Hyper Horror Movies

I’ve never been into movies that use hyper editing and hyper acting to make it scarier or more adrenaline filled. Movies like the remake of Day of the Dead and more recently Pandorum suffer from this technique that makes me want to close my eyes but the only difference is that Day of the Dead is an awful movie and Pandorum is actually quite decent. Personally for me, I think hyper anything in a horror movie just takes away from the mood and the scare tactics and makes it seem as though it should be a game instead of a film and ultimately ruining the experience for me. But Pandorum, compared to most hyper movies isn’t that bad but I still hated the hyper reality that it created.

Throughout Pandorum the editing is so choppy and almost as though it was adapted from the Bourne series, not to mention the sped-up performances of the cannibals scaling the walls and the ground on all fours. I understand where they are coming from when it comes to creating this hyper reality and their intentions are good but this technique is ultimately silly looking and takes away from the rest of the movie. Pandorum is a great film atmospherically and had they skipped on the hyper reality of it, it could have been pretty frightening. But as I stated before, most hyper horror movies fall completely because they rely too much on this technique to keep their film afloat.

With films like Graduation Day, the remake of Day of the Dead, House of the Dead, Resident Evil and The Decent (to name a few), they all use fast-paced editing and sped-up motion to create a sense of shock and disorientation. I’m not sure why this technique worked in The Decent and why it failed in every other movie but I guess I’d have to rewatch it and look closely at it. With Graduation Day, it was the editing that made the film seem like it was an acid trip and only added to the corniness of the film. House of the Dead and Resident Evil were based on video games so I guess their reasoning was to follow in the footsteps in creating an adrenaline action horror film. Day of the Dead… was just stupid.

I don’t think horror movies need to have a hyper reality to create a sense of disorientation, paranoia and confusion… ‘cause honestly I think this technique is sort of an easy way out. I think it’s a terrible trend in horror movies, mainly because I’m old school horror. Pandorum had the best space atmosphere since alien and it had the potential to deviate from the videogame-looking realm but instead it’s action sequences seemed laughable and bland. Pardon this random rant on hyper horror movies but it can get annoying at times.

The Biography of Bub the Zombie

So, since I am a rabid fan of the movie Day of the Dead… I was always puzzled by who Bub was and how he became a zombie. He is my favorite zombie of all time and he was possibly the most innocent and funniest zombie ever on a horror film. I know his history should never be told but I decided to piece together a biography of my own based on Howard Sherman’s bio and some of the movies that he has been in. So I give you Bub’s Fictional Biography.

NOTE: After reading this, you’ll see how bored I really am.

Bub the Zombie was born as Sherman Dietz on June 11, 1949 in Chicago, IL. I am under the impression that, considering his domestication in Day of the Dead he was a very average kid who got average grades in school and wasn’t really much of a fight. I am assuming that he was an A, B and sometime C grade child and that his favorite subject was science and history. I think that when he went to middle school, that’s when he decided to go into a military career as well as becoming a scientist.

When high school came around, he really got into his military passion… taking classes such as military history as well as exceeding in gym, but he probably still had a passion for science and it was hard to single out whether or not he wanted to be a scientist or a military man. He graduated high school with honors chemistry, physics, geometry and biology and as a Valedictorian. He got a scholarship to attend Princeton and he did, but first, he decided to spend some time in the army. He took basic training as well as training to become a military scientist and this caught the eye of one of the top-level generals… General Starkey.

After getting out of basic training he decided to take up the scholarship for Princeton. There, he studied in some of the highest level science classes there and he passed every test and term paper with flying colors. He was at the top of his game. Starkey watched over him at every turn and when Sherman finally graduated with a doctorate degree in chemistry, physics and biology… Starkey approached him and offered to give him a position of being one of the leading scientists for a top-secret biological warfare weapon.

