Guilty Pleasures: House of The Dead

As a fan of not only horror movies, but movies in general, I've realized that you must look past good or bad.  It's not a matter of thumbs up or thumbs down, or for your cyber critics, being rotten or fresh.  There's a lot more to it than just that.  Some of the worst movies ever made are still entertaining and enjoyable under the right circumstances.  And for me, The House of the Dead is just that.  A downright bad movie that does not fail to entertain if you're in the right mindset.

Obviously you can't go into it expecting to see a masterpiece.  It's not Hitchcockian horror.  Uwe Boll isn't Scorcese.  If you go into it looking to be scared, you'll shut it off ten minutes in.  If you go into it expecting to see well versed thespians on the run from zombies, again, you'll shut it off.  But if you get a couple friends together and pop this in, you'll laugh your ass off and have a blast watching and making fun of it.

You can tell that you're in for some cheezy goodness right from the first time you see Clint Howard playing a deckhand on the shitty beaten up boat that the college kids take to the island that is supposedly hosting a rave.  When Captain Kirk (yes, they have a character named Captain Kirk) is around, Howard's poor schlub act really takes off as he gets emasculated on many occasions.

The dialogue in this film is absolutely terrible, save a bunch of one liners that'll have you both cracking up and rolling your eyes at the same time.  When you think about the plot, you have to realize that this film is based off of a video game.  The video game had a barely there, paper thin plot...  but that was still considered too much.  So the version we got in this film is a dumbed down version of a stupid video game that was essentially created just so there was a reason to kill zombies.  Because we all know killing zombies for no reason isn't fun. 

This movie realizes that it is what it is.  If you have a one dimensional story being acted out by shitty actors, why emphasize the story?  Instead we get a cornucopia of tits (how did the main chick keep her damn tank top from breaking), violence, bad acting and quick cuts to clips from the video game.  The "zombies", and I use that term loosely, act and look so damn strange that they resemble the Putty Patrol from Power Rangers more than they resemble the traditional zombie. They aren't exactly the fiercest zombies either, as Captain Kirk was able to take out a whole shitload of them with a Yosemite Sam style six shooter.


It also has my pick for the most unintentionally hilarious scenes out of any movie I've ever seen.  In the climax you get to see a headless torso strangle one of the leads.  It's absolutely hysterical watching the head roll around on the ground, as the torso tries to choke someone to death.  The effects made things even better (or worse, I guess) because you can see how obviously green screened it is.

So if you've got some time to kill, or you're having some people over and want to put something fun on in the background, this is the movie for you.  If you're expecting something Shakespearean, it's not for you.  This is definitely one of my guilty pleasures, and I think if you check it out, you'll find it to be one of yours too.

I Hope He's Got A Bigger Boat This Time Around

As I made my way around the horror sites today, I found a report on Bloody-Disgusting (click Here to read it) about Alex Aja's Piranha 3D. At first the report starts out negatively, as we find out that his movie is being pushed back to an August release. But then we get the scoop that Richard Dreyfuss will be playing basically the same character that he played in Jaws! I was already looking forward to Piranha 3D because it just looks like it is going to be a fun flick. The pictures that have been released show us that it's going to be blood, guts, booze and tits. It might not be Oscar bait, but it should definitely be worth the price of admission.


But now, to find out that Matt Hooper will be back on our screens 35 years after Jaws was made has me even more excited for this flick. It's been confirmed by BD that he'll be drinking Amity brand beer as a further nod to Jaws. Hopefully Hooper will be just as knowledgeable about man eating piranha as he was about man eating sharks. Either way, for the fun factor, this movie is at the top of my must see list.

You guys excited for it?
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And just a quick note. If you haven't joined Night of the Living Blog's Facebook page (why haven't you? there's a link on the sidebar), I posted a link to a guest column I wrote over at Kickout!! Wrestling. That's right, I'm into blood, guts and wrestling. If I wasn't so studly I wouldn't know how I ever got laid. Anyway, check it out guys, and leave me a damn comment every once in a while.

