Zombiemania: Lots of Fun, but Where Are the Italians?

With Columbus Day just recently come and gone, I thought I had effectively put my yearly Italian-American outrage behind me. But no. Just one day after watching helplessly once again as the closest thing to the Italians' version of St. Patrick's Day slowly get bumped down the holiday list till it's somewhere between Arbor Day and Boxing Day, I had to sit down and watch Zombiemania on Starz.

That's probably a bit too harsh. I want to flat out say that Starz' newest documentary on the history of zombie movies (originally released last year on Canadian TV) was a real hoot. They did a fine job for the most part, following the evolution of the zombie from the voodoo monster of old, through the Romero rebirth, and right up to the undead renaissance of the past decade.

Interview subjects include Romero, Greg Nicotero, Tom Savini, Brian Keene, Max Brooks, Jovanka Vukovic, Maitland McDonagh and others. All very well-informed, and all have a lot to add to the proceedings.

But that said, there was one glaring omission, and that would be the complete lack of a single reference to the entire Italian cycle of zombie flicks. No Lucio Fulci, no Andrea Bianchi, no nuthin. That's like doing a history of the cowboy genre and leaving out spaghetti westerns. OK, maybe not quite that egregious, since spaghetti westerns are arguably the best of that entire genre, but you catch my drift.

Still, Zombiemania was a very enjoyable little documentary, which got into a lot of aspects of the craze, from zombie walks to zombie comics to Max Brooks giving zombie survival lectures on college campuses. It's cool for a total long-time zombie geek like myself to see something like this. After all these years, I still get a kick out of seeing how mainstream America has finally caught up with us.

But I'm still not letting them off the hook for leaving out the Italians. Disgraziato...

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Two other things:

• If you haven't yet, check out the Dawn of the Dead debate/commentary I did with Brad McHargue of I Love Horror. This is something we originally recorded a few weeks ago, but now Brad has posted it to the excellent site HorrorSquad. So go take a listen.

• Tomorrow marks the second anniversary of The Vault of Horror. That's right, two whole years of me distracting myself from the work I get paid to do. I've got something fun and unique planned, so stay tuned...

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Death and the City, Part 1: ZOMBIE GIRL

Every now and then, the planets align just right and a horror-themed night like no other becomes possible. Such was the case last night, when I trekked into Manhattan for a rare evening of ghouls, demons, beers and tenebrosity.

My schedule was as follows: Head down to the 92Y Tribeca for an 8pm screening of Zombie Girl: The Movie, along with the divine Tenebrous Kate and her Baron, self-proclaimed overlords of the Tenebrous Empire; Consume mass quantities of fermented grain starches at a nearby tavern; Proceed north to Times Square for a midnight showing of the hottest ticket in town, Paranormal Activity.

Not a bad way to spend an evening, right? Well, let's start at the beginning.

If in four years, my daughter is just like Emily Hagins, I will be a very happy dad. This kid is just about the coolest tween I've ever seen in my life. She's also the subject of Zombie Girl, an endearing little documentary about a 12-year-old with a passion for film, who fulfills the dream of making her very own zombie movie.

Emily knows her stuff. During filming, she rattles off references to Kubrick and talks about blocking out her scenes. Yet at the same time, she is also completely unassuming, with all the wide-eyed enthusiasm and naivete one would expect from a kid her age. As she's being interviewed in her room, check out the background for the Shaun of the Dead poster tacked up right next to a row of Care Bears...

This girl is awesome. And best of all, she has two of the coolest parents I've ever seen.

In some ways, this movie is very much a counterpoint to My Kid Could Paint That, the 2007 doc about a little girl who supposedly could paint exquisite works of art. Whereas in that film, it turned out that her parents had coached her and were really pulling all the strings while the girl truly had only the painting ability of an average little girl, in this case we have a truly inspired young woman, who is the one in charge. And she has talent to spare.

