontypool becomes quietly disorienting as it tells us about the events that started this nightmare for the radio man, the station's crew, and the mostly unseen small town.  Looking back at the film, it's almost ironic that dangerous things only start happening to the characters after Mazzy proclaims he's "had enough of this" and leaves the radio booth - which means there's not much more spinning camera left in the film.

The film's most haunting sequence, which I'm willing to bet comes straight from the pages of author/screenwriter Tony Burgess' book Pontypool Changes Everything - is a series of black and white images that are shown while Mazzy reads odd an incredibly macabre sequence of obituaries.  Recounting deaths - which I assume are only a small portion of what has gone on in the town - in a chronological and almost sadistic manner, McHattie's voice is calmly professional while also exhibiting a heavy dose of fear.  The film uses this sequence mostly as a break between acts - and logic makes me think that it's unlikely that all the details that Mazzy gives here would have been available to him in the film's timeline - but at the same time it really does a lot of work selling the scale of this event to the viewer.

This all leads to the horrific final act, and the less I say about that is probably the better. That's partially because I don't want to ruin any of the surprises you're going to find, but also because I'm still not sure I completely understand all of it.  It is perhaps the most ambitious explanation for a horror event that I know of, and - if nothing else - it helps cement the simple fact that Pontypool is a dynamite film that should not be ignored by anyone with an open mind to horror. The writer and director have mentioned that they were inspired by Orson Welles' infamous broadcast of War of the Worlds, and I think it's safe to say that their film recaptures that productions spirit of terrifying wonder perfectly.  So check it out, and let your mind create its own visuals regarding this one-of-a-kind outbreak in Pontypool.

How The Mike Met Horror, Volume 3 - The Movies

How The Mike Met Horror, Volume 1 - The Books

How The Mike Met Horror, Volume 2 - The Television

While the first two parts of this series may have been familiar to most horror folks of my generation, the movies that sent me to where I am as a horror fan will be more familiar to the kind folks that read this here blog.  Most of the movies I'm about to talk about have been covered here numerous times, so coming up with something relevant and useful to say in what follows has been a strong challenge for me.  But as I look at this list of horror movies that inspired me in my path toward horror, I am taken aback by how totally random these movies seem to be. 

I've covered some of the movies that inspired me in my currently running Top 50 Horror Movies Countdown - and I've chosen not to repeat my position on many of the films on that list.  I'd be completely wrong to negate the impact films like The Shining, Fright Night, Happy Birthday to Me, and others had on me, but there's something about each of the movies I'm about to mention that just feels incredibly special to me.  I know I'm not the only person that likes them, but it's kind of like these movies just happened to be in the right place at the right time for me.  And that time and place was, for lack of a more intellectual word, awesome.

(If you missed the explanation behind this series, you should know that all credit for this idea belongs to the wonderful Mrs. Christine Hadden over at Fascination With Fear, who does lists better than anyone in the Western Hemisphere. For that, I salute her.)

The Mike's Horror Trinity

In January of 2009, From Midnight, With Love was born. And when I started putting this little blog together, dreaming that someday someone might read the ramblings I had to offer and maybe even consider an opinion of mine as a reason to check out a genre film, I put together a simple bio for the sidebar of the site that explained what I stood for as a genre fan.  That same bio still sits in the right hand column of this site - and you can still see these three films listed there as the movies that awakened the monster that I now am.

I can't remember all the details, but I'm pretty sure Phantom of the Opera came to me first.  I remember being told about silent movies and realizing that this was kind of like reading a book with pictures, and I don't know if I had the attention span to finish the whole movie, but I do remember getting to the part where the unmasking happens and I remember being really freakin' excited.  Whenever people ask me about my first horror movie, I mention this one.

Creature from the Black Lagoon came next, I think.  I remember being in awe of the green dude on the cover when I first had the VHS tape brought to me, and I remember taking it to a friend's house when I was in second grade to watch during a sleepover. It didn't go as well as I wanted it to - I'm pretty sure I watched the whole thing alone - but at least I was in love with it.  Was this the first time I tried to push someone I know to watch a horror movie against their will? It may very well have been.