Carriers --- Viral Pandemic? Who Cares, Let's Hit The Beach

Carriers is a film that focuses on the journey of four people that are trying to find safety in a world that has been victimized and ravaged by an avian flu like virus that has wiped out most of humanity. Two brothers, Brian (Chris Pine) and Danny (Lou Taylor Pucci) and their female companions Bobby (Piper Perabo) and Kate (Emily Van Camp) set out to go on a cross country road trip to Turtle Beach, because hell, if you gotta die, you might as well die somewhere that you've had some good times. That's their line of thought anyway.

We all know that if the trip went according to plan, we wouldn't have a movie, so get ready for 84 minutes of a cliched character study that's chock full of identity issues. This is a movie that just doesn't know what it wants to be. Issues are raised right from the very beginning of the movie. When people go to the movie theater, there's a good chance they've seen the trailer before they see the movie. When people rent movies there's a good chance they've either seen the trailer, or at the very least looked at the box art before popping the DVD into their DVD player. The cover of the DVD Box to Carriers showed the four main characters decked out in their rubber gloves and facemasks to prevent themselves from being infected by the pathogen. Clearly coming into this movie, we had some idea of what were going to see. So why start us out with a five minute scene that's trying to get us to think they're on their way to some Spring Break beach party? It was a scene that was completely useless, unless you were to randomly stumble across it on HBO without knowing what you were watching.

From there we really, really lose any sense of direction as the cliches really start to roll in. If you go into your friendly neighborhood Blockbuster and go to the Horror/Thriller section, how many movies do you think you can pick up that have a line similar to "But as they embark on their journey, they realize that the only thing to fear more than the virus is themselves". If every movie tries to provide us with the commentary that humans are quick to turn evil when put in a situation where their survival is threatened, what are they really telling us? Nothing. It went from being a valid, intelligent and horrifying commentary in movies like Night of the Living Dead to a cliched staple of every zombie/infection movie that gets churned out anymore.

But for now, back to the identity crisis this movie clearly has. It's not cerebral enough to make you think. It's not thrilling enough to be a thriller. And it's certainly not scary enough in anyway to be a bonafide horror movie. I will say that there is a lot of dramatic tension in this movie, but whenever it starts to get really tense, they cut to a montage that tries to break the tension. Brian almost falls into a pool with a rotting infected corpse floating in it, which would mean certain death, but he gets rescued and... then they decide to go whack some golf balls at the hotel that they've set up temporary residence in. A little earlier in the film, another tense scene is followed up with Brian riding around a golf course in a golf cart before flipping it into a ditch, which is fitting, because whenever this movie really seems to get rolling in the right direction, it drives off the road and into a ditch.

Another big issue that I had with this movie was that it really didn't have an apocalyptic atmosphere to it. Everything looked far too neat, clean and sterilized. There weren't abandoned cars strewn every which way, and absolutely no evidence of looting or rioting anywhere. Their pandemic stricken society looked like what you or I might see if we were to drive through a quaint, sleepy town on an early Sunday morning. In fact, even when they get to the town where a supposed serum is being worked on, the streets are ENTIRELY empty. There's not a car parked anywhere, nevermind driving by. There aren't withering corpses in the streets, or infected people lying around. There's just nothing. This didn't look like what you would see in the case of a global pandemic. It looked like something you might see in something like Stephen King's The Langoliers. It looked like the world was devoid of everything.

The film did have some merits though. The performances were good. Actually, the performances were waaaaaaay too good. As the film goes on, Chris Pine plays his loose cannon role to perfection. Piper Perabo is eternally likable, especially in the early parts of the movie when she bonds with an infected girl. But bar none, the best performance of the movie belongs to Christopher Meloni of Law & Order fame. This dude can act. His performance as a father trying to get his infected daughter a serum that will cure her is absolutely brilliant. His final scene of the movie is absolutely heartwrenching (and that's from someone who's been accused of having a heart of stone).

So in the end, the acting saved this movie from being a complete clunker. They say you should never judge a book (or movie in this case) by it's cover. But the judgment I made when I saw the cover to this movie was that it couldn't be any good if it was putting quotes from the Phoenix Examiner on the front. I'm sorry Phoenix Examiner, but this movie did not provide "Extreme Excitement". I guess every once in a while it's okay to judge a movie by it's cover.