Emily's parents are there for her, providing support every step of the way. More than just okaying her wild dream, they take a very active role in helping to make it happen, especially her mom Megan. As a parent, I really felt for this woman, as it's clear she loves her daughter deeply and earnestly supports her. Even though they have their share of fights, and Megan's exasperation becomes more and more evident as the production wears on, it's never in doubt that she's fully behind her daughter 100%.

The actual film Emily made is called Pathogen (check out the trailer at Day of the Woman), from a script she wrote herself when she was 11 years of age. A devout film fan, Emily and her mom are regular patrons of the legendary Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, and in the course of her adventures, Emily gets taken under the wing of Peter Jackson and that godfather of geek culture himself, Harry Knowles. The master of Ain't It Cool News in particular is all over this documentary, pontificating in his typical fashion...

Pathogen itself is your typical tale of a zombie virus/uprising, imagined from the point of view of a 12-year-old girl with a genuine love of horror. Although I haven't seen that actual film in it's entirety, it's safe to say of course, that it isn't exactly Citizen Kane--nor does Emily make any claims to its greatness. But that's not at all the point--rather, as Emily's mom says at one point, the film is a record of where Emily was artistically at this very early point in time.

I'd say there's a very real chance that one day Emily Hagin will be an honest-to-goodness grown-up movie director. By all accounts, her first feature film is an earnest and competent work, and certainly at a level way beyond what the average 12-year-old would have the interest or ability to pull off. And Zombie Girl is a charming look at how it all came to fruition.

I can't stress enough how disarming and endearing young Emily is. Her unpracticed demeanor and utterly genuine passion are what make Zombie Girl so fascinating to watch. And while it may not be the best thing in the world that anyone with a Macbook can make a movie these days, in Emily's case it's truly a blessing that the technology exists to make her dream a reality.

I was certainly grateful that the 92Y Tribeca made it possible for me to check out this documentary, which otherwise I'd probably have to hunt down on DVD. I was also grateful for the exquisite company of Lord and Lady Tenebrous. But this was far from the end of the night for me. For awaiting me in just a few hours was the film I had heard was the most downright terrifying horror experience in years. And due to a ticket purchasing mishap (way to go, Kate!) I would be experiencing it ALONE...

To be continued....

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What If Your Urban Legend... Were True?

Cropsey.

If you grew up in the Northeastern U.S., particularly New York, at any time during the past 25-30 years or so, it's very possible that name holds a sinister meaning for you. That's because it was one of the area's most commonly repeated summer camp urban legends.

I can remember sitting around the campfire on Staten Island during my cub scout days, listening panic-stricken as the pack leaders told us all about the one-armed axe-wielding maniac who lived in a cabin in the woods, half his body covered with burns. Eager to chop up as many campers as he could in retribution for the fire caused by careless kids, which led to the death of wife and kids, as well as his own disfigurement. I guess you could say that Cropsey was our Jason.

Little did I know that although the popular tale was greatly embellished as any urban legend will be, it was actually based on a very real case. In other words, Cropsey was a real guy.

A documentary film will be screening later this month at the Tribeca Film Festival by two Staten Island natives, Joshua Zeman and Barbara Brancaccio, who investigated the legend and came up with the grisly truth behind the real-life madman who inspired the Cropsey tale.

Having grown up with this story, and still remembering those restless nights in the scout cabin, listening intently to every sound in the woods, fearing that the killer would barge through the door at any moment, I've got great interest in checking this one out. If you do as well, go to the official movie website for more information. Screening times are as follows:

• Sat, April 25th 11:30pm . . . . . . . . AMC Village VII
• Sun, April 26th 3:00pm . . . . . . . . AMC Village VII
• Tues, April 28th 11:00pm . . . . . . School of Visual Arts
• Sat, May 2nd 8:30 pm . . . . . . . . . AMC Village VII

**UPDATE** Cropsey co-director Joshua Zeman checked in this afternoon with this important bit of clarification:

Andre Rand, the man profiled in the film, isn’t the actual inspiration of the collective CROPSEY. The collective CROPSEY has been around for decades. Somehow as kids we assigned the name from the urban legend CROPSEY to the man living in the woods in Staten Island who was going around and allegedly snatching kids. The film looks at how we attached the myth to the man... And is our attempts as now as adults to discover whether the urban legend of our childhood was actually true.