Considering that it's the one of these three that I mention the most, it's slightly funny to me that I don't have any vivid memories of my childhood encounter with The Blob outside of the question mark that pops on screen at the ending.  I didn't fall as in love with The Blob as I am now until a little later in my life - but I do remember thinking it was a ton of fun and talking about The Blob all the time whenever I had a reason to make a reference to it. (And sometimes when I didn't.)

As I look at these three VHS tapes now - and that's them, in their original glory, as they look tonight - I am completely in awe of how much what these three movies meant to me before I was even 10 years old. Maybe it was a brilliant design by my parents, or maybe it was just dumb luck - but whatever the reason, I can't help feeling that they gave me the three perfect films to push me to the love of horror I have today.

The Monster Squad

Remember that time in part one of this series when I talked about "those orange back monster books from the library?  (If not, you should go read it and stuff.) Well, The Monster Squad was the film adaptation of those books - and the library had it too.  Again, this was one of those things that kind of got lost in my memory except for parts - "Wolfman's got gnards!" is part of my philosophy on life, obviously - but it was my gateway to the monsters that I hadn't really seen outside of those books.  Fred Dekker got me in the door with his monsters-for-kids film, which is probably exactly what he wanted to do - and I applaud him for that.

Pumpkinhead

There's a very simple and not very exciting reason that Pumpkinhead is on this list.  When I was 8 or 9, I was ready for all the "scary" movies I could get.  I'd seen the trinity, I'd seen the Monster Squad, I'd seen Dracula, and I wanted more. And I thought a monster with a pumpkin for a head sounded like a creepy idea, for reasons that I will elaborate on next week.  Well.....

It was NOT a good idea for little me.  I have a vivid memory of about 12 seconds of Pumpkinhead carnage when I was a kid.  And I remember being instantly shocked and terrified and completely uninterested in seeing any more of that. Did I act cool? Yeah, I was a cool little pimp. But I was terrified. I went away from the screen and I did not come back.  I wasn't completely ready to go where I wanted to go, but I learned from the experience.

Clownhouse

There it sits, alongside the plastic protector from Freedom Video Superstore in Marshalltown, Iowa that protected it (poorly, as you can see) for over 10 years in store and over 10 years in my hands.  On sentimental value alone, this would be the absolute first thing that I would grab and run to safety if my lair was on fire. 

I've long ago written a detailed rant about how much Clownhouse meant to my sister and I as we became old enough to watch horror movies.  But I couldn't talk about movies that contributed to my horror love without Clownhouse. I must have watched it 50 times between the ages of 10 and 15, and I always knew it wasn't a good movie.  But I loved it.  And it led to every bad horror movie I've loved, and every horror movie I've watched and shouted at with friends, and every stupid grin I've ever given during a stupid movie.  All of that can be traced back to how much fun I my family had with Clownhouse.

When that Freedom Video store went out of business, my mother rushed to town and ran through the store to grab it before anyone else even had a chance.  You know how that watch was Bruce Willis' birthright in Pulp Fiction? Clownhouse is like that to my sister and I.

Dr. Giggles

Speaking of stupid and bad, there's Dr. Giggles.  I have to list Dr. Giggles here, for similar reasons to Clownhouse.  We didn't watch this movie religiously, nor did we necessarily like the movie, but Dr. Giggles became a cult figure in our house very quickly when we first encountered him.

And so it came to pass that my father would torture my sister by cackling like Dr. Giggles. And it's still funny.  Heck, I'm pretty sure he somehow mentioned Dr. Giggles while she was in the hospital after giving birth a couple of weeks ago.  Dr. Giggles was our home's Freddy Krueger or Jason Voorhees or Cropsey, and that still makes me smile. 

