I have been reading way too much about zombies lately. Scholarly articles about Night of the Living Dead (believe me, there are tons). Critiques of George Romero and his films. Last night I started World War Z, and this week in class we’re watching 28 Days Later. I should have taken it as a sign last Christmas when my friend Rachael bought me Max Brooks’ The Zombie Survival Guide. It’s funny that it’s come full circle: from Brooks’ “survival” to Brooks’ “attack.”

With all this going on, it’s no surprise that I’ve been thinking of what to do if the undead attack East Lansing. Jack and I have two cars between us, so we should be able to at least flee the city. Where would we go? Well, my house has fewer people around, so that might be good. On the other hand, his house has more weaponry. It’s a toss-up. This is the kind of thing that keeps me up at night.

Hello again!
After doing my first lot of blogging in our lesson today, I found the urge to go home and blog some more! I’ve been having a look on youtube.com for some suitable opening sequences from Horror films. Here’s a few of my favourites (which are bound to influence our finished product in some way)!

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=mGae5vkMekA
28 Days Later - Possibly the BEST British Horror film (but am annoyed, because I can’t find the full opening!) The suspense it creates is amazing, a ton of engima codes about ‘Rage’ and the whole idea just makes me shiver!

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=EoHm6UywRTw
The Shining - So many enigma codes! Also gives such a sense of setting, the rural being what makes it scary.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=v47fkgzLOlc
Silent Hill - Only about the first 3m20s in, but watch on! It’s a pretty scary film, but not as scary as the game. I think its filmed really well, and the way each shot cuts to the next, is quick and sometimes makes me jump.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=crpFvoKX5no&feature=related
The Orphanage - Again, only up to 4 minutes on that one. Guillermo Del Toro is ones of my favourite directors, his imagery is amazing, and the plot twists he comes up with seriously mess with your mind.

Hope that gave you a little bit of an idea of what our film might follow. But I think I’ll leave a hint.
Think… The Shining, with some Silent Hill thrown in.

Tish x

E4’s Dead Set takes place on the set of Big Brother, a show many Britons seem to despise with particular venom. Extras‘ season finale was set in the house, and Ricky Gervais made many of the same underhanded comments there as Charlie Brooker (Nathan Barley, Screenwipe) does here. Fortunately, Dead Set isn’t Diary of the Dead - heavy on message and skimpy on horror - it’s more akin to 28 Days Later, and not just because the zombies can run.

Unbeknownst to anybody, an outbreak hits somewhere. Rolling news covers it briefly but nevertheless it takes the entire world by surprise and as far as we can tell, most everybody dies and turns zombie. The Big Brother cast are the last to find out, since they’ve been in the house, oblivious to the outside world. In addition to them, we have a foul-mouthed, angry Producer, a couple of media dorks and a runner who, unbeknownst to anybody, is carrying the action hero gene. Oh, also: a crazy woman from outside who survived the zombies but at what cost!

The look is all somewhat derivative of 28 Days Later, with zombies running around in wild columns waving their arms in the air and pounding doors and walls until they’re bloody. Events are shown by a camera that jerks all over the place as things happen, which is odd because the actual Big Brother cameras are all stationary. There isn’t a whole lot of postmodern reductionism going on here, and that’s ultimately for the best. The gimmicky frame winds up being a detail rather than the show’s center (viz. the zombies, not what’s occurring next to them as they kill everybody on the planet). Given that as the point (Brooker himself said as much), one could be forgiven for expecting a more unique take on the living dead than the one found here. Alas, when all is boiled down there isn’t much more here than a successful what-if for the modern zombie subjunctiverse. Most of the action scenes are straight out of Half Life 2 - the bit where you enter a hazardous area while covered by a sniper, or motor downriver and periodically disembark to open locks, even the part where you’re surveying a ruined street from above and see the top half of a zombie pulling itself along by the arms. It’s handled capably, but one gets the sneaking feeling that the most interesting aspects of the show are the ones he allegedly didn’t care much about. Maybe it’s all an aww-shucks act put on in order to avoid being characterized as a hysterical soapbox asshole attacking an easy, topical target, or worse - someone telling high fable at the expense of horror’s more immediate thrills.

Problem is, as a fable it skewers, not in spite of zombies everywhere but because of them. When the first survivor arrives at the house, the housemates agree immediately that she’s an actress playing a joke on them; it takes extreme circumstances before any of them get it. Horror, as such, is a genre of aversions, and in many stories, zombies stand for some bitterly anti-humanist sentiments. Charlie Brooker, a man who sits on a couch berating people in his reviews show Screenwipe, does not miss an opportunity to berate humanity here. In Dead Set, as in Big Brother, people stagger around without a clue what is happening, doing stupid things like repeatedly poking themselves with furniture for no reason and trying to eat their spoons. The “good people” are only the people best at convincing you that they’re good, and you believe it because you’re gullible when you want to be. 

Case in point. Runner is Producer’s Stockholm victim. She thinks Producer is a reasonable guy who gets unhinged when he’s stressed; when Producer stops shouting terrible things at her and does something terrible to her, it takes her completely by surprise. Another guy makes the journey back to the studio to be with her, sacrificing an outsider along the way, and at the end of it all he lets the boat drift off; jackass thing to do, but he’s a romantic so the housemates applaud him. To wiggle out of being murdered and organize his escape, Producer reveals to Joplin that he’s universally despised and that the others call him “Gollum” behind his back; Joplin, a maladjusted, middle-aged saddo whom the others do despise, freaks out at the knowledge and pulls the ultimate Gollum move in defiance. There’s the Aesop, and it’s a simple one: don’t expect survival cooperation from a group of people chosen specifically to infuriate one another.

Ultimately, what spares Dead Set from the problems (with horror) arising from familiarity is that very moral streak that Brooker talks as if to downplay - the show’s unwillingness to love or valorize any of these people, and the glee with which their hypocrisies are flaunted, makes their eventual dismemberment that much more nailbiting. That, and a host of small details: a housemate’s hysterical grief when the Producer gacks the zombie Davina McCall; one survivor’s level-clearing style with a shotgun; the almost comical moment when we find out that the zombies are too stupid to escape shallow water; the cannibalistic orgy glimpsed when the throng overwhelm some stragglers; and the final moments of the story, about which I hesitate to reveal more, which are sure to leave any remotely involved viewer gaping.

It’s not far beyond what you’d expect from any horror movie, granted, but it’s a triumph (1) that a horror movie can be done profitably as a single-shot TV show; and (2) that there’s any successful sympathy play to be wrung from a milieu viewed through this much jaundice. It’s evidence of a balance more tenuous than in Nathan Barley, which for the most part just makes you wish someone would nuke London. Brooker may roundly despise the people in Dead Set, but he obviously fears the zombies more. This is an important hierarchy of priorities; as anti-human as the zombie device tends to be, its sense of urgency still derives from the fragility of the survivors that the viewer longs to preserve. Making us want to save a load of people as despicable as the Big Brother cast feels gross, and that’s just the right feeling for a show like this.

Ieri ho visto il film “28 Settimane Dopo” e, nonostante non sia un fan dei film dell’orrore, mi è piaciuto un bel pò. Credo infatti che mantenga la qualità del primo film “28 Giorni Dopo”. Quello che ho trovato particolarmente apprezzabile è la colonna sonora. Il compositore, lo stesso del primo film, si chiama John Murphy. La strumentazione è semplice e piuttosto costante: chitarra acustica/elettrica, basso, piano, batteria. Poi ogni tanto si sentono sintetizzatori e il tutto è effettato a dovere. In molti film dell’orrore la strumentazione “rock” è utilizzata in maniera pietosa creando un suono inutilmente pesante e una sensazione generale di cattivo gusto. Mi viene in mente come esempio il film “Ghost Rider”, musiche di Christofer Young, non è proprio un film dell’orrore ma le ambientazioni e la fotografia cercano di darne il feeling. Ebbene il risultato è d’avvero patetico, sembra di sentire una band che suona durante un ritrovo di motociclisti dall’inizio alla fine del film… Nel caso di Murphy la storia è del tutto diversa: qui il sound è funzionale allo svolgersi della storia ed è trattato con estrema eleganza e stile. La musica descrive le azioni, si evolve e gioca con lo spettatore senza mai prenderlo in giro. Inoltre i temi riprendono le sonorità del primo film (musica sempre di Murphy) creando continuità e mettendo subito lo spettatore in un ambiente familiare, evitando quindi di distrarlo dall’azione visiva. Do a John Murphy un 8.5 su 10, specialmente perché è riuscito, senza l’uso di un’orchestra, a farmi rimanere attaccato al film con le orecchie oltre che con gli occhi!

