Topic: My October Horror Marathon

[Jimmy]

Title : Left in Darkness (2006)

Overview
Her mother died in childbirth, and she always felt responsible for the tragedy. When her father disappeared, her grandparents raised her. As she got older, her sense of guilt grew deeper. And on the night of her 21st birthday, Celia ('Monica Keena' of FREDDY VS. JASON) is drugged, raped and dies of an accidental overdose at a wild college frat party. But for some, death is only the beginning: Trapped in a netherworld between sanctuary and damnation, Celia must now battle the demons -- including hordes of horrific Soul Eaters -- that prowl the Afterlife. Is the spirit of her recently deceased grandfather ('Tim Thomerson' of TRANCERS) trying to lure her to an eternity of suffering? Can her guardian angel ('David Anders' of ALIAS) safely lead her to the other side? And for a young woman caught in limbo, is there any way to go towards the light when your soul is LEFT IN DARKNESS?

My Impression
I like the idea that something exist between our life and the heaven/hell, even if in reality probably nothing exist after our death : we roth in the earth or we vanish in smoke. The film works mostly because of David Anders who give a really good performance. The story is interesting too, at least this is something original between all the crappy remakes that populate the horror genre in the recent years. But the good thing stop here... Seriously Monica Keena doesn't have the talent to support a movie! She's a pair of breast with no personallity or emotions... As usual the movie is populated by adult university students who act like a bunch of 12 years old : This Hollywood cliché gets on my nerve! I've never seen anybody like that when I was at the cegep or the university and not even when I was in high school!

This is not a bad movie, but you must pass over the negative to get the interesting story
 
Rating :

Number of film watch : 14

[Jimmy]

Title : It's Alive (1973)

Overview
Our modern world is full of marvels -- but also polluted air, foods sprayed with deadly chemicals, misused drugs and hidden radioactive substances. Ever wonder how these poisons might affect a developing child in the womb? 'It's Alive' offers a shocking possibility -- and in so doing has become a creepy cult classic!

My Impression
This is one of the few movies where I feel sad for the "monster", since he isn't responsible for what he do. In fact he is only a newborn child and when he attacks someone this is just because he is affraid and wants to defend himself. The only thing he wants is to return with his parents. This is easy to make the link between this mutated baby and a real one who is deficient mentally or physically. This is not the first time that I watch this and everytime I let a couple of tears escape.

For the rest the acting is really good particullary John Ryan who gives a fantastic performance as the child's father. The script by Larry Cohen is original and you can even connect it with the Thalidomide failure in the sixties.

This film is really nuanced and it isn't just an horror movie. One last thing : watch this fast before the remake release that will completly destroy this movie and transform it as only a monster movie 
 
Rating :

Number of film watch : 15

[Jimmy]

Title : Seed (2007)

Overview
Seed recounts the supernatural story of a ruthless serial killer who survives electrocution on death row. Prison guards fail to exorcise the evil in this murderer and inadvertently unleash a malevolent monster. The resulting reign of violence, with its extreme gore and torture, sets a new standart of the horror genre.

My Impression
Do I need to tell you again that I like Uwe Boll? This man is a genius, one of the best director actually in the b-movie genre. A marketing expert who does what he wants, like he wants and doesn't care about anybody opinions. He is probably the first producer to have understand the power of the dvd buyers fan base.

This movie in the serial killer genre doesn't follow the convention of the genre, we don't see Max Seed killing someone before a long waiting time. The story start really fast and we have the feeling that we are late for a date. The first half of the movie is really dark and it's really hard to see the details, but this is certainly voluntary and an editorial choice. The light appears only after Seed is "reborn". The acting is ok and for one time Boll haven't fallen for the big name trap, the cast is mostly is regular players : Michael Paré, Will Sanderson, Michael Eklund, ...

I have only two negative things to say : this film is too short and the cgi is not really great (too over the top).

warning : at the beginning there are some stock footages provided by PETA were some dogs are killed in some kind of dog farm.   
 
Rating :

Number of film watch : 16

[Jimmy]

Title : Demons (1985)

Overview
Two girls are given free tickets to a special screening in an isolated movie theater. The film, a violent horror movie, exerts a malevolant influence over the theater patrons who are transformed - one by bloody one - into a horde of crazed demons.