Night of the Living Dead

The VHS Tape shown above demands your attention.  First of all, anyone who's worth their weight in horror immediately realizes that the image that has been chosen - completely spoils the final moments of the movie.  Then they might notice that they even spelled Duane Jones' name wrong on the cover.  I'm laughing about that little yellow spot that denotes the guarantee on the 1986 VHS release of Romero's film, and the back of the box promises a "lifetime commitment" that you can call 1-800-VHS-Tape for details of.  Oh, and the blurb on the back of the box reads EXACTLY as follows:

"Possibly the greatest low-budget film of all time filled with non-stop action. From the opening sequence, in which Judith O'Dea is terrorized by the first living corpse in the twilight cemetery, to the last slow dissolves and pans of still pictures, depicting the hero's death, the film is filled with ghoulish undertow that pauses only now and then on the thread-line to reality."

I'm sorry you guys, but I just got really distracted by that blurb. It's....so bad.  Does that make sense to anyone else?

OK, back on topic.  This VHS tape.  This VHS tape may have been in my parents' VHS cabinet as long as the rest of the trinity.  Yet I was strictly told that I COULD NOT watch it. So I didn't. I told you guys I was a good kid. Now do you believe me?  I'd like to say that I didn't watch it because I was that respectful of my parents - never mind the fact that I snuck several viewings of my dad's copy of Brian De Palma's Body Double as soon as I realized what boobs were - but honestly I was kind of terrified of this movie. If they were that adamant that I couldn't watch it - it must be the scariest thing ever, right?

I'm pretty sure I saw the remake on Monstervision before I finally got the guts to put this VHS tape in the player. The spoiler on the video cover wasn't a big deal, because my dad had already explained the differences in the endings when we watched the remake with Joe Bob Briggs.  Heck, when I finally did put in the VHS, I'm pretty sure I was like 16 and my parents came home with groceries with like 6 minutes left in the movie and started yelling for help and I had to pause right when it was about to blow up.  Night of the Living Dead and I were just not meant to have a perfect meeting.

Did I love the movie anyway? Of course I did! It's bloody brilliant, and the hype and the distractions and the stupid VHS package only make me love it more.  The anticipation was worth everything that followed, and watching Night of the Living Dead for the first time was a key moment in my life as a horror fan no matter how it happened.

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Did I got long winded there? Man, I got long winded there.  Apologies to those who don't like rambling incoherence, but these are the memories of horror that give me goosebumps.  It wasn't the introduction to horror films that most had, and it wasn't always the best way to meet horror.  In fact, those last three experiences would almost push most people to avoid horror movies.  But these movies got to me at the right moment and it all just came together perfectly for me.

And now it's your turn - what movies got you in to horror?  How did you learn to love cheesy goodness or overwhelming zombies or big green gill-men?  Hit up the comments below, and then comeback next week for a the How The Mike Met Horror finale, in which i will present a "grab bag" selection of the other stuff that helped me fall in love with horror films.  

Until then, keep watching horror movies and having an awesome October!

The Mike's Top 50 Horror Movies Countdown: #6 - Night of the Living Dead

Previously on the Countdown: Number 50 - Happy Birthday to Me  Number 49 - Prince of Darkness  Number 48 - House on Haunted Hill  Number 47 - The Monster Squad  Number 46 - Hellraiser  Number 45 - The Fog  Number 44 - Creature From the Black Lagoon  Number 43 - Zombie  Number 42 - Tales from the Crypt  Number 41 - Bubba Ho-Tep  Number 40 - Phantom of the Paradise  Number 39 - Dog Soldiers Number 38 - Pontypool  Number 37 - Dark Water  Number 36 - Army of Darkness Number 35 - The Legend of Hell House  Number 34 - Poltergeist  Number 33 - The Abominable Dr. Phibes  Number 32 - The Phantom of the Opera  Number 31 - The House of the Devil   Number 30 - Evil Dead II  Number 29 - Dead of Night  Number 28 - Carnival of Souls  Number 27 - Nosferatu  Number 26 - Candyman  Number 25 - The Texas Chain Saw Massacre  Number 24 - Horror of Dracula  Number 23 - The Wicker Man  Number 22 - Suspiria  Number 21 - The Omen  Number 20 - Spider Baby or, The Maddest Story Ever Told  Number 19 - Rosemary's Baby  Number 18 - The Devil Rides Out  Number 17 - The Blob  Number 16 - Gremlins  Number 15 - Targets  Number 14 - Fright Night   Number 13 - Frankenstein  Number 12 - Alien  Number 11 - The Shining  Number 10 - An American Werewolf in London  Number 9 - The Thing  Number 8 - Dawn of the Dead  Number 7 - The Evil Dead

Night of the Living Dead

(1968, Dir. by George A. Romero.)