Per acquistare la musica di 28 Settimane Dopo su iTunes clicca sulla copertina del CD.

G.

Nov 12, 2008

Flickr User: alexaablondi

Another one of the things I dislike on Flickr is the whole 365 Days concept.

Haven’t heard of it? Jeez, where have you been? I can’t search for a photo without one of these things popping up. The purpose of 365 Days is to take a self-portrait of yourself each day and upload it to your Flickr account, usually under a set called ‘365′ or ‘three six five’ or ‘I have no life outside the internets’. If you do this correctly you should end up with 365 photos of yourself, something that no one should ever want to see.

This is kind of like the sequel to 28 Days Later. It’s full of bloodthirsty Flickr members competing for the attention of Internet creepos, voyeurs, stalkers, and the occasional real human being. It’s pretty bloody and there is supposed to be a happy ending when it’s all over.

Okay, if you’re anything like me, most of my days are filled with watching Maury and seeing who’s who in the world of baby daddys. Sometimes the most exciting part of my day is when I take a shit. Should I take a photo of that and add it to my 365 Days set? Well, of course!

If you’re interested please check out the photo above. It’s the first one I saw in the ‘365 Days’ pool and is sort of related to the annoying ’What I’m wearing…’ post. Fortunately this user has been pretty busy (duh, aren’t most people who don’t live on the internets?) and hasn’t been posting as much but she does mention that she’s wearing a Nordstroms blouse, something we all care about.

Want to participate in the 365 Days? Sorry, you’ll have to cough up the $24.95 cause we all know that Flickr only allows 200 photos in a photostream.

Okay, I meant to write a post about this the other day when both @agautsc and @thebrandbuilder linked to this wonderful article by Simon Pegg of “Shaun of the Dead” fame.  It is a genius little piece examining the problem with the new school of zombies who are unnaturally fast.  Now I, being the zombie fan that I am, obviously have some personal opinions on the matter.  First and foremost I am of the school that the best zombie use is with the slow shambling decaying corpses that most people, including the characters in zombie situations, tend to believe should be avoidable but turn out to be more tenacious than is generally liked.  Part of the disturbing quality of George A. Romero’s Dead Series zombies is the fact that they are these slow dead things and yet they still prove incredibly dangerous.  But at the same time there is unquestionably something terrifying about a creature (not exactly a zombie mind you, regardless of how zombie-ish it may be) that can run you down before tearing your throat out.  ”28 Days Later” (and “28 Weeks Later” a little less) is a truly horrifying film with truly disturbing monsters.  But at the same time the unnatural speed and strength takes away from the real sense of good zombie movie.  Essentially, as Pegg points out in the article, it creates a new monster that is scary for similar but ultimately different reasons.  I could go on for hours about the absolute genius that is the zombie archetype and how, I think, more than any other monster (Vampires, werewolves, aliens, etc.), it embrace a truly human fear of death, not just of the body but, probably more so, of the mind, the consciousness.  Really that is what I think it is with zombies.  The fear of death yes but more than that (because almost all monsters present a fear of death through being killed) the fear that the “self”, the human conscious, will be lost and what will remain will only be a husk, a dead body, of what once existed.  Read about philosophical zombies which in many ways embraces this very idea (essentially it states that theoretically it is possible that there could be beings in a parallel world exactly like us in every way — physically, through action and interaction, etc — except they lack any consciousness or sense of self).

A good twist on the traditional slow zombie along with faster varieties comes from Jenny Romanchuk’s webcomic “The Zombie Hunters“, which besides having wonderful illustrations and a decent story, has created a range of different zombie types that threaten humanity (check out her encyclopedia on the site).  Good stuff I really enjoy it.

Oh, and this, a slide show along with Pegg’s article.  Damn I love writing about zombies.

The folks at Valve were kind enough to give the public a limited-time demo of their new shooter, Left 4 Dead, which is finally hitting the market next week. Take it from a guy who worships the very [virtual] ground that Gordon Freeman [virtually] walks upon: this game kicks ass. Lots and lots of decaying zombie ass. Here’s some of the finer points of the demo experience:

• Two levels have you and your survivor buddies moving through a few city blocks, then entering a subway station and working your way underground.
• All the while, you’re forced to contend with wave after wave of the undead - not your classic zombies, but something more to the tone of the Dawn of the Dead remake, or 28 Days Later. Zombies run, climb over obstacles, and let loose bloodcurdling screams instead of wimpy moans and groans.
• “Boss Infected”, as I believe they’re called, turn up every so often. The Hunter can lunge and pin survivors from twenty feet away. The Boomer, a bloated, vile creature, can vomit or, as its name suggests, explode near survivors, causing nearby zombies to converge on anyone unfortunate enough to be covered in the mess. These and others, such as The Smoker, The Tank and The Witch, keep you on your toes and constantly switching tactics.
• Pistols (all survivors are granted one, but a second can be found and equipped simultaneously) have unlimited ammunition, which you’ll quickly find yourself relying on if you happen to be particularly trigger-happy. Primary weapons - the usual shotguns, submachineguns, rifles, etc. - are also granted at the beginning of each level, but ammunition is hard to come by.
• In addition to molotov cocktails, survivors can also find pipe bombs, which, when thrown, cause nearby undead to swarm around the blinking red timer. These items are quite invaluable, as I witnessed a single pipe bomb instantly turn at least twenty zombies into nothing more than a fine red mist.
• Oh, yeah - this game is gory as fuck. Heads explode; limbs pop off in all directions; every surface - including your screen, if you’re right in the thick of battle - gets painted with blood. It’s badass.
• Overall gameplay, while fairly linear, takes some unexpected turns at the behest of the Director, a feature of the game’s artificial intelligence. The Director is responsible for the dynamic placement of weapons and medical supplies, as well as the instances of undead hordes. For example, I was leading my team down a deserted street when we accidentally set off the alarm of an abandoned vehicle, and were instantly surrounded by zombies. Other cues, such as music and bits of conversation from the survivors, create a very immersive and ever-changing experience.

As I remarked to a friend after playing through the demo twice, it’s a bit too early to tell whether or not Left 4 Dead lives up to my expectations, but it’s making one hell of an effort. If Valve’s track record is any indication - that is, the record which indicates how many loads I blew while playing Half-Life 2 - then, well, I’ll probably be presumed dead myself when I disappear from the face of the planet next week.

The MTV Movies Blog hints that Danny Boyle, who directed the incredible ‘28 Days Later’ might be considering to jump back on the franchise for the third installment… though he claims it won’t be called, ‘28 Months Later.’  Oh, and he also requests people stop saying they’re zombies in his film.  “They’re infected.  They’re not zombies,” he’s quoted. 

Well fair enough Mr. Boyle.  After you enjoy your success with indie-hit Slumdog Millionaire with possible Oscar nominations, please go back onto the franchise and restore the griddiness that the sequel 28 Weeks Later lacked.  You don’t have to call it 28 Months Later, though I don’t know why you wouldn’t.  Just finish off the franchise with a bang!  Global pandemic style!

Danny Boyle has been directing movies for about 15 years now and In Contention has a very cool interview with him in which they discuss his movies. Boyle talks a little bit about each of his films and what he enjoyed or learned while making them. It’s comforting to know that Danny seems to realize that yes, “A Life Less Ordinary” is completely God awful.

While many people in the United States have heard of his movies, they have yet to really achieve big commercial success in this country. There are many people that claim to love “Trainspotting” but they sure didn’t love it while it was in theaters. It only made $16.5 million in the U.S. Actually, his biggest movie is the brilliant zombie movie, “28 Days Later”. It raked in a whopping $45 million.

I really believe that “Slumdog Millionaire” could change that. The R-rating will keep it from the big time word-of-mouth success of crowd pleasers like “Rocky” or “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”. If this movie could get some sort of national release, it could definitely get to the $50 million mark. I can’t imagine the kind of money it will make in India.

UPDATE: Here is a very cool interview with Danny Boyle on KarmaloopTV. He talks a bit about directing another “28 Days Later” flick…which would be f’ing sweet.

Straitjacket TV List As of November 3, 2008:

Anime:
Casshern 1994 OVA
Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion
Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2
Gundam 00

TV Shows:
Fringe

Movies:
28 Days Later
Cloverfield
Iron Man
The Orphanage
[REC]
The Strangers
A Tale of Two Sisters
The Thing

Happy Watching,
-Vertigo (Owner)

straitjacket55@yahoo.com

MuGo aka Alex aka AK Swift (nein, aber AK Swift kennt keiner mehr, darum das Namedropping) schickte sich an, aus irgendwelchen Geburtstagsgründen aus Dresden rüberzumachen und nach Tübingen zu fahren und in seinem hochkomplizierten Reiseplan brachte er auch irgendwie einen Besuch bei uns unter.