Unfortunately, his slight rise in power got to his head and he began turning into a very unlikable and cold-hearted person. He began researching on helpless people that the military would capture from across seas or people that tried to leak secret information to other countries. His shyness and quietness went out the door and he became an asshole. Of course, riding on your high horse has its downfalls… because of him and his co-workers the virus was let out and plagued the whole world and slowly started killing people. Military men were dispatched to gather as many helpless citizens and possible and use them as research dummies. Sherman was then promoted to being the lead researcher on the project.

After the military kidnapped 4 friends, 3 of them died and one of them was still living. Sherman began to collapse under pressure as all of his co-workers were beginning to die as well as the population and he couldn’t take any of it. He wondered why this one person wasn’t dying. After almost everybody in the underground lab died he snapped and he shot and killed the remaining people and confronted the 1 patient and was still living. After he tried to shoot him the patient wrestled him to the ground, took the gun and shot Sherman 6 times in the stomach… killing him.

He died while wearing a corduroy jacket, pants, a red plaid colored shirt and a white lab coat. When resurrected as a zombie due to the virus, he lost the lab coat somewhere as he walked around the lab trying to get out… the virus rendered him a walking dead person and reverted him back to his innocent yet primal instincts. Years later, he would be found by Dr. Logan.

NOTE: Though the movies I used are not connected in any way, I had to make the necessary changes to connect them including wardrobe changes and name changes. The pictures are just references. Also, if you would like to follow Bub the Zombie, he is on Twitter: Click here.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 10: Top 5 Zombies

I know this is a delayed post and the reason why it is delayed is because I was at Music Box Massacre 5 in Chicago and I was unable to complete the post before hand. Well, this is a follow up to my post of Top 5 Zombie Killers, and this time around I am going to talk about the top 5 Zombies of all time, these are individual zombies and not hoards or anything like that. I don’t have a specific criterion but rather what zombie captivated me the most. So here they are:

 

5. The Tarman from The Return of the Living Dead: Why is this guy on the list, since, compared to the others he is a flesh eater? Because he is the fucking Tarman! He yells for “BRAINS!” and he totally fucks shit up when he can’t get what he wants. Plus… you gotta love that face.

 

4. Fido from Fido: Probably one of the cutest, innocent, harmless, servent of a zombie all thanks to a zombie collar. What makes him so special is because of exactly that! He slowly falls in love for Helen, he has a relationship with Billy and he is slowly becoming human. Even when the collar is off, he reduces to his primitive zombie needs but then he goes back to his original self because he knows he loves his family. Its touching and sweet.

 

3. Dean Alan Halsey from Re-Animator: Much like Big Daddy and Bub, he is a misunderstood zombie that was brought back to life for an experiment. What makes him so special is because he is conscience but is afraid of everybody around him; he is kept in an institution then mind controlled by Dr. Hill and when he finally sees that he gave up his daughter he snaps out of the mind control and starts to fight back. You are rooting for him because you want him to win, he understands that that is his daughter and she is about to be turned into a zombie for Dr. Hill’s sick experiment.

 

2. Big Daddy from Land of the Dead: Much like Bub, this is a zombie who is unaware that he is not supposed to exist. He learns, and he has feelings for his fellow undead people and that’s what makes him such a strong zombie; he is a leader who is trying to save his people from genocide. You can feel his pain and his rage when a fallen comrade gets shot up. He is slowly learning and for that, you can’t blame him for wanting to take out humanity because in his eyes, we are unwanted trespassers. Plus, since he is slowly learning, it gives him more pity because they are trying to be human.

 

1. Bub from Day of the Dead (1985): Why is Bub my number one favorite zombie you may ask? Because, this is a zombie that we love, we feel for and we want him to win in this case. He is innocent, he doesn’t know any better and he is somewhat conscience of what he is doing. He is the most loveable character in all of the Dead series. When Logan gets killed, you empathize with him because in a way, Logan was his father and he lost him. He just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time and it’s just so touching.

Looking back on all of this, I think it is fair to say that most of these zombies are more civilized zombies, except for the Tarman, and I think that is why I love them so much… because they are innocent and they aren’t just mindless killing machines but there is depth and character to them that make them so special. It’s fascinating as well as brilliant to see character development in such a drone of a character.