 Why It's Here:

George Romero, for all intents and purposes, invented zombies in 1968.  Yeah, I know zombies were already a thing, but the common perception of zombies can be tied directly to the release of this film.  Some may say that it's dated at this point - I'd agree in regard to its perception of trauma, but not in regard to its plot and pacing - but it still strikes me as one of the most visceral and harrowing horror films out there.  George A. Romero didn't have his characters completely down yet - that would improve in Dawn of the Dead, which already made this here list - but the chaos that he unleashes fits perfectly with the simple characters here.

The Moment That Changes Everything:
"They're coming to get you, Barbara."

Like, seriously. Can you get a better moment in horror than "They're coming to get you, Barbara"?  This is exactly what horror is.  You introduce a threat, you build the threat, and then you bring in the threat.  But Romero and company pull the introduction and the build off in like 5 minutes with a simple exchange between a brother and sister and the random introduction of a zombie.  And that's it. Romero looked at the film and said "Alright - here's five minutes to make people think something might happen - and now it happened.  Just run with it."  Freaking brilliant.

 It Makes a Great Double Feature With:
I've used up almost all of the zombie movies I like on this list.  Dawn of the Dead, Zombie, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, Last Man on Earth (technically vampires, but you could argue they fit Romero's mold) - all mentioned already.  There's a decent enough remake that came out in 1990 that you could pair with this one, or you could just do the cool kids thing and pair it with Shaun of the Dead.  Whatever you do, the zombies you see will fit with this one's.  Because they're all the children of Night of the Living Dead.

What It Means To Me:
I'm actually going to talk a little more about my personal experiences with Night of the Living Dead later this week, so I'm gonna go with a simple/vague answer here.  Night of the Living Dead represents the unpredictable nature of horror.  Sure, people look at it now and know exactly what's going on because of Shaun and remakes and The Walking Dead and the fact that zombies are suddenly hip.  But I think they're all wrong if they dismiss the relevance and power that the original Night of the Living Dead has, because I truly think this is one of the most game-changing films ever made.

The Mike's Top 50 Horror Movies Countdown: #8 - Dawn of the Dead

Previously on the Countdown: Number 50 - Happy Birthday to Me  Number 49 - Prince of Darkness  Number 48 - House on Haunted Hill  Number 47 - The Monster Squad  Number 46 - Hellraiser  Number 45 - The Fog  Number 44 - Creature From the Black Lagoon  Number 43 - Zombie  Number 42 - Tales from the Crypt  Number 41 - Bubba Ho-Tep  Number 40 - Phantom of the Paradise  Number 39 - Dog Soldiers Number 38 - Pontypool  Number 37 - Dark Water  Number 36 - Army of Darkness Number 35 - The Legend of Hell House  Number 34 - Poltergeist  Number 33 - The Abominable Dr. Phibes  Number 32 - The Phantom of the Opera  Number 31 - The House of the Devil   Number 30 - Evil Dead II  Number 29 - Dead of Night  Number 28 - Carnival of Souls  Number 27 - Nosferatu  Number 26 - Candyman  Number 25 - The Texas Chain Saw Massacre  Number 24 - Horror of Dracula  Number 23 - The Wicker Man  Number 22 - Suspiria  Number 21 - The Omen  Number 20 - Spider Baby or, The Maddest Story Ever Told  Number 19 - Rosemary's Baby  Number 18 - The Devil Rides Out  Number 17 - The Blob  Number 16 - Gremlins  Number 15 - Targets  Number 14 - Fright Night   Number 13 - Frankenstein  Number 12 - Alien  Number 11 - The Shining  Number 10 - An American Werewolf in London  Number 9 - The Thing

Dawn of the Dead

(1978, Dir. by George A. Romero.)