Rating: 3 out of 10 Flu Spreading Birds

New Jurassic Park Trilogy? I'll Pass

New Jurassic Park Trilogy? I'll Pass

It's been rumored for years that a Jurassic Park IV was in development, but until now there had been no substantial movement towards actually making the movie. The project had been ridiculed ever since the first draft of the script came out and it featured - get this - dinosaurs armed with guns, being used by our government to fight our wars. After the reaction to that script wasn't quite what the studio was hoping for, it appeared that the project wasn't going to see the light of day. Until today.

Apparently, in an interview with Box Office (Click here to read it yourself), Joe Johnston has said that there will be a new Jurassic Park trilogy that will be taking place off the islands of Isla Nublar and Isla Sorna. What could this possibly mean? It could mean a few different things. We could be getting the aforementioned machine gun dinosaurs. Or who knows, maybe we could be getting zombies over running New York, because that worked so well with Godzilla 2000.... or not. All I know is that I do not have high hopes for the new trilogy. And the reason? Joe stupid Johnston.

Who is Joe Johnston? He's the director of the craptastic third entry in the Jurassic Park series. He managed to make dinosaurs boring. How does one manage to do such a thing? Take the first movie for example. It's an epic movie. From the moment they land their helicopter on the island and see the gigantic dinosaur rise up from out of the ocean you have chills running down your spine. And they didn't even just rely on the dinosaurs. There was a real plot to the movie, lots of tension and some really terrifying moments. It was and still is a masterpiece.

Then take the second movie. Not a perfect movie and certainly not as epic as the first one, but still a very fun movie to watch. It had a lot of crazy moments that were visually stunning. The scene where they're running through the fields and getting picked off one by one by velociraptors is great. The bloody waterfall scene is one of my favorite scenes out of any movie. And as surly and cynical as I may be, not even I can say that there wasn't a certain fun factor to seeing the little boy look out his window at a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

But then you get to the third movie. The Joe Johnston movie. He takes us back to the island, where we belong, but he does it in the dullest, least entertaining way possible. We're back on the island because a little boy parasailed onto the island? Give me a break. As the movie went on, the stupidity grew greater and greater. People don't want to see a dinosaur movie about dinosaurs showing humanity. They want to see a dinosaur movie about dinosaurs being dinosaurs. If you're surrounded by a pack of angry dinosaurs because you stole their eggs out of the nes, you're done for. DEAD. DUNZO. You can't ceremoniously offer the eggs back to the dinosaurs and say "my bad", hoping that the head dinosaur will call everyone off... unless you're in Jurassic Park III. The movie was flawed from beginning to end, even going as far as to make a T-Rex look like a little bitch compared to a Spinosaurus. What the hell is a Spinosaurus anyway?

When a movie is as bad as Jurassic Park III was, some of the shit that hits the fan has to come back and splatter up against the director. And the shit just keeps flying in his direction, because he's also at the helm of The WolfMan, which has been plagued with production issues from the very beginning. I have to question why the suits would want to keep Joe Johnston on board the franchise. JP3 was panned by not only critics, but by fans of the first two movies. So why would you possibly want this guy to make not only the next movie, but the next three?

Johnston is a hack. If they want to erase the bad taste that was in everybody's mouth after the third movie there are two words that would go a long way in doing so. Steven. Spielberg.

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New Moon In A Freaking Hilarious Minute

Just a quick update tonight.  I was looking around the Day of the Woman blog (dayofwoman.blogspot.com) and noticed this on there.  If you're a Twilight basher, or feel like wasting a minute on a funny ass video, check it out.

5 Steps To Success: The Walking Dead

5 Steps To Success: AMC's Adaptation of The Walking Dead

A feature I'll be busting out every once in a while here on NOTLB is “5 Steps To Success.” When a project is announced and has the potential to be very very good or very very bad, expect to see one of these guys. Months ago, AMC announced that they had brought on Frank Darabont (Shawshank Redemption, The Mist) to adapt Robert Kirkman's acclaimed graphic novel, The Walking Dead, into a television series. For those of you not in the know, The Walking Dead is a comic that sets out to show you what happens in a zombie movie after the credits roll. It tries to be a realistic look at living and coping during the zombie apocalypse. Here are five things that are necessary for this show to be a success.