Soziophob wie ich bin habe ich immer Angst vor solchen Begegnungen, Stichwort peinliche Schweigepausen. Ein echts Tabuthema, jeder kennt es, aber es wird, logisch, drüber geschwiegen. Nun hat das alles aber wunderbar geklappt, Alex ist ein sehr redegewandter Mensch, der verbal nichts anbrennen lässt. Wie zwei Nerdflummis sprangen wir von einem Thema zum nächsten, neben den Standards Simpsons-Zitate, Wut auf die Bahn und Wetter auch Menschliches und allzu Menschliches. Als dann meine Freundin dazukam, flutschte es noch mal so gut. … Whatever. Als gute Gastgeber kredenzten wir selbstverständlich lokale Spezialitäten im Rahmen unserer Möglichkeiten, was in diesem Fall hiess, Maultaschen vom Penny. Die sind aber auch sehr lecker.

Alex als Weltbürger kennt lustigerweise viel mehr Stuttgarter als wir scheint es, also trufen wir uns mit einer seiner vielen, vielen Bekannten und deren Freunden und Freundesfreunden an der Szenedisco Prag. Die Fahrt dorthin war geprägt von eierverschmierten Stadtbahnen und lustlos verkleideten “Menschen”, aber auch einigen sehr hübschen. Auch im Prag war heute Halloween angesagt, Verkleidete Besucher kämen sogar umsonst rein, hieß es. Die Website munkelte sogar etwas von einem Lordi-Special, wobei geschickt vermieden wurde, das Wort “live” zu verwenden. Lordi, falls es nur so leise im Hinterstübchen klingelt, war diese finnische Popband, die hierzulande als Metal verkauft wurde und vor einigen Jahren den Euro-Grand Prix gewann, wie immer er jetzt heisst.

Nun habe ich zum ersten Mal vom Prag gehört, als diese wohl eine Indie-Disco war. Inzwischen ist Indie aber tot und Emo ist “in”, auch schon seit Jahren, aber dennoch. Als Türsteher wäre ich jedenfalls überfordert gewesen, normale Eintrittsuchende und verkleidete Partygänger auseinander zu halten. (aus ein ander ge schrieben). Wir jedenfalls waren “normal”, aber kamen trotzdem umsonst rein, da wir grade ein Kostenlos-Zeitfenster erwischt hatten.

Drinnen verbrachten wir einen schönen, aber aufgrund der Musik sehr wortkargen Abend bei Bier und Tanz. Alex und ich battelten uns sogar irgendwann mit unseren irrwitzigen Tanzstilen. Seine Heckenschere ist sehr stark, aber mein Taubenvergrämerstyle war auch nicht schlecht. Die Musik war dann insgesamt garnicht übel, ein paar Kids machten mir zuviel Pogo, aber dem wurde mit einer Packung “Ärzte” Einhalt geboten.

Aber wir sind nicht mehr die Jüngsten (um ehrlich zu sein waren wir wahrscheinlich sogar die Ältesten: Punkt Null Uhr leerte sich das Prag rapide und zurück blieb ein Häuflein volljähriger Feierwütiger) und machten uns irgendwann auf den Weg, um die letzte Bahn noch zu erwischen. In dieser fand sich glücklicherweise noch eine volle Flasche Stuttgarter Hofbräu, welche Alex auch sofort beschlagnahmte. Gruselig.

Aber recht müde waren wir noch nicht, also haben als Einschlafhilfe noch 28 Days Later gesehen, eine bissige Satire auf die herrschende Moral, die der Gesellschaft einen Spiegel vorhält *brrrzzz* Kritikbausteingenerator meldet Fehlfunktion *brrrzzz* *klonk* ein, ach was, DER Zombiefilm (ohne Zombies) überhaupt, an dem einfach ALLES stimmt. Welten besser als 28 Weeks Later und vor … Months habe ich Angst.

Ja, gut, nächsten Tag dann noch irgendwie mit Döner und rumgammeln rumgebracht und dann hieß es auch schon Abschied nehmen.

Und das war mein schönstes Ferienerlebnis.

Or, “Day Twenty-Eight in the Big Brother House…”

Or, “Diary Room of the Dead.”

Charlie Brooker’s zombie TV show Dead Set is billed as a drama, which puzzled me when I heard the concept, especially given Brooker’s track record as a humorist. It’s basically a British zombie apocalypse movie centred around the reality TV show Big Brother, and I worried that it followed too soon on the heels of SHAUN OF THE DEAD to succeed as a comedy, while having an in-built satiric point that would prevent it from functioning as serious horror. If the besieged humans are in the Big Brother house, then the slavering hordes outside must be us, the viewing public, right?

I was also somewhat wary of using Big Brother at all, for any reason. I regard reality TV much as the butler in SULLIVAN’S TRAVELS regards poverty: “It is to be avoided, even for purposes of research. it is to be shunned.” Even by talking about Brooker’s show about Big Brother I feel uncomfortably close to providing the oxygen of publicity to something that should really by locked in a vault and allowed to quietly asphyxiate in the dark.

This, after all, is a show that began life in Holland with a first run that drove the least popular contestant to suicide. For future series, a psychiatrist was employed to prevent anyone suffering fatal emotional damage — anything less than fatal being not only OK but essential to retaining viewing figures. This touching faith in psychiatry was somewhat dented when contestant Shahbaz Chauhdry suffered an emotional meltdown live on air, proving to be exactly the kind of vulnerable character the show had pledged to avoid exploiting. In reality, anyone volunteering to appear should be regarded with some clinical suspicion.

(I met Shahbaz at a party in Glasgow, years ago. And was snogged by him. He was going around kissing all the straight-looking men. I guess I qualify as straight-looking, by virtue of my sartorial incompetence. His fun-loving full-on attitude masked insecurity and and a need to provoke those around him, which the BB headshrinkers were no more able to spot than I was.)

Brooker has a long history with BB, having reviewed it extensively in his other job as TV critic. He’s obviously fascinated by it, repelled and attracted in equal measure. And when you gaze into the abyss of reality television…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQjq639WPiU

(Can’t embed it, but you can follow the link.)

But the show is good. It is funny, and it is effective as drama. I’m rarely scared by zombie films, although Romero has successfully pulled the odd “Boo!” on me. But I find them compelling as tales of survival (or its opposite) and as visceral meditations on decay and dismemberment and all the ills that flesh is heir to. Brooker’s zombiethon does all this, and avoids too many comparisons to SHAUN by going with the oft-disparaged fast-moving zombies of the DAWN OF THE DEAD remake, and 28 DAYS LATER and its sequel. One sequence, a prolonged chase in which the undead pursuer shows no signs of ever being likely to tire, actually makes this conceit interesting for the first time.

We also get a wheelchair zombie, which I believe to be first. And a vivid demonstration of the fact that many disabled toilets are way too narrow for wheelchair users, alive or dead, to actually use.

Visual style, courtesy of director Yann Demange (can this be a real person?) is dark and very shaky, with occasional moments of more classical framing. While this looked likely to be distracting/annoying at first, it turned out to be easy to get used to, and basically worked for the show. A few moments devolved into incoherence, and this look is never going to be my favourite visual style, but it was well enough done. The half-hour episodes feel a little short to allow us to get into the story, but I’m looking forward to the feature-length episode next week. Not sure if it’s a compendium or a standalone or what, but I reckon it should work better.

Stop press — have now watched the compendium episode, which ran the whole series together and actually worked better than the episodic approach. The apocalyptic ending is probably the most blood-soaked drama ever made for TV, and outside of BRAIN DEAD one of the goriest things of any kind ever. And where Peter Jackson’s antipodean splatterthon gaily splashed on the crimson, this show ventures further into the abject with dark, grimy and squalid zombies that you can practical smell through the screen. The show more than justifies its billing as drama by moving outwith the comedy comfort zone of even the most hardened Mansonite, into a vaguely depressing, nihilistic Nookie Hut of despair.

The cast of fleshbags dangled before the snapping jaws of the unwashed provokes an engaging mix of sympathy, amusement and horror. What’s quite touching is how some of the housemate characters start to emerge from their jerry-built media personae and reveal actual human traits and feelings, prior to their dismemberment and consumption by the undead hordes, of course. This is not true of fictional BB producer Patrick Goad, played with gotch-gutted aplomb by Andy Nyman, whose furiously articulate hatefulness marks him out as a sort of Brooker self-portrait gone very rotten, and whose belching, pissing and shitting (his attack of diarrhoea during a zombie attack by BB host Davina McCall may qualify as the most horrific moment in any zombie movie) drives home the show’s Albigensian horror at our physical being.