Why It's Here:

I could sit here and argue that Dawn of the Dead is one of the least horror movie horror movies out there.  We're talking about a movie that runs about 50 minutes longer than the average film of the genre and might not feature a single "jump scare" that would send a teenage girl soaring through the air.  But it also has to be the bleakest vision of our world ever filmed.  Four people, one mall that represents our old behaviors, and the kind of shambling terrors that modern TV shows wish they could create.  With top notch special effects and biting social commentary, it's pretty much a perfect film - that just happens to have zombies in it.

The Moment That Changes Everything:

The opening scenes in Dawn of the Dead are a lot different than what you see in most horror movies. A normal life? A simple life? A false sense of hope? Nope, you won't find any of those things here.  Instead, we walk into a chaotic news room where people seem to have written off any hope for society and a run down tenement in which dead bodies and undead bodies are everywhere. Within the first five minutes, we know for a fact that we've walked into a situation where there is no happy ending.

It Makes a Great Double Feature With:

I'm gonna tell you a secret. I don't really like Day of the Dead. Yes, Romero's third Dead film continues the complete dread that we get in this one, but all the cinematic aspects - from the acting to the direction to the script - feel wrong to me. A lot of people disagree with me, so maybe you want to put that one next to this one. Me, I'd probably say you could watch the 2004 remake alongside it. It loses some of the pathos of the original, but is a fast-paced blast with strong characters and plenty of gore.

What It Means To Me:

Dawn of the Dead has always been one of my favorite films of any genre, because it packs an apocalyptic edge that is unmatched in most of cinema.  It's fascinating in its bleakness, but it's also thoroughly entertaining and a bit humorous and there's even that Goblin musical score. Oh! That Goblin musical score. Man, I love that Goblin musical score. So good.

Exit Humanity

(2011, Dir. by John Geddes.)

With Abraham Lincoln currently slaying vampires on cinema screens, it was the perfect week for the DVD roll out of writer/director John Geddes' Exit Humanity. A zombie outbreak tale that's set in the Tennessee countryside during the years that followed the American Civil War, this is a film that doesn't play like a gimmick-based creation, and packs a lot of pretty effective drama.

The film is retold partially through narration (by wonderful character actor Brian Cox of X-Men 2 and other great films), who reads from the illustrated journal of Edward Young (Mark Gibson), who returns home from the war to find his wife dead, his son missing, and whole lot of zombie nonsense going on around these parts.  Though most viewers these days are going to have a pretty good understanding of what a zombie does, Exit Humanity still takes its time to build the threat, with Cox' narration backing Edward's experiments to figure out just what these creatures are capable of.  The film gets a bit long-winded at times - Cox is always a welcome voice, but his voiceover covers an awful lot of the film.- but it also allows the film to exist in its own universe.  A lot of zombie movies will simply reference zombie movies to explain their events, and it's refreshing to see one that builds its own infection. (Of course, if a movie set in the 1860s were to reference zombie movies, we'd also be talking about a science fiction film.)

The film starts as one man's journey - with Gibson, who's headlining a feature for the first time, carrying plenty of the film's weight well - but the outbreak is a lot bigger than he is.  As he travels, he builds a network of support that includes another war vet (Adam Seybold), a woman (Jordan Hayes) with a secret (someone in every horror movie has one, don't they?), and an old-woman who's been exiled for being a witch (horror veteran Dee Wallace).  He also is told of an unhinged General (Bill Moseley, doing psycho baddie once more and with his usual feeling), who has his own band of men who are intent on curing the zombie "disease" at any cost.  The General's goal sounds worthy, but there's a moral battle to be played out here.