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Troll 2 Documentary Screens at SXSW

In the annals of bad horror cinema, the infamous Troll 2 holds a very special place. In recent years, it's become a bona fide cult phenomenon, and many point to it as the worst movie ever made. Contestable, to be sure, but what isn't is the fact that there's a legion of fans who adore this movie precisely because of how appallingly bad it is.

And now, Michael Stephenson, the former child actor who played the lead role in Troll 2, has made the documentary film Best Worst Movie, which premiered yesterday at the South by Southwest film festival in Austin, Texas. It's all about how the movie grew from plain old awful horror movie to possibly the most notorious "so bad it's good" phenom of the past 20 years, as well as the effect its bizarre fandom has had on the people who were involved in it.

There's a great review of Best Worst Movie up now by Ain't It Cool News' Quint. No word on when the rest of us will get to see it, although I'm assuming it will direct-to-video.

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Finally, the Horror Film Doc We've Been Hoping For

If there's one thing that immediately strikes you while watching Joseph Maddrey and Andrew Monument's Nightmares in Red, White and Blue, it's that Lance Henriksen has got a future in voiceovers. The haggard actor's grim, resonant baritone instantly captivates as he takes the viewer on a journey through the history of the American horror film, from Edison's Frankenstein right to the present day.

And what a journey it is. Based on Maddrey's 2004 book, this as-yet-undistributed doc, produced/written by Maddrey and directed/edited by Monument, is a potent, jam-packed study of the fright flick in the context of the United States' evolution over the course of the 20th and early 21st centuries.

Obviously, a movie can't cover all the material that a book can, but Maddrey does a fine job of condensing the most important stuff into a little over 90 minutes, which is no mean feat. Ideally, a project like this could have been expanded into a three-part miniseries, as it feels rushed at times. But in fairness to Maddrey and Monument, an impressive job is done of covering as much ground as possible within the time limitations.

More than a century of cinema is discussed, and there were bound to be some omissions. I was surprised to see The Shining get almost completely glossed over, and was expecting a bit more on Vincent Price, the genre's most iconic star. Due to the American focus of the film, you won't find much on stuff like Hammer or the Italians, although there is a discussion towards the end of the rise of foreign horror as a powerful alternative for U.S. fans.

What is covered is handled quite well. We get a series of titled chapters, a la Kevin Burns, covering everything from the golden age of the Universal monsters to the post-9/11 torture porn boom. Engrossing commentary is provided by the likes of George Romero, Roger Corman, John Carpenter, Darren Lynn Bousman, Larry Cohen, Brian Yuzna, Tony Timpone and the ever-engrossing John Kenneth Muir, who gets so much screentime, I was expecting his name to be above the title (I kid John, I kid!).

As in his book, Maddrey's script attempts to match up the development of the American horror movie with the history of the country itself. At times, this works quite well, such as when Carpenter rails against the evils of Reagan's 1980s, and how that was reflected in the films that he and others were making at the time. At other times, however, it feels like Maddrey is trying a bit too hard to establish an ongoing narrative from what are often unrelated and random events, such as when we are told that horror in the 1940s was headed in a softer, less serious direction, and then the next stuff we see is the incredibly intense films of Val Lewton, which contradict this thesis.

Due in part to the interview subjects chosen, the movie is weighted a bit toward the movies of the 1970s and 1980s, which for many fans represents something of a modern-day golden age anyway, so I was happy to see the narrative slow down a bit during this period to provide a more detailed discussion. We get a hilarious slasher movie montage that spells out the moral ground rules upon which that subgenre operated. There's also a direct comparison of President Reagan to Freddy Krueger, which is sure to send conservative horror fans into fits.

