The Apocalypse Comet

For the longest time I’ve always wanted to watch Night of the Comet but never got the chance to because our library never had it and I never had the money to buy it on DVD. As time passed I forgot all about it until I saw it on Netflix instant. I was happy. I thought the film was about a comet that passes by and turns everybody into zombies and its up to a group of survivors to fend themselves off from the flesh-eating hoards. I was partially correct. Instead, the film is a cheesy look at two girls who try to cope with the end of the world while fighting for survival against mutated people, a gang of nearly dead hoodlums and a government organization that wants their blood for a cure. Rather than reviewing the film I want to talk about something that scored big points with me concerning the way the movie depicts the apocalypse.

For the most part, apocalyptic movies took a big leap in terms of visuals over the past few years because of bigger budgets, CGI and pyrotechnic advancements. In the 80s, movies like Night of the Comet wasn’t really a blockbuster nor did it have groundbreaking computer graphics at its disposal. For the makers of the film to truly show a world that’s completely barren, dead and “toxic,” they had to rely on production design and color enhancing techniques… and, man, does it look amazing. While most apocalyptic movies then were usually restricted to small towns or had the military trumping over the city (Night of the Living Dead or Invasion of the Body Snatchers), Night of the Comet takes place in Los Angeles with nobody around. No cars, no people, no signs of life whatsoever. I have to applaud the film for how well they depicted an empty world. The skies have a beautiful, haunting red and orange tint to them as if a bomb had went off in the sky, which is so fitting. Very rarely do you see such an effect used by modern apocalyptic films. Here are some of my favorite shots that are so hauntingly good.

I think the movie take all previous apocalyptic movies prior to its production and rolls it all into one giant cheesy movie. There is a scene that is so similar to Dawn of the Dead that it comes off as uncanny; in fact, it has more of a similarity to the remake than the original. The two sisters, having realized that the entire city has become their playground, decide to go on a shopping spree inside a mall. So, with the radio blasting ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’ by Cyndi Lauper, they begin to goof around while wearing all the rich people clothes and lipstick. It’s a montage and though it’s not as powerful as Romero’s critique of mindless consumerism, it’s fun and it lovingly tributes the idea that when everybody is gone… we can’t help but do all the things we’ve wanted to do. Like shoot a car with dozens of bullets.

While we are on the page of Dawn of the Dead, it’s also interesting to note that there is a scene in Night of the Comet where one of the survivors visits his mother, who is unfortunately dead, Well, after hearing a strange knocking at the door the survivor is confronted by a zombie boy who chases him into the bathroom. Then, the zombie boy begins breaking through the door while the survivor escapes to the car through the window. I didn’t notice it until just now but that almost seems like the inspiration for the beginning scenes in the remake of Dawn of the Dead. Both sequences have zombie kids, both sequences end in an enclosed bathroom and both sequences have the hero/heroine escaping through the window. It seems like Night of the Comet is Dawn of the Dead’s younger brother. It’s great because Dawn of the Dead was the first movie where Romero really showed you just how dead and empty the world is after the zombie apocalypse so it’s only fitting that the two films have so much in common.

I have never read I Am Legend (but I have the book) and I never saw Omega Man but I have seen the film adaptation of I Am Legend as well as the Vincent Price film The Last Man On Earth. Seeing our teenage heroine walk among the clothed dust piles on the sidewalks and the empty streets of Los Angeles really rings a bell to Richard Matheson. It’s not as serious and stripped of playfulness but it wouldn’t surprise me if the entire first half of the movie drew inspirations from the book. Both films seem to have the general idea that the blood of the survivors holds the elemental key to stop the infection and possibly cure them. The military in Night of the Comet is like any other military force in these post-apocalyptic movies, they will stop at nothing to find a cure especially if it means saving themselves. In fact, like a lot of the movie the cause of the end of the world is largely due to the government screwing up a project. Though the zombies in this movie aren’t really flesh eaters so much as they are people with decaying skin that want to start fights. I didn’t see any zombies eating people or hardly any zombies for that matter. I don’t even think they are zombies… they’re just mutants.