As the story works through the chapters of Young's journal, there are several changes in direction for the film.  Some may balk at the ease with which some topics are introduced abruptly, considering the fact that things like immunity and the cause of the epidemic would generally be the focal point of other zombie based endeavors.  Exit Humanity loses its way at times as it tries to weave a web with its characters, but the film runs a hefty (in horror terms) 113 minutes and doesn't seem like it's filled with sequences or ideas that could have been cut from the film.  Exit Humanity appears to take a lot from the TV hit The Walking Dead in style and presentation, and I imagine Geddes had to struggle to fit all of his ideas into a much shorter time frame than a series offers.

While the film struggles to get all the details explained away, it shines when it lets the characters' emotions through.  The narration is very attentive to Young's internal dilemmas while dealing with the predicament - including the title phrase, which represents his dwindling faith in mankind - and the gruff Gibson is physically commanding as the conflicted man of the film.  The supporting cast is naturally highlighted by the folks we know from other horrors, with Moseley, Wallace, and even Pontypool star Stephen McHattie in a small role - all adding a lot to the process.  The rest of the cast is comprised primarily of folks painted and dolled up as zombies, which show off some great and practical special effects and a solid dose of gore that never goes too far into "splatter for the sake of splatter" territory.

In tone, Exit Humanity reminded me a lot of one of my favorite recent horror films, Jim Mickle's Stake Land.  Like that quasi-apocalyptic vampire film, Exit Humanity does everything in its power to balance the horrors of the dead on Earth and how their presence effects the few people left to deal with them.  Geddes' and the rest of the gang are incredibly deliberate while pacing their film, which allows the cinematography (DP Brendan Uegama does an extraordinary job of using Canadian wilderness as the southern USA backwoods) and the musical score (a soaring addition to the film that peaks in the final moments) to shine.

With the technical aspects in tip-top shape, some good-looking animations sprinkled through the process, and Cox' peaceful narration all in place, Exit Humanity is a calming addition to the zombie scene.  For once, the focus isn't on creating chaos for the viewer.  Geddes and company instead set out to tell a dramatic tale with horror elements, and the manner with which they achieved their goal is the biggest thing I will take away from Exit Humanity.  If you're tired of nu-metal and abrupt camera cuts in your zombie films, Exit Humanity could be exactly what you're looking for.

FMWL Indie Spotlight - Pretty Dead

(2012, Dir. by Benjamin Wilkins.)

Pretty Dead came to me as a new entry in both the "found footage" and "kinda zombie" subgenres of horror, and I have to admit I approached the film with some caution.  Is there anything new and/or interesting to be said by filmmakers who use these methods? Well, of course there is.  And Pretty Dead does a good job of showing that.

Regina Stevens is a young woman who seems to have the world in front of her. She's an aspiring doctor and has a fiance who loves her, and all of that would be excellent except for the fact that she's dying.  Not in the "we're all dying as we age" way, in the "I did some experimentation with cocaine and passed out and now I don't really have a pulse and have strange and bloody cravings" way.  Since her and her fiance are both medically knowledgeable folks, Regina initially sees this as an opportunity for research - even if she is the guinea pig in the experiment.

As the film takes on a scientific tone, an Animal Planet-style plot twist piqued my interest in the film's vision of infection.  I don't have the scientific mind to explain what the film tells us about the infection Regina is dealing with - the flick's website can give you better information on that than I could, though I think that's a bit spoilery for my tastes - but each of the ideas the film presents feel fresh to the horror scene.  I (obviously) watch a lot of movies that introduce a lot of monsters/infected/killers in a lot of ways, and it's fantastic to find a film that doesn't slip into old standards.  Pretty Dead's biggest strength lies in the ideas behind its plot, which surprised me by offering a new twist on what "zombies" could be.

(I'm of course using the quotation marks on "zombies" because that age old debate on what constitutes zombiedom - Do you have to be dead and buried? Do infecteds count? - is a touchier subject than politics or religion to many I know. Not touching it with a ten foot pole here.)

