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REVIEW – The Crazies

Christian Sellers — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 23:34:52 +0000

Forty-one year old Timothy Olyphant has been struggling for over a decade to find the suitable vehicle for his charming-yet-somewhat demented persona. Gone in 60 Seconds and Dreamcatcher, his career has recently flirted with the mainstream with roles in Hitman and Live Free or Die Hard. With neither assassin nor villain bringing him major success, Olyphant is now trying his hand at playing the hero. But is he leading man material and is he capable of carrying a movie by himself or should he keep to stealing scenes as a bit-part actor?

Ogden Marsh is a small town in Iowa with a tight-knit community and warm feeling of hospitality. David Dutton (Olyphant) is the local sheriff and his wife, Judy (Radha Mitchell), is the general practitioner at a nearby surgery, but their idyllic life is ruined when he is forced to shoot one of his citizens after brandishing a weapon at a high school game. The following evening, another local burns his family alive in their attic and seems to show no signs of remorse, only pure anger. Soon afterwards, David finds a plane underneath the surface of the lake and suspects that its cargo has infected the water supply. The military appear to place the town under quarantine and both David and Judy are separated from each other. Determined to save his wife and unborn child, David vows to escape from the soldiers and save his town before it is too late.

There have been an array of pointless and disappointing remakes over the last five years, primarily due to the success of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Dawn of the Dead, both of which scored major points at the box office. But it would be easier to count the good remakes, as they have been few and far between. Full of unnecessary CGI, MTV-style editing and every cliché imaginable, most of the current wave of remakes horror fans could do without. With several of George A. Romero’s classics having been brought into the modern times, it was perhaps inevitable that his 1973 thriller The Crazies would eventually get the same treatment.

Having previously directed Sahara, Breck Eisner decided to try his hand at the horror genre by giving The Crazies a modern spin. This is not as simple as it sounds, however, as Romero’s original had already been a major influence on every kind of outbreak movie from David Cronenberg’s Shivers to Chuck Russell’s 1988 update of The Blob. So how do the filmmakers approach the material in a way that does not seem derivative or overused? Truth is they haven’t, but as remakes go The Crazies is surprisingly effective and entertaining and Eisner has defied all expectations by making a half-decent, if not entirely original, thriller.

Olyphant proves to be a likable hero, and whilst his role hardly stretches his acting abilities he plays it competently. Mitchell is as equally impressive as his wife, adding an emotional aspect amongst all the bloodshed and macho gunfights. The script, from Scott Kosar (who also wrote The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Amityville Horror) and Ray Wright, is not entirely original but does attempt to flesh the two main characters out the best it can between the non-stop action. There are moments of gore for those who like their horror violent, but it is not as graphic as many recent horror movies. The world could have lived without The Crazies but it is still an effective movie that performs its functions adequately.

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REVIEW – The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue

Christian Sellers — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 01:52:30 +0000

In the wake of the international success of George A. Romero’s seminal masterpiece Night of the Living Dead in the late 1960s, filmmakers around the world began to take a renewed interest in the tired zombie formula. Amongst those that would make an impact were Amando de Ossorio’s La noche del terror ciego (Tombs of the Blind Dead) and Bob Clark’s Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things, but perhaps the most acclaimed of all these was Jorge Grau’s 1974 Spanish-Italian co-production Non si deve profanare il sonno dei morti, more commonly known as Let Sleeping Corpses Lie and, most infamously, The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue. Although set in northern England, the movie consisted of Spanish, American and Italian actors, who would be later dubbed over by rather preposterous British accents. Such is the way of European horror.

Antiques dealer George (Ray Lovelock) decides to leave the city for the weekend and head up to Windermere to meet up with a group of friends. When his motorbike is damaged at a pretrol station, he accepts insists that the girl responsible, Edna (Christinie Galbo), drives him to his destination. Having become lost, George asks for directions but Edna is attacked by a strange man. Eventually arriving at the home of her sister, Katie (Jeannine Mestre), to discover that her husband, Martin (Jose Ruiz Lifante), was killed by a rabid stranger. But George is forced to remain in town as a possible suspect when the Police Inspector (Arthur Kennedy) believes that they may have assisted Katie in murdering her husband.