Personally, I like the fact that they aren’t your typical, mindless, flesh-craving zombies because then it would seem like every other zombie flick that came off the assembly line. I think this film takes a somewhat more realistic route to show the infection slowly eating away at the person’s skin, making them more hostile and aggressive. I don’t even think there are any scenes that show the zombies eating people, let alone trying to eat people. I think the absents of the zombies throughout the majority of the film was a good decision mainly because it doesn’t end up being a cliché where the entire film is based around surviving a zombie outbreak. If anything, the real enemies of the movie are the scientists who are scheming of ways to save themselves.

So there are a lot of moments throughout this film that borrow from previous apocalyptic movies such as Dawn of the Dead, The Last Man on Earth and even Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It was one of the first movies that really showed the barren wasteland that is Earth after shit hits the fan and it was one of the first films that really utilized vibrant reads and oranges to emphasize the unusual setting. There is so much more I can go into like how the comet is associated with the world ending much like Night of the Living Dead and now that I think of it, this movie is really another love letter to Romero. That’s fine by me. I’m sure that many movies nowadays that deal with the apocalypse, especially zombie flicks, can owe a lot to Night of the Comet. If there is anything that people should try and bring back or homage from films like this, it’s got to be that awesome red sky effect. Because, even Die Hard does it and it looks amazing! That needs to be brought back. Don’t let it turn to dust like the people in this movie.

Mocking Halloween: Night of the Living Dead

I know what you are thinking, how dare I make fun of this movie considering its status as being one of the greatest horror movies of all time and seen as one of the most successful indie films too. That won’t stop me because after watching it again, there was something about it that disturbed me… no, not the zombies eating but something else. Let me first start off by saying that I am always a fan of the slow lumbering zombie rather than the 28 Days Later running zombie. I’ve always stated Night of the Living Dead as an example of a good slow moving zombie movie… but that has been compromised.

It may seem like a trivial thing and I’m not quite sure why anybody hasn’t noticed this but when the cemetery zombie attacks Barbara, she runs towards her car… and the zombie RUNS after her. Yes! There is a running zombie in a Romero movie. The zombie then picks up a rock and tries to smash open her window, while acting like a spaz. I was sort of surprised to see this and I guess it would have been fine if the rest of the zombies didn’t act like lumbering drones. So my question is, why was the cemetery zombie the only one to run and use a blunt object to attack with while the rest of the zombies walks slow and grab?

The other thing that I noticed was Barbara herself. I’ve already elaborated on this before (Click here) but it’s sort of misleading. I wanted to see Barbara as this strong woman who tries to pull herself together and help Ben and the rest fight off the zombies but she doesn’t. Throughout most of the movie she looks like she is high and tripping balls. Perhaps that’s the way it was meant but… it would have been nice to see her act a little better.

Random Thought on Night of the Living Dead

This was something that came to mind as I watched Night of the Living Dead for the 30-something-time and it’s just me thinking out loud. Also, I want to remind everybody that I love Night of the Living Dead and in no way am I bashing it but if you watch a movie, especially one that you love, you begin to notice things and you sometimes begin to have a little fun at the films expense. I love The Blob ’88 but if you pay attention to one of the ending scenes when the blog is attacking the town, somebody in the crowd ties their shoes before they run away.

Well, as I watched Night I understand that Barbara is severely traumatized but after a while in the movie it seemed as though she went from trauma to just being really stoned or tripping. Specifically, I am talking about the scene in which Barbara starts to lay down on the couch and caress the lace on the couch arm. I never really thought about it until now but it does seem as though she is drugged out of her mind, and I am sure there is a reason for this but to the casual viewer… she looks hopped up on happy pills.

Come to think of it, I should really vent out my random thoughts more often. Also this post was inspired by a post that was originally on The Horror Digest.