With an interesting twist to the formula, Pretty Dead is left to its stars and its filmmakers, and they don't disappoint.  Carly Oates stars as Regina, and does a fantastic job during the character's transformation from successful young woman to potentially undead monster. She controls and partially narrates the film - which raises a few small concerns with the found footage format when the film slips into non-found-footage-movie mode - which is very well constructed by director Benjamin Wilkins and co-writer/producer Joe Cook.  There's no Hollywood gloss to the film, which means everything feels pretty natural as it reveals what's going on in Regina's world.

The story doesn't wrap up perfectly - stay through the end credits for not one, but TWO(!) brief scenes that add to the film's narrative - and it telegraphs a few of its final twists early on. But Pretty Dead still left me very impressed with what Wilkins, Cook, Oates and the rest of the cast and crew pulled off. This is a fascinating, unique, and intelligent film that makes the most of its resources.  It's exciting to see a movie that feels as new to the horror genre as Pretty Dead does, and that makes Pretty Dead a horror hit that's just waiting to happen.

Pretty Dead is currently on the festival circuit and awaiting wide release, but keep your eyes peeled for more news on this one.  In the meantime, more information can be found on the official site, which is right about HERE. Or, you can find the flick on Facebook and/or Twitter.  Do it!

The Mike's Top 50 Horror Movies Countdown: #38 - Pontypool

Previously on the Countdown: Number 50 - Happy Birthday to Me  Number 49 - Prince of Darkness  Number 48 - House on Haunted Hill  Number 47 - The Monster Squad  Number 46 - Hellraiser  Number 45 - The Fog  Number 44 - Creature From the Black Lagoon  Number 43 - Zombie  Number 42 - Tales from the Crypt  Number 41 - Bubba Ho-Tep  Number 40 - Phantom of the Paradise Number 39 - Dog Soldiers

Pontypool
(2008, Dir. by Bruce McDonald.)

Why It's Here:

The zombie genre has been pretty much ruined during the last decade, despite fantastic outliers like the Dawn of the Dead remake, The Walking Dead, and (depending on who you debate) 28 Days Later.  The films by Danny Boyle and Zack Snyder that I mentioned above - which propelled both directors to mainstream success and critical acclaim - also led to a slew of boring or inept or even insulting zombie flicks.  Hidden among them is a true treasure, Pontypool, which turns a radio DJ's booth into ground zero for the zombie apocalypse.  Led by dynamite turns by Stephen McHattie and Lisa Houle (a real life husband/wife team), Pontypool provides a thoughtful and unique perspective on horror that is extremely welcome.

The Moment That Changes Everything:

As McHattie's Grant Mazzy often repeats, Laurel-Ann Drummond - a young war veteran who now helps at the studio - is the pride of the small town of Pontypool.  When she becomes directly involved with the infection - and when Mazzy has to recount what he's seeing to his listeners and the viewers, the film really starts to hit home.

It Makes a Great Double Feature With:

Really I just feel like the best thing to go along with Pontypool would be the amazing radio production of War of the Worlds that the great Orson Welles put together back in the day.  I suppose Spielberg's movie would be equally apocalyptic, but the radio connection to Welles' harrowing account of the story was too good to pass up.

What It Means To Me:

Pontypool, like many of my favorite recent horror films, is groundbreaking, original, and interesting.  Those qualities are missing from so many modern horror films, but it's a favorite for more reasons than just its uniqueness.  Pontypool is like a good book, letting us imagine much of the horror as it's told instead of shown, and that opens up a world of possibilities for the horror lovin' mind. 

Midnight Movie of the Week #120 - Bio-Zombie

Bio-Zombie (or Sun faa sau si, if you prefer Cantonese) follows the adventures of Woody Invincible and Crazy Bee, two young pirates (in the selling fake DVDs sense, not in the "Arrrrgh!" sense) who face off against a slew of zombies in a Hong Kong shopping mall.  Any comparisons between the film and George Romero's masterful Dawn of the Dead - which shares zombies and malls with this film - should probably end right there, but there's still plenty of fun to be ahd with this madcap horror comedy.