Outside of Hammer, England was a rare setting for a horror movie, particularly one that involved an outbreak of zombies. Shot on location in Manchester and Derbyshire (with various scenes filmed in Madrid and Rome), the setting is suitably eerie and would pave the way for An American Werewolf in London’s use of the Moors almost a decade later. But the ridiculous dubbing, which makes every character sound either posh or Cockney, adds an unintentional camp element, especially when Grau could easily have cast English actors in the role instead.

Much like with Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things, the makeup of the zombies are not very convincing, whilst their body language is hardly inspired. They lack any really threatening element, which sadly takes away from the film’s overall impact. Whilst the likes of Romero and, several years later, Lucio Fulci would portray their living dead as something to be truly feared (particularly in the case of City of the Living Dead and Day of the Dead), here they are slow and boring creatures that groan unnecessarily load, something which ceases to be creepy and simply becomes irritating very quickly.

Despite the poor dubbing, the performances from the two leads are rather likable, with Lovelock giving a humorous turn as the reluctant hero. Spanish beauty Galbo (previously seen in Cosa avete fatto a Solange?/What Have They Done to Solange?) also manages to attract the viewer’s sympathy, although every other character is sadly underdeveloped. Whilst Giannetto De Rossi’s special effects would be largely responsible for the success of Fulci’s Zombi 2 (Zombie Flesh Eaters), here they are mostly absent until the final reel. Atmospheric and entertaining, if a little slow and uninvolving, The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue stands as one of the better of the early ‘70s zombie flicks.

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REVIEW – Day of the Dead

Christian Sellers — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 00:15:57 +0000

Having avoided being stereotyped as a horror filmmaker after the phenomenal success of his 1968 feature Night of the Living Dead, Pittsburgh-based director George A. Romero had attempted to move in a new direction with such misfires as the disappointing comedy There’s Always Vanilla, before eventually returning to the world of the undead with 1978’s Dawn of the Dead. Focusing less on the horror and more on the protagonists’ attempts to deal with the coming apocalypse, many fans considered the movie to be the ultimate zombie epic, and its success prompted both the American and Italian industry to once again embrace the walking dead. Whilst his camp classic Creepshow would further cement his reputation, he continued to produce such mediocre efforts as Knightriders, before finally deciding to bring his zombie trilogy to a conclusion in 1985 with Day of the Dead.

The undead have now become the dominant specie on the planet and vastly outnumber the living. In a remote area of Florida, a team of scientists are hard at work in an abandoned missile silo attempting to find a cure for the epidemic. The deranged Dr. Logan (Richard Liberty), who is affectionately referred to as ‘Frankenstein,’ has taken to dissecting his specimens to understand why they feast on human flesh. In a radical new move, he has kept one that he has named Bub (Howard Sherman) chained to a wall and is conducting more humane experiments in the hope of somehow domesticating it. But the military, run by the vulgar and psychotic Captain Rhodes (Joe Pilato), have begun to run out of patience and are considering leaving the complex and the scientists behind. Unfortunately, the only one capable of flying a helicopter is John (Terry Alexander), a Caribbean man who has no interest in the politics of either faction and instead just wants to stay alive. But even as the dead threaten to overrun them, the living become more of a danger to each other.

Romero had originally devised Day of the Dead to be his ultimate zombie epic; larger in scope even than Dawn of the Dead and more action-orientated. Having almost secured a $7m budget for the feature, Romero was unwilling to trim the gore in order to obtain an R rating, which would have guaranteed the movie a wider distribution. Having refused to compromise with Dawn of the Dead, the film had been released unrated and had managed to gain considerable attention due to its graphic violence and dark humour, and so the director was confident that he would pull off the same trick again. Sticking to his guns, his financiers halved the budget and so Romero was forced to severely narrow the scope of his story and instead set it primarily in one location. Hoping for something as excessive as its predecessor, many fans were disappointed with Day of the Dead upon its initial release and it would take twenty years before it received the recognition it deserved.