Terror in the Aisles 4: Undead By Dawn

This past Friday, Portage Theater hosted another Terror in the Aisles but this time it was aimed towards the zombie subculture, so naturally I had to tag along. This time around they were going to show Night of the Living Dead and Fulci’s Zombie on 35mm print and then they presented to us REC 2, the Midwest premiere. In between each break there would be ‘trailer trash’ and independent short zombie films. It’s also good to note that I finally realized who actually started the Terror in the Aisles film festival and it was none other than Chicago’s own… Rusty Nails.

The evening started off with 20 minutes of trailer trash that was somehow consolidated into 3 trailers. The first trailer was for the brilliant film Mean Streets. The second trailer was for the gorefest that is Dead Alive and the last trailer was for Gobstopper, which I have to talk about.

Gobstopper

I’ll admit, when I saw the trailer for this I let out an expression of slight disgust because I thought the concept for it was really tacky and stupid. However, I warmed up to the idea of a Willie Wonka going bat-shit insane and using real people to make his candy. I found it hysterical that Christopher Lloyd agreed to play the part of the crazed chocolatier. Slugworth is racked up in chains and on the verge of death, the Oompa Loompas have bloody handprints on their shirts; it all looks like great fun and I would love to see it.

Official site.

Afterwards the showed us a brief 20 minute clip for One for the Fire: The Legacy of ‘Night of the Living Dead’ and I was a little bored by the clip, but than again… it was only half of the movie so I would want to see the full film eventually.

And now for the films:

Night of the Living Dead

This was shown on a 35mm print and it was nice to see this in the theater as opposed to watching it late night on TV. I forgot how character driven the film was and how the arcs molded out throughout the film. I also forgot how Barbra looked completely stoned out of her mind the whole time, specifically when she is touching the lace on the couch. It’s also nice to note that the zombies in these films are significantly more brutal than the latter Romero zombies because they pick up rocks and bash in windows.

There was a Q&A with Bill Heinzman afterwards and he was the man who started it all, the very first zombie to ever appear in Night of the Living Dead and the first modern zombie. He was a fun guy and he did his zombie walk for all of us.

Bill recalling his time working for George.

Bill doing his zombie walk for the audience.
And the crowd goes wild!

Me and Bill.
I know, I’m a fan boy.

REC 2

I did not see REC but I did see Quarantine and from what I know, Quarantine is a direct, almost word-for-word remake of REC so I did understand what was going on in REC 2. All I can say is that I really enjoyed this film and I enjoyed the perspective of having 3 different cameras. Even the twist, which is in the beginning, is great and why these people are suddenly going crazy. I’ve come to the conclusion that these found-footage films are always creepy because they really utilized the silence in the movie.

They also held a zombie contest for who is the most sexy looking zombie, who is the funniest zombie and how is the most disgusting looking zombie. Needless to say, it was no Zombie Pageant

Zombie (aka Zombie 2)

Where can I begin with this movie; it’s campy, it’s corny, it’s really good, it’s epic and the score is hypnotic. This was the first time I saw this film and I have to say… after the zombie vs. shark scene I knew it would get better. I love the idea of having zombies, as part of some voodoo, terrorize an island and it was executed perfectly. The gore was fantastic but sadly that can’t be said for the acting.

I’ll have a full review of Zombie on Buy Zombie.

The sexy zombies.

Shockingly, I did not see Kitty Zombie at all during this event. Overall, it was a fun time at the Portage and as I always like to state during these event treatments, it was really nice to see all these films on the big screen.

Creepshow: Creepy Poetic Justice

To continue my ‘double-feature post’ on Creepshow, as I said in my previous post on the ashtray, the segment entitled They’re Creeping Up On You deals with the best kind of revenge. Much like every story (except for The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill) deals with revenge but in this segment, it’s poetic justice. According to a class book I have, poetic justice is “an outcome in which vice is punished and virtue rewarded, usually in a manner peculiarly or ironically appropriate.” I think this segment really fits with this literary device. Let’s look at the plot:

The story is centered on Upson Pratt, a Howard Hughes inspired millionaire. Right off the bat we understand that he is having a serious cockroach problem and we know that he loathes cockroaches. During this time he converses with one of his employees about a corporate takeover of another company, but when the employee says that the owner shot himself because of it… Pratt smiles and says good riddance. In another conversation, he threatens to fire an employee who is on vacation if he does not fix his roach problem. Then, in another conversation, the widow of the man who killed himself calls as Upson mocks her and her husband’s death. Why does he do all this? He thinks that everybody, except him are nothing but a bunch of cockroaches.