My Impression
It's time for some Italian fun  I will not say that this movie is really profound, but this is a fun one with a couple of jump scare. This is almost a zombie movie, but the protagonists are Demons and honestly those demons could send a crying zombie to his mother in 2 seconds. I like the movie in a movie concept and I would have like to watch this in a real cinema. The effects are great and, at least for the 2 first transformations, we feel the pain of the victims. The hard rock score kick ass, the motorcycle escape at the end on the song "Fast as a shark" by Accept is a classic scene. Sure the story is silly and the dubbing atrocious, but all the Italian movie of this period are like that. Anyway how to not like the guy who dub Bobby Rhodes? Impossible to be more a pimp stereotype than this 
 
Rating :

Number of film watch : 17

[Jimmy]

Title : Curse of the Cannibal Confederates (1982)

Overview
The south shall rise again...and again! Four score and many years ago...during America's Civil War, a brave battalion of Southern Confederate soldiers was captured and tortured to death by the Northern Army! Before they died, they cried REVENGE! Now, the blood-soaked battlefields have become an accursed cemetary where vows of revenge reverberate!

A pastoral picnic at a historical site now becomes a flesh-feast for the living dead! You've heard of "Southern Hospitality" & "Southern Fried Chicken"...but you have never seen anything like this Colonel's secret recipe! THE CURSE OF THE CANNIBAL CONFEDERATES! A holocaust of revenge-hungry rebels! A finger-licking good fright film!

My Impression
Much better than what I was expected after the other reviews read before, not that this film is good or professesional by any means... far from it. The acting is atrocious to be polite, the dialogue are read without emotions and a lot of lines are missed and not retaken. The zombies are not look alike at all : some wear mask, some have a grey painted face, some have a white painted face, ... The effects are poor, at one place they eat the guts of a dead guy but his shirt is just cover with fake blood it's not even rip a little. The story when we think about it doesn't really make sense (why a bunch of dead soldiers care about a book and how did they know that one guy had taken it?). Anyway the most terryfing thing in this film is the place and time shifting dimension : sometimes two actors talk together and one is in autumn and the other in summer or one talk near a road (by the sound) and the other in the forest or one is in the day and the other in the night... This is the scary stuff not the zombies.

Pete I've only one screen capture that are something else than a forest, maybe you'll recognize this building?


And one question : Is it common in your states to bring fireworks when you go hunting 
 
Rating :

Number of film watch : 18

[addicted2dvd]

that building looks oddly familiar... but I can't place it.

And one question : Is it common in your states to bring fireworks when you go hunting   

  I wouldn't put it past some of the rednecks around here!

[Jimmy]

I wouldn't put it past some of the rednecks around here!

Like our friendly protagonists


This picture is one of the rare occasion when the 3 guys aren't in a different time and space dimension
 

[addicted2dvd]

Hey... what you know... I see a guy around town here a lot that looks like the guy on the left 

[Jimmy]

Title : 28 Days Later (2002)

Overview
An infirmary patient awakens from a coma to an empty room…in a vacant hospital…in a deserted city. A powerful virus, which locks victims into a permanent state of murderous rage, has transformed the world around him into a seemingly desolate wasteland. Now a handful of survivors must fight to stay alive, unaware that the worst is yet to come…

My Impression
I've bought the second parts today so I've decided to rewatch this one to refresh my memory. I will not write a lot here since almost everyone had seen this film. First to close the debate about the running zombies once and for all : They are not zombies, they are infected peoples with a mutated rage virus. Their brain is alive and the only emotion they have is the violence. Did they died only with a bullet in the head? No, so they are human that seams pretty clear to me...

I like the confusing feeling at the beginning and for me it was confusing the first time, since I didn't know anything about this movie. Every time the movie make me jump at the same moment (even this time and I've seen this movie at least six times before) and the first time I've almost made an heart attack after I've fell from my chair (ok I exagerate a little bit, but my heart was beating really fast). We really care about the protagonists because the director give them a substance they aren't only empty shell or filler characters, even a guy at the beginning who died fast had a backstory and we feel something when he died even if he had maybe 5 minutes of screen time. I prefer the first half of the movie, the second part is more conventional (a little bit like of Day of the Dead) and I'm not crazy about the end.

Rating :

Number of film watch : 19

[Najemikon]

I prefer the first half of the movie, the second part is more conventional (a little bit like of Day of the Dead) and I'm not crazy about the end.