Davina, playing herself along with various former housemates (including Brooker’s unlikely chum Aisleyne Horgan Wallace), makes an effective man-eater. Davina, who may for all I know be a charming person in real life, always struck me as a weirdly aggressive and mean personality as presenter, so I tend to avoid her. The addition of zombie contact lenses does nothing to soften her mad staring eyes.

The rest of the performances are convincing and even affecting, with Ray Winstone’s female mini-me Jaime very strong in the lead, the actor Kevin Eldon making good use of the queasy alarm he displayed in Chris Morris’ seminal series Jam, and everybody else generally putting DIARY OF THE DEAD to shame as far as horreur-verité goes.

What’s grimly effective about the show is how it plays to our contempt for the braying masses who uncritically eat up reality TV (it may play differently to those masses, I don’t know) but then carries the joke too far, so that laughter not only dies in the throat, but resurrects to go on a decomposing rampage.

Big Brother is watching you…you…you…

Wat ziet dit er geil uit!
For those living under a rock, Left 4 Dead is een nieuwe first-person-shooter game die 20 November op de Xbox 360 en PC zal uitkomen.
Het spel gaat over een groep survivors die het moeten zien te overleven in een post-apocalyptische wereld tot de tjok gevuld met “The Infected”.
Alle 4 survivors in het spel zijn playable en ja dat betekent ook 4-player co-op! Als je niet 3 vriendjes hebt dan neemt de A.I. het gewoon over. Je bent ook het hele spel met 4 survivors bezig.
Er is ook een versus mode waar je tegen 4 andere spelers kan spelen. En ja dat betekent inderdaad dat je als een groepje Infected kan spelen tegen de 4 menselijke survivors! De 4 special boss Infected!

Dat is al meer dan genoeg voor mij om deze te kopen…maar het echt mooie aan deze game is dat de AI zo geweldig is. Het spel maakt gebruik van een game mechanic wat ze de “The Director” noemen. The Director kijkt hoe jij als speler speelt en beslist dan in hoeverre het spel moeilijker of makkelijker moet maken!! In verschillende situaties zullen er dus verschillende aantallen en soorten enemies zijn die je het leven zuur maken en muziek en toon zullen ook veranderen en dat hangt allemaal weer af van hoe geskilled je speelt. Hoe geweldig is dat?! Elke sessie die je speelt zal anders zijn dan de andere!
De hype om dit spel is gigantisch en ik ben ook gewoon verkocht, maja het zijn zombies…how can I not!
Anyways…hier is de opening cinematic! Voice acting kan gewoon niet beter! Wat een video!

 

Preview van douchebags van Gamekings (godverdomme wat een figuren)…

Een veel betere preview van G4TV’s X-Play

Interview!

Dit jaar is vol met ille games…maar waar blijft de Knight Rider game?
Hoe kan dit niet al in development zijn? Met ille drive-mechanics en een kick-ass ‘Hoff met brute finishing moves! Ik snap het niet…zo’n concept spelt toch gewoon game-of-the-year? Stel je voor je bent Mike Knight met kung-fu-like skills en finishing moves. Je hebt een indestructible K.I.T.T. en een totally destructible environment!! Wow…dat zegt al succes…
ik snap gamedesigners niet…
Knight Rider = Awesomeness!

Because I’m awesomely cool, I spent Halloween

a) doing some last minute pumpkin carving

b) studying for the SAT

c) watching 28 Days Later while studying for the SAT

d) All of the above

I’m so freaking chill that I stayed in and watched 28 Days Later. I’m a notorious plot spoiler, on myself I mean (I like to look up the plots of movies before I see them), so what happened didn’t really surprise me. What did surprise me was how supremely RAD it was. Super excellent. Other things that didn’t surprise me? How hot Cillian Murphy is. A primo fox.

Kyla can have all the Irish boys she wants except for this one. CILLIAN IS MINE!

With metals and commodities prices down quite a bit this last week, I felt the need to splurge on some supplies.  I’ve got a small handful of events coming up, plus we’re right at the start of the holiday shopping season.  I’ve been able to get myself a little better organized than I was at this time last year, so I’m more prepared. 

My material arrived today, and I’m spending a nice evening working on the assembly line with a Halloween-appropriate movie (28 Days Later) on in the background.  Watch for some new designs for the holidays to appear in my shop soon!

Some Upcoming Events:

Birthday Sale - 6 November 2008

RFB&D Holiday Craft Sale - 14 November 2008

October 29th saw the Eurogamer Expo set up in town as part of the London Games Festival. Valve were there with Left 4 Dead.

The co-op zombie shooter has toured seemingly the entire world without coming anywhere near me, so to have the chance to play the game a week before the demo is made available to the world was an opportunity I couldn’t let slip.

After queuing for a fair while, I had the privilege of sitting down on the world’s most uncomfortable chair to play Left 4 Dead from a very jaunty angle. Each Xbox 360 had been equipped with two controllers, both harnessed to a rigid structure, presumably in order to prevent people running off with them. This meant that you had no option but to sit off to the side - great for onlookers and cheeky journos with video cameras (see below), but not ideal ofr actually playing the game.

All that paled into insignificance compared to the irrituation of having to use a console pad. There’s a time and a place for gamepads and the first person shooter genre is not it. Having said that, I’ve successfully played the likes of Timesplitters of the PS2 without too much difficulty and handled Mirror’s Edge on the PS3 just fine, so perhaps it’s a problem specific to my hands and the 360 controller. Fiddly little sticks, awkward placement of buttons and a general feeling of float unresponsiveness meant that my first public performance of L4D was rather woeful. It didn’t help that the triggers became completely inoperative at times - whether this was the controller or a bug in the game I was unable to determine.

Oh, for a keyboad and mouse.

Regardless of control systems, however, which ultimately will always come down to personal preference and familiarity, the game proved every bit as awesome as I’ve been led to believe over many months of jealously reading Left 4 Dead 411. It’s extremely easy to pick up, with a clear HUD showing you what you need to know without becoming cluttered and lots of useful feedback telling you where to go and what to do. Hopefully some of these can be turned off for experienced players, but for newbies like myself it was definitely appreciated.

That’s not to say the game is easy, though. Having observed many players throughout the day, death was frequent and unpleasant and it took several different teams to finally complete just the first level of the ‘No Mercy’ campaign. I’m proud to say that the guys I played with were able to complete a later level in double-quick time, despite my fumbled Xbox control skills causing me to shoot them repeatedly in the arse.

Level design is extremely effective, with routes far more numerous than in Valve’s single player games. Although L4D is undoubtedly linear, you’re often given multiple routes through the same general space - for example, navigating through a maze of offices inside a hospital. The levels progress intelligently, segueing from one locale to the next in a realistic manner. There are no sudden location shifts, with transitions proving more subtle than in Half Life 2. While the setting is of course entirely incomparable, the subtlety and slick progression reminded me of the original Half Life’s intricate Black Mesa layouts.

Weapons comprise the standard FPS load-out: pistols, shotguns and machine guns. the guns all feel weighty and punchy, so more than make up for the lack of imagination in this department. It’s not the weapons that make this game unique and memorable but the co-operative play, the machincs of which work amazingly well even when playing with total strangers at a computer game show. The game is so strongly designed for co-operative play that you find yourself adjusting your tactics automatically. There’s no room for selfish showboating - it’s about the team.

This is aided immeasurably by the voice acting and its clever implementation, with characters automatically calling out to each other without requiring any prompting from the player. When my character shouted “Reloading!” while doing exactly that in the midst of battle there was a genuine sense of being in the moment. It’s a feature that serves the co-op system, alerting everyone else that I was going to be out of action for a few seconds.

The zombies themselves are superbly realised. Pleasingly, you’re never entirely sure what they’re going to do next: sometimes they’ll be stumbling about, Romero-style, other times they’ll charge you down like 28 Days Later’s zombies. Sometimes you’ll just find them lurking in the gloom, placid until provoked. It helps make them feel like a horde of real creatures, rather than a bunch of cannon fodder enemies sharing identical AI routines. These are some of the cleverest zombies seen in a game and shouldn’t be dismissed as ‘cheap’ enemies, as is often the case when they appear in othe games.

The first two levels are available to those that pre-order the game on the 6th and to everyone else on the 11th, in advance of the game’s release on the 18th. I can’t wait.

]]> http://chasness.wordpress.com/2008/10/29/off-the-trick-or-treatin-path-chas-halloween-movie-picks/ Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:01:59 +0000 chasness http://chasness.wordpress.com/2008/10/29/off-the-trick-or-treatin-path-chas-halloween-movie-picks/

Officially endorsed and sanctioned by Chas, here are my movie suggestions for Halloween:

“28 days later” (2002) – A bike courier (Cillian Murphy) wakes up 28 days after being side-swiped. Walking around, he finds that he’s one of the few not infected by the Rage, a virus that turns people into wild, thrashing, meat-craving zombies.