“You have to watch them. Castonmeyer, Reynolds… bugs. That’s all they are. All of them. And although they’re essentially brainless… you have to watch them… ‘cause they creep up on you.”
- Upson Pratt

It’s a wonderful juxtaposition to the characters that Upson Pratt interacts with throughout the segment. As the characters become more hurt by Pratt, the cockroach problem becomes worse. Then, when the blackout hits the cockroaches decided to frighten Pratt by attacking him in swarms. When the emergency power comes back on, Pratt decides to lock himself in his bedroom only to have cockroaches burrowing out of his stomach, throat and mouth till his death. It’s one of the best stories in the whole anthology.

Here, the cockroaches don’t just act as typical bugs; they are representing all the men and women that Pratt looks down upon. They represent all the people that Pratt has ruined, fired and harassed throughout his life. Since he compared those people to cockroaches and bugs, it’s fitting to see cockroaches attack him. The roaches kill him before he could kill them, and if you look at it as poetic justice, all the people that Pratt ruined finally got revenge on him. I compare it to when Ellie Driver hides the black mamba in Bud’s money suitcase, because Ellie uses the black mamba to kill Bud in Tarantino's Kill Bill. The Bride’s codename was Black Mamba so that you can argue that The Bride did get revenge on Bud in some sense.

I was always fascinating by the idea of poetic justice and when I first saw this segment, I didn’t really like it all that much. I looked at it as a lame idea and I hated that they used cockroaches of all things. Of course, I was ignorant back then but now as I look at it… it’s a great segment and probably one of my favorites. I have to thank all these film classes that I am taking because without them, I would have never analyzed this segment and found pure poetic justice.

Creepshow: The Deadly Ashtray

The other night I watched one of my favorite horror anthologies… Creepshow and I noticed something, something that a lot of other people noticed besides me so I kind of feel weird posting about this but I figured I’d look deeper into it. In every short story, we see that marble ashtray somewhere in the background (with the exception of Father’s Day). Why is it there? Does it mean something? Was it supposed to be a gag or a just a reoccurring element? Well, I think that I have discovered why it’s used in almost every scene and keep it mind, I am only guessing on this, this is only my interpretation of it.

First, lets look at its structure. It’s dark and almost Gothic looking piece and it’s sort of creepy in a way, which should tell you right off the bat that this is a piece that is not supposed to be nice. The design, from what I can see, is that of a little boy sitting up against a tombstone looking down into the ‘tray’ part as though he was looking into a grave. This symbolizes death, which is ironic because the ash goes into the ‘grave’ almost like it was saying that smoking would eventually cause death. The first time we are introduced to the ashtray, it was shown as the object in which one of the characters kills her father with, setting up that this piece causes death. It’s like an omen of sorts, whenever a person is about to die or is going to die; this piece is somewhere in the scenery or next to something that is important.

Below, I have screen captured all the scenes that had this ashtray so that you can see where it fits in with everything.

Father’s Day

Here, the ashtray is used to kill the Father. Nothing special but as I stated before, it is supposed to set up that this ashtray is not meant to be a good sign when you see it. You can argue that the ashtray is still a murder weapon, just not directly.

The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill

In this segment, it doesn’t really have a meaning like how Father’s Day was an act of revenge. Here, it’s foreshadowing that Jordy will eventually die, but Jordy is very nice but goofy kind of a person. So I guess it’s his own stupidity that causes his end.