I've often wondered why no one had stepped up to do a really comprehensive, all-encompassing history of horror in documentary form, and so I'm grateful to Maddrey and Monument for being the first to give the genre this kind of treatment. It's a fascinating watch for both passionate and casual fans, made by people who really seem to care about their subject matter. It's a travesty that it has yet to find a distributor, as this is easily something I could imagine airing on networks like Bravo, SciFi or AMC, followed by a spiffy DVD release full of extra interview footage.

Hopefully, that problem will be changed soon, as this is a compelling piece of work, with a lot to say about our culture and how it's reflected in how we choose to entertain ourselves.

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William Castle Doc Dazzles the Festival Circuit

He was best known for directing '50s and '60 B-movies like 13 Ghosts, The Tingler and House on Haunted Hill, and for the showmanship that presented these films to audiences in ingeniously interactive ways. And now, a documentary on William Castle--Spine Tingler!: The William Castle Story--is playing to strong reviews at the Sarasota Film Festival, having previously played at the AFI Film Festival, the Jakarta International Film Festival, the Slamdance Film Festival and the Magnolia Independent Film Festival.

The film is directed by Jeffrey Schwarz, who has made a career of producing and directing DVD making-of featurettes for the past decade, several of which were about horror films and the films of Castle in particular. Spine Tingler! features interviews with the likes of Forrest J. Ackerman, Roger Corman, Joe Dante, Donald F. Glut, John Landis, Leonard Maltin, Marcel Marceau (no jokes, please) and John Waters.

My dad has recalled to me some of Castle's famous gimmickry, including such novelties as "Percepto"--a motion picture effect that electrified theater-goers seats to make them vibrate. In addition to his B-features, Castle also fulfilled a lifelong dream in 1968 by producing A-list highbrow horror film Rosemary's Baby (although the studio insisted that Roman Polanski, and not Castle, direct it.)

With any luck, once Spine Tingler!: The William Castle Story makes the rounds at all the festivals, it will hit DVD shelves, so that the rest of us can enjoy it as well.

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Swedish Vampires and the King of the Zombies

I've got a couple of great trailers to share with you shameless horror hounds today, both of which can be found on the excellent movie trailer blog, Gnolad.
First off is Let Me In (a.k.a. Låt den Rätte Komma In), a Swedish (yes, Swedish) film about a little boy who befriends a little girl who turns out to be a little vampire. Of course, there'll be no chance of this getting a U.S. theatrical release, but it comes out in Sweden in April, so get your plane tickets now! I guess the best we can hope for is DVD. First [REC], then Descendents, now this. Is it just me, or does it seem lately that with all the shlock being passed off as horror movies in the American market these days, filmmakers in other countries are taking advantage and co-opting the genre? Hey, fine with me--whatever leads to quality output.

And the other trailer is for a documentary by the superbly named Rusty Nails (any relation to Dusty Rhodes?), all about our favorite ghoul auteur, Mr. George A. Romero. The film is Dead On: The Cinema of George A. Romero (I probably would've gone with "Director of the Dead"), and is currently in the final stages of production, with no release date set. Nails includes comments from the likes of Quentin Tarantino (who, as an unknown, used to claim on his resume that he was the sidecar biker in Dawn of the Dead), Ed Harris, Robert Rodriguez, Stephen King, Rob Zombie, Danny Boyle, John Carpenter, John Waters, Roger Ebert (who hopefully will explain why he bemoaned NOTLD for ruining America's youth in 1968, then lauded praise upon DOTD ten years later), Dario Argento, John Landis, Tom Savini, Glenn Danzig, plus cast members from many of Romero's films. Looking forward to this one.

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Speaking of Romero, just wanted to give kudos to that loveable pussbag Bub for winning the "Favorite Zombie" poll. I should've known there really was no other choice, although Tarman made a respectable showing. Check back tomorrow for a new poll.

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