“An American Werewolf in London” (1981) – John Landis wrote and directed this tale of two American guys hiking through England; one winds up dead, the other a werewolf. Known for its transformation scene, the movie won Rick Baker an Oscar for makeup. After watching, remember to stay clear of the moors.

“Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’” (1992) – Francis Ford Coppola gave us his rendition of Bram Stoker’s story, with Gary Oldman playing the title character. Also stars Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, and Anthony Hopkins. Worth the rental, if not owning.

“Event Horizon” (1997) – The Event Horizon was a spaceship built to bend time and space in order to travel. It disappeared 7 years ago, and has mysteriously reappeared. A salvage crew, and the ship’s designer, go to find out what happened. When they find out what really happened, they do everything they can in order to escape.

“The Fog” (1980) – A John Carpenter movie, this deals with Antonio Bay and its celebration of its founding. Problem is, a crew that shipwrecked in the bay 200 years earlier has returned to exact their revenge for the gold taken from their ship to build the town. It’s the first movie in which Janet Leigh and her daughter, Jamie Lee Curtis, appeared together in.

“In the Mouth of Madness” (1995) – Another John Carpenter movie with Sam Neill as an insurance fraud investigator hired to find reclusive horror writer Sutter Cane (Jurgen Prochnow) Creepy, based on the stories of H.P. Lovecraft. “Do you read Sutter Cane?”

“Session 9” (2001) – Brad Anderson directed movie about a hazardous materials crew cleaning out the abandoned Danvers State Mental Hospital. And then it all goes wrong. Stars David Caruso, Josh Lucas, and Peter Mullan. “Hello Gordon…”

And just for fun…

“Army of Darkness” (1992) – The third of the “Evil Dead” movies, Ash (Bruce Campbell) is sent back to the Medieval Ages. When he accidentally releases the forces of evil, it’s up to him and his chainsaw to rectify everything before being sent back to the present. “Trapped in time. Surrounded by evil. Low on gas.”

“Shaun of the Dead” (2004) – Simon Pegg stars as Shaun, and Nick Frost is his best friend Ed. Together, they must fight to stay alive against a world turned to –literal- zombies. Some of the best parodying/spoofing of the zombie genre.

“Student Bodies” (1981) – Early Eighties spoof of the horror/slasher genre. “The Breather” goes around creatively killing high school kids having sex. Trivia note: the voice of the “Breather” was done by Richard Belzer.

by Link
Special Choose Your Own Adventure Edition…
(ITCHY… TASTY…) or (Is upset he missed the “Zombie Attack!” event in World of Warcraft)

So, I’m going to partake in my first Heart x2 with you guys. If you haven’t caught on, a Heart x2 stands for “Heart to Heart” where a writer sits down and tells you a personal story about something or such other. I’m here to tell you about my deep, dark, twisted love for Zombies, both in horror movies, videogames, and other various pieces of entertainment. Be sure to hang onto your brains, it’s going to get messy.

When did I become so infatuated with zombies? What triggered it? Well, I wish I could say it was something amazing like Night of the Living Dead or something or such other, but… honestly, my gut instinct tells me it was Resident Evil on the Playstation. Sure, I tried my hand at Zombies Ate My Neighbors and I might have even caught Night of the Living Dead’s color remake on Encore! or something of the sort. But, with Resident Evil it was love at first puss-filled eyeballess socket sight. The concept of a pharmaceutical company developing a zombie virus as a B.O.W. (Bio-Organic Weapon) for military purposes is just… really awesome. Not to mention that game scared the shit out of me and breathed life into an entirely forgotten genre of games called Survival Horror.

Some of you may be asking “What’s so great about zombies?” Well, there’s a huge thing to factor in with zombies. If you’re killed by a zombie, you become a zombie. If you’re eaten by a zombie, you become a zombie. If a zombie gets any of it’s bodily fluids mixed with your bodily fluids, you become a zombie. Like… seriously chances are high that if you’re in the vicinity of a zombie, you’ll be turning into one shortly. ANYBODY can become a zombie, and while most of them are slow, dumb, shamble, and run off VERY basic instincts, they come in huge swarms. Now, what makes these zombies so deadly are… you and me! We are emotionally attached to those who are turned into zombies, maybe it’s your significant other, your mother, your child, and you let your guard down. You try to talk to them, you don’t want to kill them, you don’t want to kill your own child in order to survive, and you either do or you get bitten and you don’t. Some people just simply can’t handle the mental and emotional pressure of a zombie attack and so they just blow their brains out (which for the uninformed, if your brains are destroyed or your head is removed from your body, you usually can’t turn into a zombie.) Seriously, do you see Vampires or Werewolves or Underwater Seaweed Creatures causing this sort of turmoil? Fuck no. That’s Zombie territory.

Y’see, zombies are ALL about emotional conflict and being at battle with yourself. They’re all about survival, beating an impossible situation, joining together with your fellow man to conquer an evil force. They also cause good people to turn bad and show their true colors because they want to save their own skin. They cause people to be cocky and effect the group’s overall survivability. Also, to be perfectly honest, there’s just TONS of cool ways to kill a zombie. Chainsaws, Zombie Slaying Mobiles, Swords, Shotguns, Crossbows, etc. you have SUCH an arsenal of shit to take zombies down, you’re not just stuck with using a wooden stick, holy water, or silver like with other monsters. Shit, I hear you can even use salt to kill a zombie. FUCKING SALT! Seriously!

Zombies have DEEPLY effected our culture, and are growing more and more popular as an ‘evil force’ throughout the world. There’s a zombie themed event occuring in World of Warcraft as we speak, where infected players can transform NPCs around the city into zombies by biting them and they transform others into zombies and so on. They’re even writing survival guides for zombie outbreaks and apocalypses (which is one of the few books I’ve read in the past few years.) One thing I love to brag about (and I’m going to do it here) is that I’m from Pittsburgh, PA the fucking zombie (and Mr. Rogers) capital of the world! George A. Romero AKA BLANK of the Dead guy, pretty much shoots all his films around our area. I’ve shopped at the mall where the original Dawn of the Dead was filmed, and almost on a yearly basis somewhere out there in our city, there is a zombie walk, where everyone dresses up like zombies and shambles around mindlessly. Hell, there’s even been Zombie walks IN the Dawn of the Dead mall (Monroeville Mall!)

For the totally uninformed, here is a list of the “Zombie Essentials” so that you too can partake in my obsession:

• Night/Dawn/Day of the Dead (You can live without the others, make sure they’re the ORIGINALS and not remakes.)
• Resident Evil 1, 2, 3, and Code Veronica (You can check out the others if you want.)
• Zombies Ate My Neighbors (I only mention this because it’s a fun game, it’s not actually essential.)
• The Zombie Survival Guide (Do you want to be caught with your pants down when zombies attack?)
• 28 Days Later (This movie has changed the way people look at zombies.)
• Alien and AvP Requiem (Take your typical zombie movie plot and replace the zombies with extraterrestrial beings.)
• Dead Rising (The epitome of a zombie fanboy’s dreams for a videogame about zombies.)
• Planet Terror (The epitome of a zombie fanboy’s dreams for a movie about zombies.)
• Shaun of the Dead (The epitome of a zombie fanboy’s dreams for a parody movie about zombies.)

Now, I’m sure there’s tons more I could mention here, like… Marvel Zombies (which is such an amazing concept it’ll have it’s own article soon enough), The Walking Dead, Left 4 Dead, and so on. But, ultimately I think you all get the point. There is a ton of AMAZING zombie content out there, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. It’s touched my life like some creepy infectious disease, and I hope the infection spreads towards you as well.

I leave you with this…

FOR ITCHY TASTY!

Click for the Trailer

BOO! Welcome to “Movies You Should Know Halloween Edition”, today on the guiltene is the UK-thriller, post-apocalyptic film, 28 Days Later. Halloween asside, this is one of my favorite movies for many reasons but for one, it’s a chilling movie that actually makes you think, makes you ask “what if?” 

28 Days Later opens with a group of animal activists storming a research facility full of caged chimpanzees, subjects of psychological testing. The scientists desperately plead with the activists not to release the chimps exclaiming “they’re infected.” Apparently there is biological testing going on (who would’ve guessed), the chimps get released and 28 days later, the movie begins.