Day of the Dead is the logical conclusion to what was to have been a trilogy. Dawn of the Dead had been bright, camp, tongue-in-cheek, full of action and hugely enjoyable, but if Romero was to hammer home his message about the end of the world then the third movie would have to be darker and more nihilistic. Whilst neither Romero nor his fans would appreciate it at the time, his restricted budget would become a blessing as Day of the Dead stands up well to its predecessors by taking the tone of the series in a new direction, by allowing the dead to finally overrun the world and force mankind to retreat and allow the new dominant race to take over. As John so eloquently puts it when justifying the situation to his friend; ‘Maybe he just wanted to show us he’s still the boss man. Maybe he figures we were getting too big for our britches, trying to figure his shit out.’

As has always been common with Romero movies, the acting on display is hardly Oscar-winning material, but each of the actors manage to make their characters as likeable or obnoxious as required. Lori Cardille is a little bland as the token heroine Sarah, whilst Alexander comes across as a typical Caribbean stereotype, although he does continue the Romero trend of the black character being the most level-headed and pro-active. Liberty chews the scenery perfectly as the over-the-top mad scientist, although Pilato does steal almost every scene with his menacing eyes and constant vulgarity. Special mention should be given to Sherman as Bub, arguably the most human and sympathetic character, despite being a zombie. It is his willingness to become more civilized which further emphasises the barbarity of the human characters.

It is unfair to discuss Day of the Dead without mentioning the work of special effects artist Tom Savini, providing which is by far his most impressive and excessive gore to date, even more so than with The Prowler. Bodies are ripped apart, guts are devoured and, in one distasteful moment, the vocal chords of one victim are stretched as his head is ripped from his body, causing his voice to go high pitched. Thankfully, as with Dawn of the Dead, the inclusion of only one female character means that the pace is never slowed down by any unnecessary romantic subplots, allowing Romero to go all-out with his destruction of the world. Whilst there is no denying just how much of a classic Dawn of the Dead is, fans should also appreciate just how effective Day of the Dead really is.

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REVIEW – Re-animator

Christian Sellers — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 23:52:35 +0000

Having been dead and buried for several years, 1985 saw the revival of the zombie genre. Alongside George A. Romero’s Day of the Dead and Dan O’Bannon’s The Return of the Living Dead, Stuart Gordon made his feature debut with Re-animator, an over-the-top gorefest loosely based on a story by cult writer H. P. Lovecraft. Lacking the subtlety of its source material and instead going straight in for the kill, the film proved to be an instant hit with zombie fans and helped launch the career of its star, Jeffrey Combs. Introducing audiences to its demented antagonist Dr. Herbert West, Re-animator was a fast-paced, darkly comic splatter flick that threw every obscene and outrageous idea it could think of on the screen, resulting in a movie that is anything but boring. Although fans of Lovecraft would criticise the filmmakers for changing various details, Re-animator has a manic energy that is instantly addictive.

After being responsible for the gruesome death of his professor, Herbert West (Combs) returns from Switzerland and takes residence at the Miskatonic University, where he immediately locks horns with his tutor, Dr. Hill (David Gale). After renting a spare room from Daniel Cain (Bruce Abbott), a promising young intern with a bright future, West continues with his bizarre experiments, arousing the suspicion of Cain’s girlfriend, Megan (Barbara Crampton). Eventually expelled from the school, West convinces Cain that he has discoved a way to bring the dead back to life, but their test subjects are emotionless monsters intent on destruction. When Megan’s own father, Dean Halsey (Robert Sampson), falls victim of West’s insane conquest, both Hill and Megan are determined to stop him for good, although each have their own agenda.

Re-animator is one of the most enjoyable horror movies of the 1980s. It is gruesome, playful, excessive and demented and full to the brim with wit, violence, nudity and larger than life characters. It is amazing to think that this was Gordon’s first feature as his direction is superb and the pace of the movie is near perfect. Brian Yuzna, a rarety for a producer, would even convince the director to take the insanity and obscenitity as far as possible, resulting in one of the most excessive and over-the-top horror flicks of the era. The screenplay boasts plenty of memorable dialogue and thankfully doesn’t take too long setting up the characters. There are a few aspects that have been changed from the original Lovecraft story, most notably the addition of Cain who, in the original text, was the nameless narrator.