Me too, although I did prefer the quality of the 35mm shot they used of the infected on the bridge compared to the digital look throughout the rest of the film. But that's just being picky! Apparently though, using the slow motion feature on the digital cameras with a high FPS created a unique look for the infected that couldn't be done with film, so maybe I'd better let them off...

Hope you enjoy the sequel as much as I did.

[addicted2dvd]

I tried 28 Days Later a while back ago... just couldn't get into it... didn't even watch it all the way through. Maybe I should give it another chance.

[Jimmy]

Hope you enjoy the sequel as much as I did.

Especially since I've bought it because of your review or, most accuratly, your review made me remember that I've not buying it yet. By the way, Is it sunny sometimes in England? The sun is a really absent guest star in this movie 

I tried 28 Days Later a while back ago... just couldn't get into it... didn't even watch it all the way through. Maybe I should give it another chance.

Do I have to say that I'm surprise? Give it another chance, maybe you were not in the mood for it. But who I am to judge when I'm the guy who doesn't like the Myst or Land of the Dead... Too much music use in the film maybe?

[addicted2dvd]

Another friend of mine keeps telling me I should give it another chance... so it is only a matter of time... I will probably see it on sale cheap one day and say what the hell! 

[Jimmy]

Title : 28 Weeks Later (2007)

Overview
The terror and devastation unleashed in '28 Days Later' picks up six months after the Rage virus has decimated London in this heart-stopping horror sequel that "surpasses the original" ('Dallas Morning News'). With order restored and the war against the infection won, the U.S. Army steps in to help repatriate Mainland Britain. But one of the returning refugees carries a terrible secret that threatens to reignite the deadly explosion of bloodlust, carnage and chaos.

My Impression
Sadly I'm not like Pete and when I watch a sequel I can't leave aside the precedent part. As a sequel this movie is a big deception... The movie start well and this is sad that the director had decided to not follow the story of the survivor. In place of this he had decided to make an ode to the US army and its greatness  , sure the others european countries can't intervene since they are a bunch of wimpy non coalition members (I'm sarcastic here). Honestly this movie is not a sequel at all, this is just a bad war movie... The script is weak, we don't care about the kids and why were we, since they are no development or backstory... Seriously don't tell me that the chopper stunt isn't stupid and impossible to do... No suspense, it's like the director had thrown everything that works in the first film in the garbage and a completly different movie (better known as the Nightmare on Elm Street syndrome).

Bad as a sequel and bad as a stand alone movie...

Rating :

Number of film watch : 20

[Najemikon]

Oh dear! I get your point about the US forces and I agree, but at the same time I wasn't offended by it

(click to show/hide)

until the rather knee jerk decision to kill anything that moves! And set fire to it!

. It made sense to me. That said, the films real focus was supposed to be how a family unit survives, rather than a single survivor, and I think it was pretty successful. Strangely I did care for that family far more than I cared for Jim in 28 Days, but it sounds like you were the other way around. The biggest pull for me was the expanded version of deserted London. It looked incredible to me.

My only real complaint was the unrelenting bleakness. It needed something, if only grim irony, to relieve the feeling of being bashed over the head!

Is it sunny sometimes in England? The sun is a really absent guest star in this movie 

Erm. No. 

Our summer this year was particularly brief. There was a Tuesday in July. I think that might have been it.

Alright we're not that bad, but yes, these films have more of an air of credibility about them because of it. That scene at the start of 28 Weeks when he runs across the field? That looked like a decent typical picnic day, if not for the raging zombies! We can get better, but it's less likely.

As I was replying I was thinking of other home-grown UK films that show a very accurate setting. Guy Ritchie's films (Lock Stock Two Smoking Barrels) have an unreal hue to them compared to The Long Good Friday or Get Carter. But the most real, unaltered view might be Shane Meadows films and I just realised his movies are right up your street.

He is a brilliant film-maker. Very low budgets and very, very real. It helps that he doesn't use scripts in the main, but hires actors from workshops and lets them improvise with a rough idea of what he needs. You could do a lot worse than pick up Dead Man's Shoes and This Is England. The former is simple in its brutality while the latter is a powerful story based on his own experiences of growing up in the skinhead fashion culture that got corrupted by racists and became the neo-nazis.

Check them out. I think you'll really appreciate them.