Outstanding performance from the unknown but slightly familiar looking Cillian Murphy. My absolute favorite scene is when Murphy is knocked to the ground, stares up to the sky and realizes something shattering to his situation. Directed by Andy Boyle, 28 Days Later takes the word “Infected” to an entirely new level, such a level that you must scare yourself this Halloween and give it a watch.

Big Brother hostess found brutally murdered on set.

How cool was Dead Set last night?

The fusion of Danny Boyle’s Rage infected Zombies and a selection of Davina McCall’s already Brain Dead Housemates made for a pretty decent hour of television.

Then, the icing on the cake - Davina’s untimely death and her subsequent resurrection. (See Below)

(I’d have to admit that most of the cast were Hammier than a prize pig, but all in all - Good Fun)

Episode 2

Episode 3

Trailer Link

What the critic’s Say

Official Web Site

#30 - CUBE (1997)

Directed by Vincenzo Natali
Genre:  Mind Fuck
Last Year’s Rank:  33
Rating:  4 stars
Sequels:  Cube 2:  Hypercube (2002, D: A. Sekula, 3 stars)
               Cube Zero (2001, D: E. Barbarash, 2.5 stars)

I was a late comer to the Cube franchise, having only seen the movies in the past year.  But I was sold immediately.  The first (and best) film opens with a man waking up in a cell with no apparent windows or doors.  He soon discovers that he’s in a complex made up of numerous cubes, some with deadly traps and some safe.  It isn’t long before he meets up with other people trying to find a way out of the Cube.  No one knows why they’re there or how they got there or what the purpose of their being there is and not everybody is who they seem to be.  The sequels were kind of a let-down as they explored more of what the cubes are and why they exist.  

#29 - THE FLY (1958)

Directed by Kurt Neumann
Genre:  Mutant Bug
Last Year’s Rank:  29
Rating:  5 stars
Sequels:  Return Of The Fly (1959, D: E. Bernds)
               Curse Of The Fly (1965, D: D. Sharp)
Remake:  The Fly (1986, D: D. Cronenberg, 3.5 stars)
                The Fly II (1989, D: C. Walas, 2.5 stars)

This movie freaked me out as a kid.  That final scene with the guy’s head on the fly’s body and Vincent Price’s terrifyingly humane decision on how to deal with it is truly one of the most chilling moments in horror history.  Cronenberg’s remake was good and gooey, but I just don’t think it even came close to matching the original in terms of real horror.

#28 - GIN GWAN (THE EYE) (2002)

Directed by Oxide Pang Chun and Danny Pang
Genre:  Ghost
Last Year’s Rank:  26
Rating:  4 stars
Sequel:  The Eye 2 (2004, D: O. Chun and D. Pang, 2.5 stars)
Remake: The Eye (2008, D: D. Moreau and X. Palud) 

This movie is similar in concept to The Sixth Sense, but is so much scarier, you’ll think The Sixth Sense is actually part of the Scary Movie franchise.  A young woman undergoes a cornea transplant and begins to “see dead people”.  But these dead people might actually want to do her harm.  She must then find out who the donor of her new corneas was so that she can begin to figure out just what the hell is going on.   As for the remake, what the hell is wrong with Jessica Alba?  Can she really not act?  Was Dark Angel just a fluke?  I mean, don’t get me wrong, she’s hot.  But damn.  She really sucks.

#27 - CLOVERFIELD (2008)

Directed by Matt Reeves
Genre:  Monster/Disaster
Last Year’s Rank:  NEW
Rating:  4 stars

Forget the cool trailers and the kind of annoying but effective viral marketing campaign.  Even with all that hype, the movie totally lived up to expectations.  It’s the kind of movie that Godzilla remake should have been.  Great monsters, suspense, some mild gore, some good jolts, and a bleak ending.  What more could you ask for?  I really hope they never make the sequel to this.  The more time that goes by, the more I think the ending makes any sequel unnecessary.

#26 - POLTERGEIST (1982)

Directed by Tobe Hooper
Genre:  Ghost
Last Year’s Rank:  30
Rating:  4 stars
Sequels:  Poltergeist 2 (1986, D: B. Gibson, 2.5 stars)
               Poltergeist 3 (1988, D: G. Sherman, 2 stars)

The first movie is probably the scariest PG-rated movie I’ve ever seen.  Hooper (also director of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre) really does a great job with the ghosts and the Indian burial ground stuff.  And who can’t relate to that clown and tree?  The sequels were less than stellar.  

#25 - DEAD SILENCE (2007)

Directed by James Wan
Genre:  Puppet
Last Year’s Rank:  NEW
Rating:  3 stars

This has a pretty good back story and some nice scares.  It’s a tad on the predictable side, but it’s probably the best puppet movie out there.  And let’s face it, puppets are scary.  It’s a convoluted story of revenge and tongue ripping that ends with a decent, if slightly confusing, twist.

#24 - FINAL DESTINATION (2000)

Directed by James Wong
Genre:  Thriller
Last Year’s Rank:  11
Rating:  5 stars
Sequels:  Final Destination 2 (2003, D: D. Ellis, 3.5 stars)
               Final Destination 3 (2006, D: J. Wong, 3.5 stars)

The Final Destination series is one of the most fun series in horror.  They’re not overly scary, true, and they’re not masochistic like Hostel or Wolf Creek, but they are solidly entertaining.  The original was created by Glen Morgan and James Wong to be an episode of The X-Files, one of the many series they wrote for.  When they left the show, they took the screenplay with them and expanded it to a feature length film.  The creative deaths, original idea, and sly references to other horror movies hit big.  The first movie is by far the best, though the second does have more elaborate and gorier deaths.  The third has, arguably, the least interesting initial premise, but the solid story and the building of the mythology created in the first two films make it pay off too.

#23 - THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974)

Directed by Tobe Hooper
Genre:  Mutant Human, Cannibal
Last Year’s Rank:  27
Rating:  5 stars

Sequels:  The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 (1986, D: T. Hooper)
               Leatherface:  The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990, D: J. Burr)
               The Texas Chainsaw Massacre:  The Next Generation (1994, D: K. Henkel)
Remake:  The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2004, D: M. Nispel, 4 stars)
                The Texas Chainsaw Massacre:  The Beginning (2006, D: J. Liebesman)

As a kid growing up, I had a dresser with drawers lined with newspaper.  In that newspaper was an ad for this movie.  My young imagination went into overdrive with what sounded to me like the most horrifying thing imaginable.  But the thing that really got me going was the “Based On A True Story” tagline.  Years later I finally saw this on video and it was just as horrifying and disturbing as I’d imagined.  The sequels aren’t anywhere near watchable, but the remake is terrifying in it’s own right.

#22 - SESSION 9 (2001)

Directed by Brad Anderson
Genre:  Ghost
Last Year’s Rank:  32
Rating:  4 stars

I reviewed this in last year’s list, but I don’t think anybody has seen it yet.  What’s wrong with you?  This is one seriously creepy movie with enough genuine scares and suspense to shatter your spine.  A crew is hired to clean the asbestos out of an old abandoned mental institution.  Only it’s not entirely abandoned.  As layers of the story and characters are pulled back, a real sense of inevitably creeps over the movie until the final stunning twist.   Criminally underrated.

#21 - 28 DAYS LATER (2002)

Directed by Danny Boyle
Genre:  Zombie
Last Year’s Rank:  25
Rating:  4 stars
Sequel:  28 Weeks Later (2007, D: J. Fresnadillo, 3.5 stars) 

There were quite a few admirable things about this movie, but its greatest contribution to the Zombie genre was that zombies no longer had to be these slow moving, easily avoided, uh, zombies.  These guys moved fast.  A breakout performance by Cillian Murphy didn’t hurt, nor did the stunning shots of empty London streets.  But the real horror wasn’t the zombies at all, as this movie proved once again that the scariest monsters on the planet are our fellow humans.

The recent films 28 Days Later, its sequel 28 Weeks Later, the “Firefly” film Serenity and I Am Legend with Will Smith all involve humans converted into frenzied murderous demons due to a man-made virus - usually a virus created with noble intentions. In Weeks and Legend, the hero(s) must give their lives to protect a “special” individual whose blood may hold the key to humanity’s salvation; in Serenity the sacrifices are (less convincingly) necessary so that truth can out. In all cases not only are the demons trying to stop the heroes, but the heroes are up against the establishment as well. Similar setups can be found in many recent films, good and bad, from Children of Men to Ultraviolet.

Why does this theme of the demon virus and the special savior keep popping up, and what are all these movies really about?

Seems to me most of them are about the failure of ‘liberalism’ (in the American sense), i.e. the failure of social democracy - and also, more surprisingly, a longing for monarchy.