Step One: Get a name actor to play Rick Grimes.

Why do you need a name actor to play the lead role? Because, simply put, horror doesn't have the greatest track record when it comes to television. True Blood and Dexter might be successes, but they're on HBO and Showtime. They can get away with whatever the hell they want to. The last horror themed show that comes to my mind (not on any of the pay channels) was Fear Itself, and nobody wants to see The Walking Dead go down the same road that Fear Itself did. It was a show that's quality ranged from pretty good to downright awful (I'm looking at you Darren Bousman). If Frank Darabont is able to get a talented and familiar face to play Rick Grimes, I think it would immediately lend some much needed credibility to the project. When the news first broke that The Walking Dead was being adapted into a television show, I thought the perfect guy for the job would be Thomas Jane. He had worked with Darabont on The Mist, but Jane's television show Hung on HBO is getting a second season, so he's off limits. I don't know who should get the part, but it will serve AMC well to get an established actor.

Step Two: AMC needs to give Frank Darabont space.

Here's your homework for tonight. Go read Stephen King's short story “The Mist”. Then go and watch Frank Darabont's adaptation of it. People who are apart of the “movies are never as good as the books” crowd, need to eat a little crow in this case. Darabont's vision completely blows King's out of the water in every single facet. Without going into spoilers, Darabont changed around key parts of the plot, cutting out an unnecessary romance and changing King's non-ending twinged with hope, to the most shocking and heartbreaking ending I've seen since I watched the original Night of the Living Dead. Darabont knows what needs to be done to tighten up the story behind The Walking Dead. If the suits at AMC just pay the bills and leave him be, I have every bit of confidence that he'll be able to make this a successful venture. Nothing good ever comes from businessmen trying to get involved on the creative side.

Step Three: Pace yourselves.

One of my biggest complaints with Kirkman's The Walking Dead is how all the storylines seem rushed. I read the comics in bunches of six in paperback form instead of in comic form, and maybe that accounts for why I feel some of this was rushed, but it just seemed like Kirkman was blowing through stories left and right. The Shane saga started and ended VERY quickly. And before it even ended, we just jumped weeks in advance until it was time to leave the camp they had set up prior to Rick's arrival. From there they just bounce around a lot from place to place, losing members of their camp in some places and picking up more members in other places. This is something that would not translate well to television. If I had it my way, the first season of The Walking Dead would take us from Rick getting shot (the beginning of the story) to them leaving the camp they set up outside Atlanta.

Step Four: Make it about the story, not the gore.

As I said above, it gets annoying in The Walking Dead when Kirkman jumps forward a bit in time to an action sequence. The missions statement for this comic was to provide us with a look at day to day life after zombies have overrun society. However, instead of focusing on the day to day, he skips forward to the action sequences and the gore on quite a few occasions. If people want to see an hour of nonstop gore every week, I'm sure all they'll have to do is put on one of them Sci Fi original movies. If this is going to work, they're going to have to expand on the story. It'll be the story that will attract the casual viewer, not so much the blood and guts. So instead of having Rick fight his way to their camp, then skipping forward to gun training, then skipping forward to leaving camp, maybe we should focus on what's happening during that time at camp. Thankfully Frank Darabont is a master storyteller who would relish in coming up with storylines for the time that Kirkman overlooked between events.

And finally, Step Five: Forget the Michonne character ever existed.

The reason why I stopped reading the comic. What the hell were you thinking Kirkman? You tell us how this is supposed to be as real of a zombie apocalypse as we've ever seen and then you go and bring in a chick wielding a katana, leading chained up zombies with her? They aren't pets. One false move and you're dead... but she's chaining them up and taking them on the road with her. What the hell is that shit? The entire character is obnoxious, not mysterious like I'm sure he was shooting for. Frank Darabont would be better off just forgetting this character ever existed.

And there you have it. The five key steps to making sure The Walking Dead is on our television sets, entertaining us for years to come.