Our two young heroes - who are somewhere between Bill & Ted and Lloyd Christmas & Harry Dunne on the intelligence scale - are out for fun, sex, and cash when they unknowingly set loose a biologically enhanced zombie virus (although is it really a zombie if it's a virus? I'll let you decide) in their mall.  This leaves the pair, alongside a few other stragglers, facing off with green skinned fellas after the shops close for the evening. 

These two slacker characters do a lot for the film, primarily establishing how irreverent the script is from the opening scenes.  The beginning sequence seems to set the film up as a Mystery Science Theater 3000 version of itself (and if you watch the DVD with English dubbing you might think you're watching Most Extreme Elimination Challenge) as the duo mock the opening credits, and the tone doesn't get more serious until after a Grindhouse-esque scene in which the biological weapon (which is conveniently disguised as a soft drink) and its effects are revealed.

Even after the creatures are revealed, there's very little fear at work in Bio-Zombie. The low budget film shines in other areas, however, particularly through the effective creature makeup.  It's a very minimal film in that regard - sometimes it looks like they just threw a couple of huge pustules on dudes, other times it looks like they ran faces through cheese graters - and one probably won't mistake this for the work of Tom Savini.  In fact, the biggest problem most viewers will have with Bio-Zombie probably has to do with how amateur it looks.

I'm not sure if it's the budget, the camera, the DVD, or something else - but this movie (released in 1998) looks about 10 years older than it actually is.  If it weren't for these video game style stat cards that show up right before the final battle gets funky, I might have assumed this was a lost Return of the Living Dead sequel.  That's not necessarily a bad thing either, I just want you all to know how odd and kind of bizarre this movie is.  Maybe I don't get it because I'm not Hong Kongian....I don't know.  The point is it's out there.

That all said, the bottom line is that Bio-Zombie is a ridiculously fun little film that should win over some viewers.  The side characters are effective caricatures of horror stereotypes, the leads win us over with their bumbling ways, and there's enough action and playful humor to keep things moving along.  There's absolutely no depth to the film whatsoever - unless I feel like giving some credit to the sly message from the fatalistic final shot - but I'm OK with that.  Bio-Zombie works on a Mallrats-meets-Romero-in-Hong-Kong level, and that's good enough for me.

The Mike's Top 50 Horror Movies Countdown: #43 - Zombie

Previously on the Countdown: Number 50 - Happy Birthday to Me  Number 49 - Prince of Darkness Number 48 - House on Haunted Hill  Number 47 - The Monster Squad  Number 46 - Hellraiser Number 45 - The Fog  Number 44 - Creature From the Black Lagoon

Zombie

(1979, Dir. by Lucio Fulci.)

Why It's Here:

If you're of the more traditional cinematic mindset, this might be the most indefensible film you'll find on this list.  I struggle myself to explain just what it is that makes Lucio Fulci's film a masterpiece of horror, but I'll be damned if it doesn't work for me. (Actually, I might be damned BECAUSE it works for me.)  This is a film that varies from most of its horror brethren - comparing it to Romero's Dawn of the Dead, for example, just makes it look foolish in many regards - but I don't know if there's a movie that uses gore so effectively on me.

The Moment That Changes Everything:

There's plenty of surreal uberviolence throughout the film - varying from the infamous shark vs. zombie sequence to the marvelous rising from the grave sequence - but there's probably not a moment in horror that makes me squirm like the bit of old fashioned eyeball horror that happens near the middle of Zombie.

It Makes a Great Double Feature With:

If you need more than one crazy violent Italian zombie movie in your day - and why wouldn't you? - you can't go wrong with Jorge Grau's impressive-yet-multi-titled Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (aka The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue).  It doesn't have the iconic imagery of Fulci's film, but it does have an actual story and a dude with a really impressive beard. So that's something.

What It Means To Me:

Recommending Zombie feels kind of like one of those Most Interesting Man In The World commercials to me.  I don't always enjoy Italian gore-based cinema.  But when I do, I enjoy Zombie.  It's simply a movie that I can not turn away from.  Though there are few jumps and less character development, there's still a real horror to be found - just because the director managed to make the film so darn artistically gross. Sometimes artistic grossness is exactly what horror should be.