A certain stripe of horror/disaster/apocalyptic/exploitation film serves to play upon some widespread yet unstated fear, a fear that cannot or does not find its expression via “respectable” outlets. It’s not politically correct to make a straightforward movie about the threat of commies, but who will object if you make Invasion of the Body Snatchers? ’70s teen slasher films were about the dangers of casual sex and free love: teens have sex, then get killed. The subtext, which could not be stated in progressive company but could be woven into a cheesy movie, being that teens who have sex are sluts and deserve what they get.

What happens in a demon-virus movie? Who are the monsters? The monsters are other people. And not just some evil or colluding subset of other people, either: basically, it’s all other people (except the protagonists). The message is pretty clear: people are monsters and will come after you and claw at you and not stop until they are dead. But, how did those people - regular, faceless people - all get to be monsters? Usually it’s like this: the government is working on some project, something that they think will do a lot of good (say, cure cancer), and something goes horribly wrong.

The well-intentioned government program ends up going awry and turning people into monsters.

This sounds like every far-right caricature of their view of every liberal government project, does it not?

This is not to say that the people who write and make these films are actually far-righties who have such a view of liberal government programs. Probably, most of the people involved in making these films (as with all films) are well to the left of the political spectrum and probably would not even recognize this subtext of their films. (Some of them, e.g. Serenity director Joss Whedon, probably even think the critique they are levelling is pro-left and anti-right.) Nevertheless, these films appear designed to tap into that fear, the fear that liberal social projects will inevitably backfire and have disastrous unintended consequences.

This brings us to the Solution in all these films. The Solution is miraculously finding the Special Savior whose very existence will save humanity. Usually, there is something special about his/her blood (”immunity to the virus”, for example). Once this is learned/exposited, the heroes spend the rest of the movie trying to keep the Special Savior alive, and may give up their lives in doing so. But it will be worth it, because the Special Savior - often, tellingly, his/her actual bloodline - is important.

This, of course, is a metaphor. The Special Savior is, essentially, royalty and must henceforth be treated as such. And why not? Since liberalism/socialism doesn’t work, it’s only natural to turn back to the most widespread pre-liberal system: monarchy. “Monarchy is what will save us”, these films seem to say, and their third acts are mostly concerned with the of one thing: a celebration and glorification of self-sacrifice for the sake of the new royalty.

One may object that the savior storyline is more obviously and straightforwardly just a Christ/messiah parallel, and that is clearly true. But let’s not forget what the messiah prophecy was about: it was about a special child who would be born, who would be a king to lead the Jews and save them. The fact that these movies make use of a messiah storyline buttresses my point that they are pro-monarchist, rather than refutes it. Particularly since it is the physical aspects of the messiah (the kid’s blood in 28 Weeks Later, the woman’s random ability to conceive in Children of Men, etc.) rather than any metaphysical claims to being born under a special sign or being the ’son of God’. The stories here are far more close parallels of the monarchist aspects of the messiah prophecy than they are of the religious/metaphysical ones.

The cynic in me would say that these stories have their most natural appeal for disillusioned liberals, liberals who have (deep down) lost faith in the potential of their ‘progressive’ projects for doing good. Stripped of this faith, all that is left is the naked desire to be celebrated as nobility. As saviors. If not because of the great social projects they produce (which they now realize are doomed), simply because of who they are. Their “blood”, i.e. their intrinsic specialness.

Because just as the demon-virus storyline allows people to confront their fears of social projects gone wrong, the savior resolution allows them to indulge their fantasy of being saviors. Which is, after all, the central fantasy behind the appeal of ‘liberalism’, for so very many.

Futurama: Bender’s Big Score (8.5/10)
Late last year a direct-to-dvd Futurama movie was released, planned to be the 1st of 4. Now you may be wondering, what is Futurama and why should I care. Futurama was an american television show created by Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons. Futurama aired for 4 seasons before being canceled, although the movies will each be broken into 4 episodes and shown as a 5th season.

Bender’s Big Score is a hilarious movie involving lots of time travel, comedy, dramatic plot twists and even a musical portion. The basic plot is that a group of nudist aliens scams the characters, gaining their credit card numbers and personal info, and eventually gains ownership of earth. They also uploaded a virus into the robot Bender, which causes him to obey their every command. The aliens find a binary code for 1-way paradox free time travel to the past, and send Bender back in time to steal every valuable artifact in earth’s history, but they are warned that meddling in the time space continuum can have drastic consequences. I don’t want to give away any of the key points, or spoil the movie, but highly recommend it.

Quarantine (7.5/10)

I guess Quarantine could be classified as a zombie movie, although technically the infected aren’t zombies, but rather people infected with a new super-rabies, but it’s still technically a zombie movie. The movie is filmed entirely in shaky-cam, like Cloverfield which can cause motion sickness for some people. It’s based on a Spanish horror film called [REC], possibly alluding to the fact that its supposedly filmed on a handheld camcorder, or maybe because no one could come up with a better name. Personally I like the shaky-cam filming style, it gives the movies a sense of realism, like you’re there or watching a recording of something that actually happened. The film starts out with the host of a TV show called The Night Shift or some dumb crap like that and her cameraman. They’re reporting on firemen or something.

The movie starts out slow, with a few jokes here and there, until the fireman get a medical call to an apartment building downtown. Upon their arrival they find police officers have already arrived, they enter the building and are told by the tenants that an old lady that lives upstairs was making inhuman screams and weird noises. They bust in and the lady bites one of the guys in the neck, soon all hell breaks loose. The building is quarantined (big surprise there right) and one fireman falls from above onto the stone floor of the lobby. The rest of the people come down into the lobby, there’s a drunk guy, a vet, 2 people from an unnamed African country that don’t speak any english, the owner of the building, a women and her young girl and everyone mentions the guy who rents the attic that hasn’t been seen in about a month. There were some other characters but they weren’t important enough for me to remember. The lady with the little girl says her husband is outside because he had to bring their dog to the vet, which raises the question of why they didn’t just ask the vet that lives in their building but whatever we’ll roll with it. Some stuff happens, but everyone dies in the end, mainly because of the main flaw of all zombie movies, people inside of them have never heard of zombies, which leads to them walking over to a bloody moaning friend of theirs that’s eating one of their other friends asking “Hey need any hel-OH GOD WHY ARE YOU EATING MY FACE ARGHHH!” and then they’re a zombie buffet. One of the best parts of the movie is when the cameraman beats one of the zombies with the camera, the lens got covered in blood. Everyone in the theater was laughing as this happened and afterwards almost everyone clapped. One of the fireman got a sledgehammer and killed a zombie dog with it, but he didn’t seem to understand that the people were who he should be worried about, even though they aren’t really people anymore, and he should have just killed them too, but he didn’t and thats why he’s dead. Anyway, near the end the cameraman and host get up into the attic, and find a strange sight with lots of rats in cages and strange newspaper articles on the wall. Apparently the man renting the attic was experimenting to make a super rabies and spread it to the dog that was in the building, which in turn spread to the people causing all of that. The last few minutes are dumb, and I mean REALLY dumb. The cameraman switches on the camera’s night-vision and sees the man, infected with rabies stumbling around in the dark flailing his arms trying to find something to eat. Rather than grab one of the many sharp weapon-like objects laying around, the cameraman decides that it would be best if they hid and “stayed quiet”, too bad the stupid host was whispering louder than a jet plane. Long story short the cameraman gets killed and drops the camera, the girl tries to crawl towards it but is dragged away into the darkness, not that that was a surprise because IT WAS ON THE ****ING TRAILER. The one thing I liked most, was that the husband of the lady with the girl was outside of the building, chances are he got infected by his dog which means hopefully the disease will spread rapidly and kill all the other stupid people in the movie. Overall I liked Quarantine although it had some flaws, that’s why I give it a 7.5 out of 10.

~Sean Bertoniere

Zeitgeist: Addendum (9.5/10)

Zeitgeist Addendum is the second part to the independent documentary film Zeitgeist. A documentary about religion, 9/11 and war, and various causes and conspiracies surrounding them. Both Zeitgeist and Zeitgeist Addendum can be legally watched online or downloaded for free.

Addendum means an addition, and that’s what Zeitgeist II is, a continuation of the first. Part 1 starts out with a summary of how our economic system works as described in Modern Money Mechanics: A Workbook on Bank Reserves and Deposit Expansion.

This is followed by part 2 which describes the work of “Economic Hitmen”. In this part John Perkins is interviewed and describes how “The CIA and the ruling political/corporate elites have worked to undermine legitimate foreign regimes who put the interests of their populations before those of transnational corporations.” It mentions many coups staged and assassinations carried out over the past 50 years.