Something To Tide You Over

As you can see, the ashtray is not on the desk of Richard Vickers just after he got done sadistically murdering his wife and her secret lover by buying them in the sand while the tide came in. The ashtray is symbolizing that Richard is about die a very harsh death because of his coldblooded actions and again, it’s out of pure revenge.

The Crate

In this scene, after realizing his friend was telling the truth about finding a monster in a crate and that it killed 2 people, Henry decides to lure his drunk and emotionally abusive wife to the monster so that he can get rid of her. The ashtray is right next to the letter that would lead his wife Wilma to the college where she would be eaten. Another act of revenge foreshadowed by the ashtray.

They’re Creeping Up On You

This is the best example of poetic justice that I will later elaborate on in another post. Here, we see Upson Pratt washing his hands after spraying a few roaches. Soon, the roaches invade his penthouse and they kill him. The ashtray symbolizes the best kind of justice, the revenge from all the ‘roaches’ that Pratt killed and destroyed.

Review - The Crazies (2010)

Last night I was fortunate enough to see The Crazies but not fortunate enough to catch Shutter Island. I remember encountering the original movie back when I was younger but I was too scared to watch and I never really took the time to hunt it down. So, I am doing this review as though The Crazies was a stand-alone film rather than a remake. My friend saw the original and he said that this remake is barely like the first movie, that they are two different movies. He went on to say that you couldn’t really compare them because they did a lot of new things in this remake that weren’t in the original. Which is great because if you want to remake a movie, update it and add some new things into it. Don’t do a straight copy of the original.

The movie starts off when a deranged man with a shotgun walks right onto the fielding during the baseball game. The Sheriff (Olyphant) insists he puts the gun down but instead he raises it up to him and the Sheriff shoots him. The next day, a group of hunters find a dead man with a parachute attached to him in the marshes and soon they discover a large aircraft that crashed into the swamp. After this, the military comes into the small town and starts quarantining people they believe are ‘crazy’ and infected. When the Sheriff’s wife gets separated from him, he decides to team up with his Deputy to save her and another man’s wife. Now, they have to make it out of Peirce Country alive and not get killed by the infected crazy people.

Right off the bat, this movie is very brutal but it’s not full on brutality… it’s very slow paced at times and it breaks up the horror parts into sections almost. There were some really awesome scenes that take place at a funeral home, a quarantine lab and in a baby’s room. The one scene that was really freaky, not because it was jump out scary, but because of the way it was handled; the Sheriff’s wife was being strolled through a school while men in hazmat suites were wondering around and inside classrooms people were going insane. It was just a creepy scene. The scene in the funeral home had me on the edge of my seat the whole time. It definitely had it’s moments and it really seemed to scatter them.

The way things played out seemed a little sloppy and sometimes it didn’t make sense. I don’t really know how to explain it but the way the military just came in and started to quarantine things was a little random. Early on in the movie, it was foreshadowed but it just seemed way too random. I guess in most movies, you would see the military infesting the town and dragging people out of the stores or out of their homes but in this film, it’s all from the perspective of the Sheriff and his wife. It’s not necessarily a bad thing; it’s just a little different for me. I would have loved to see how the town went from this Small Town, USA look to a heap of burning metal and paper.

At times, this movie can get really heavy in emotion, which I really liked. One scene in particular finds the daughter of a man (She was one of the survivors that got away from a really nasty hospital scene) reunited with her boyfriend. As the boyfriend explains that his mom and dad are still in the house while he’s out in the barn getting things, the army comes in and shoots and kills the dad for resistance. The boyfriend then runs out to the army in anger just before he gets shot down. The mom then runs towards her son before she too is also shot and killed, both of them are later incinerated. It’s really sad and you really feel for the girlfriend character. Another person, who provides much emotion, is the Deputy. I don’t want to go into details cause I can write an entire post on him but I will say he is one of the most fascinating characters in the whole movie.