Part 3 describes the Venus Project a major theme of which is the concept of a ‘resource-based economy’ that replaces the need for the scarcity-oriented monetary economy we have now. It includes an interview with the Venus Project’s founder Jacque Fresco, who describes the goals of the project.

Part 4 opens with the quote by Thomas Paine “My country is the world… and my religion is to do good.” This section goes on to describe things wrong with the world, stating “perpetual warfare, corruption, oppressive laws, social stratification, irrelevant superstitions [religion], environmental destruction, and a despotic, socially indifferent, profit-oriented ruling class, is fundamentally the result of a collective ignorance of two of the most basic insights humans can have about reality - the ‘emergent’ and ’symbiotic’ aspects of natural law.” It states ways to foreword social transformation including

1. Boycotting the Federal banks and Citibank, JPMorgan, Chase and Bank of America
2. Boycotting mainstream news networks (Fox, MSNBC, CNN) and using and protecting the internet
3. Boycotting the military
4. Boycotting energy companies and make your home/car self-sustainable (solar power)
5. Reject the political system by focusing on working to dissolve the outdated system of politics in favor of technological redesign
6. Spread the word to as many people as possible.

Both Zeitgeist and Zeitgeist Addendum are very interesting and informative movies to watch, if you haven’t yet I would recommend you do as soon as possible.

~ Sean Bertoniere

A Sound of Thunder (3/10)
A Sound of Thunder is a 2005 movie about a company in the near future that offers time travel hunting tours for very rich people. The company uses a time machine that only they have and goes back in time to hunt a dinosaur over and over again. They mention the butterfly effect, a theory that states something as small and seemingly insignificant as a butterfly flapping its wings can cause a chain events with major consequences, such as a tornado 3000 miles away. They say they take lots of precautions to make sure this doesn’t happen such as, they have guns that shoot ice, thats right ice because hunting dinosaurs with water guns just isn’t as good. They always kill the exact same dinosaur, right as he steps in a tar pit trapping himself, and a nearby volcano erupts just a few moments after they leave. And the entire time they stay on a magic path they have that is separated from the past.

Sounds great right? Wrong, you see, no one can fire until the team leader fires his gun first, but some of the ice melted and shorted out his gun, so the T-Rex or whatever the hell dinosaur it was gets really close. The rich guys that paid for the hunting run farther down the path and one of them accidentally steps off and smashes a butterfly. Somehow this cause a tear in reality or something that alters the course of evolution and human history. How does that make any sense at all, so killing a huge dinosaur that was going to die in 2 minutes from a volcano doesn’t matter, but killing a tiny butterfly that was going to die in 2 minutes from a volcano does? It just gets stupider from there. When they return from the past, nothing is changed immediately, instead something like a day later the first things change. Then rather than everything happening at one, which would make sense, there are “time waves” every so often that alter things. Eventually the whole city is like a forest and there’s some half-ape half-lizard things trying to eat the guys. The CGI is terrible, the ape things look like plastic kids toys, and when the guys shoot them they spark. How the hell does ice hitting scales make sparks; no, how does ice hitting anything make sparks? The acting is pretty bad too, which is suprising, because there are some fairly well known actors in there. In the end they fix everything by sending the main character back in time to when the expedition went back to kill the dinosaurs, he stops the guy from smashing the butterfly and gives himself a magic tape thing that can show a video of something from any camera position with a camera that can be moved, like an IRL devcam, because that makes so much sense. It also raises the question of how they could send back expeditions to the same time, if they usually don’t run into past version of themselves when they do back, how did it happen this time.

A Sound of Thunder combines mediocre acting, laughable CGI and at best a loose understanding of time-space and physics in an unintentionally comedic way. I give it a very generous 3/10.

~Sean Bertoniere

Max Payne (9/10)
New York Detective Max Payne is a washed out cop with a troubled past nothing to lose and a lust for vengeance. I know what you’re thinking “Oh, how original.” well maybe Max Payne isn’t the most original character, but there are some new twists on this cop story. Max Payne was originally a video game made by a Finnish company Remedy Interactive, it is still considered one of the best games of all time. While the movie’s story isn’t as true to the games, it still is one of the best movies I’ve seen in quite a while.
We start out with Max sinking in the semi-frozen Hudson river looking down to all the bodies below him and giving a monologue about how he’ll be found down there with the rest of them, saying “I could feel the dead down there, reaching up to welcome me as one of their own. It was an easy mistake to make.” The film then jumps back 1 week, showing Max sitting at a desk in the cold case department, where he was transferred after the death of his wife and daughter 3 years prior. Max goes to the house of one of his “friends” who was a snitch for him. There’s a party going on and Max meets Natasha and her sister Mona, who argue in Russian. Natasha walks off and Max walks into a back room where he looks through a door crack and sees people doing drugs (VALKYR) in the back room. Natasha comes back and they go to Max’s apartment. Max tries to question her, but she is trying to seduce him. He kicks her out and as she walks through a dark snowy alley she tries to call her drug dealer. She just gets his answering machine but there is a strange tatooed man following her from the rooftops. She is attacked by winged demonic creatures and killed. The next day Max’s old partner, Alex Balder, brings him to the scene where body parts litter the alleyway, and shows Max that they found his ID at the scene. Max says she stole it from him, but when Alex tries to ask more about it Max gets angry and refuses to talk. While looking over the files of Max’s wife and the recently deceased Natasha he notices that the tattoo on Natasha’s arm is very similar to the one on the bodies of the 2 men Max shot in his house. Alex tries to call Max and tell him this, but he only gets the answering machine. Alex goes to Max’s apartment and waits, but when Max arrives Alex is dead and max is attacked, he fires a few shots but is knocked out by his unseen attacker.

From there the movie has lots of twists and turns, I’m not going to tell you the whole story, because this is actually a good movie. Some of the things I really liked were the Norse mythology references, the dark washed out colors of the movie, and the bullet-time (slow motion) sections. I give Max Payne a 9/10.
~Sean Bertoniere

28 Days Later (10/10)

28 Days Later is a 2002 British post-apocalyptic sci-fi horror movie, directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland, and starring Cillian Murphy and Naomie Harris. It’s a movie about societal collapse in the wake of a devastating virus.

The movie starts out with our protagonist Jim (Cillian Murphy) waking up in a hospital. The hospital is completely abandoned and seems to have been trashed, soda machines are broken, bed are overturned, but no one is around. Jim makes his way outside after filling a plastic bag with sodas and money. He wanders around the streets for a while, yelling for anyone, but no one answers. Jim makes his way into a church around sundown and we see writing on the wall stating “REPENT THE END IS EXTREMELY F***ING NIGH”. This gives us some insight as to why it seems the entire world is abandoned. As Jim walks up the stairs to the second level of the church, he sees bodies laying all over the main floor. He hears something and yells hello, and a few of the bodies turn out to still be alive, a priest busts through the nearby door and tries to attack Jim. The priest seems to be in a trance, coughing and growling, Jim hits him and runs outside with others chasing him. It is now dark, and as Jim runs through the streets 2 figures in trench coats and gas masks toss molotov cocktails at the people chasing Jim. He runs over to them and they hide behind a wall while Jim constantly asks what is going on, the 2 people had planted explosives in a nearby petrol station and detonate the entire building. They then return to a shop in a subway station where the 2 introduce themselves as Mark and Selena (Naomie Harris). Mark takes off his mask and tells the stunned Jim a joke stating “A man walks into a bar with a giraffe. They both get drunk. The giraffe falls over. The man goes to leave and the bartender says, ‘Oi. You can’t leave that lyin’ there.’ And the man says, ‘No. It’s not a lion. It’s a giraffe.’” Jim just stares blankly at him as he add “Completely humorless.” Mark and Selena then explain to Jim what has happened. Jim says he was a delivery boy who was hit by a car and has been in a coma for an unknown amount of time. The next day the 3 travel to Jim’s parents house where they find Jim’s parents had committed suicide using pills, and Selena states Jim should be thankful they died peacefully. They decide to stay there for the night rather than risk traveling in the dark, but in the night they are attacked and Mark is infected. Selena violently kills him with her machete, and her and Jim leave for fear of more infected coming. Later on the characters Frank and his young daughter Hannah are introduced and the 4 travel to where a military radio broadcast is coming from. The twist and turns in the plot begin, and there’s lots of unexpected things.

Some of the things I liked about 28 Days Later was the soundtrack by John Murphy, it really adds to the overall feel of the movie, I liked how well the movie was written with a fresh and interesting storyline and generally like-able characters, and that the movie was filmed in DV on Canon XL1 cameras which made the movie look more gritty and realistic as if the filming crew were survivors filming other survivors. For great writing, an amazing musical score, interesting characters and a unique filming style I give 28 Days Later a 10/10.

~Sean Bertoniere