Out of everything that I love about The Crazies, the one thing that I found really hammy was the dialogue. There were so many times throughout the film that the dialogue was terrible. Case in point: when the phones have no service and the Internet goes down, Olyphant’s character says, “You know what… we’re in trouble.” It sounds so stupid. Or another time when the Deputy pulls off a sheet to reveal a cop car he says, “Fuck yeah” in such a bland tone and the car isn’t even that good. HOWEVER, the Deputy had some of the best lines in the movie that sort of made up for the campy phrases. He throws a spike strip out and causes a government car to topple over itself. The man inside struggles to get out and the Deputy, in all his glory says, “Welcome Peirce Country, friendliest place on Earth, asshole!” BEST LINE IN THE MOVIE.

A lot of people might complain that this movie is like a zombie movie (zombies being the typical Romero zombies or the 28 Days Later ‘zombies’) but I want to stress that this is not a zombie movie. Sure, it owes a lot to zombie movies but these people don’t eat you… they brutally kill and torture you. Plus, zombies don’t talk to one another. The makeup was amazingly done and it really made the people look like they were infected with something. Just, don’t go in thinking they are zombies but rather go in thinking that it owes to the zombie genre.

Overall, I liked The Crazies. Not the best remakes but far from being a terrible remake. It’s average but pretty enjoyable if you have some time to kill. I would recommend this to horror fans if you are bored but I wouldn’t really be in too much of a rush to go see it. Since it is different (I guess) from the original, just go in with an open mind. I would see it again, but I would have to think about actually buying it.

Happy 70th George A. Romero

It is February 4th, 2010 a very special day to all horror fans alike. Today marks the 70th birthday of George A. Romero: The father of modern zombie movies. Rather than to go on a lecture about this man’s history and what he accomplished, I want to talk about what his movies have meant for me and how they have inspired me to become the person that I am. Every movie from his cult classic Night of the Living Dead to the more recent Diary of the Dead has inspired and opened my eyes to a whole new world of filmmaking.

Night of the Living Dead was the first horror movie that I saw and because of it I began my infatuation with zombie movies. I rented out all the classic zombie films and I loved each and every one of them. When I saw Dawn of the Dead, I noticed how bloody zombies movies could be and though I was disgusted seeing people getting devoured, I was strangely captivated by it. I could not take my eyes off of it. I had then skipped to Land of the Dead and saw it in theaters and it blew my mind away… I was so enthralled in the movie that I was in my own little world. To me, Land of the Dead reassured me that George A. Romero was one of my personal favorite horror movie directors. Then, I finally saw Day of the Dead and just the way that the whole movie played out sent shivers down my spine. It’s my favorite movie in the whole series because of one thing: Bub the zombie. Yes, in this movie he turned the tables on us and made us sympathize for zombies and made us into the villains. It didn’t hit me until freshman year high school that I was a die hard zombie fan and my teacher/mentor told me this, “If you haven’t seen Day of the Dead, rent it, give it a shot, you seem like the person who is a great Romero zombie fan.” It was an awakening.

As for his other work, I have not seen the original Crazies in a long time and since then I forgot what the experience was for me. However, I absolutely loved Martin and how awkward the whole movie seems. Then, two of my personal favorite horror movie superstars came together to deliver one of the best anthology horror movies ever… Stephen King and George Romero for Creepshow. I fell in love. And Monkey Shines, a lot of people laugh at the concept but in all honesty, it is a pretty terrifying movie and for me to showed me that you can take any funny concept and turn it into an original and frightening horror movie.

Simply put, this man has revolutionized cinema and revolutionized the idea of the modern zombie and provided inspiration for horror filmmakers alike. He has given all of us what a zombie should do, how a zombie should act and what it should even look like… he developed a cult following the is equal to that of the fan-base of Star Wars or Star Trek. Books have been written about him, film specialists all over the world study his films and he changed the face of racism in film. He has been there since the beginning of my horror film quest and he has given me inspiration to go out there and make my dreams possible. For that, I wish you, George A. Romero, a happy 70th birthday!!!! You truly are a master.

“I don't think you need to spend $40 million to be creepy. The best horror films are the ones that are much less endowed.”
- George A. Romero