The acting is also impressive, particularly Combs who gives a camp and manic performance as the likable-yet-insane West. The character is an inspired creation and Combs’ deadpan turn is both enjoyable and a little intimidating. Both Abbott and Crampton give adequate support, with the action told from Cain’s point-of-view as he watches the world around him erupt in chaos. Gale is another joy to watch, with his pantomime-like performance as Hill (the true villain of the piece) one of the movie’s highlights. The four principal characters (West, Cain, Megan and Hill) are well developed and effectively play off each other. Sampson is also impressive as Halsey, who at first is the strict and respectable dean of the university, only to be transformed into a mindless, drooling zombie.

Re-animator boasts some truly impressive and outrageous set pieces, with the decapitation and resurrect of Hill a particular highlight. In arguably the film’s most demented moment, Megan is stripped and tied to an operating table and the Hill places his severed head between her thighs and performs cunnilingus on her. The action-packed climax is guaranteed to satisfy gore fans, with entrails, limbs and all manner of filth on display. Both Gordon and Yuzna (along with writers Dennis Paoli and William Norris) should be given credit for refusing to tone down the violence or humour of the film as it is this that truly makes Re-animator a crazy experience. The soundtrack, composed by Empire regular Richard Band, is playful and mischevious, which perfectly compliments Combs’ performance.

It is hard to fault a movie that is as shameless and enjoyable as Re-animator. It is clear that the filmmakers just wanted to have fun and entertain the audience and so the viewer should just let go and enjoy the ride. Thankfully, the movie proved to be enough of a success that West, Cain and Gale were brought back five years later to make a sequel, with Yuzna stepping behind the camera. Whilst some of the material may have got lost in translation when the story was adapted into the screenplay, there is so much to enjoy with both Re-animator and its sequels that Herbert West is still as popular as ever and it is such a shame that Gordon and Yuzna were unable to shoot their rumoured sequel House of Re-animator. Whilst more serious viewers may find the film dumb and shallow, those with a sense of humour will get the joke and love it.

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REVIEW – Braindead

Christian Sellers — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 11:10:54 +0000

By the end of the 1980s ‘horror’ had become a dirty word and so studios were re-branding their products as ‘psychological thrillers’ or ‘supernatural dramas.’ The zombie genre had also come to a standstill, with the final offerings of the decade including such misfires as The Dead Next Door and The Dead Pit. With George A. Romero’s ‘Dead’ trilogy having come to an end and the future of the Evil Dead series uncertain, the undead had become victims of their own success and crawled back into their graves. A decade before transforming himself into one of Hollywood’s most successful directors with The Lord of the Rings, Kiwi filmmaker Peter Jackson was specializing in how budget splatter flicks. Following on from the bargain bin effects of Bad Taste and the toilet humour of Meet the Feebles, Jackson finally decided to tackle the zombie film with Braindead.

Having stolen a rare Sumatran Rat-Monkey from a remote island and taken it to the mainland, the bizarre creature has become one of the latest attractions of Wellington Zoo. Meanwhile, wet-behind-the-ears Lionel (Timothy Balme) lives with his dominating mother (Elizabeth Moody) and runs various errands, which brings him to the attention of shopkeeper Paquita (Diana Peñalver), whose quest for her one true love leads her to believe that Lionel is the man of her dreams. But during a tip to the zoo, his mother (who is following him) is bitten by the rat monkey and slowly becomes ill, eventually dying in his arms after devouring Paquita’s dog. But soon she is resurrected and begins to infect all manner of locals, causing his sleazy uncle (Ian Watkin) to become suspicious and attempt to stake his claim on the property.

Ironically, Jackson’s talents seemed more obvious when working with small budgets, as Braindead (released in America as Dead Alive) showcases his inventive and playful side, producing countless set pieces of outrageous violence and slapstick humour. Rumoured to have produced the most fake blood ever used in a movie at that time, Braindead is a shameless laugh-a-minute that spun the zombie genre on its head and proved that Jackson was a force to be reckoned with. Whilst Bad Taste had been notable for its b-movie charms and over-the-top nature, Braindead took it even further and proved to be the most enjoyable and crazy zombie film since Raimi’s Evil Dead II in 1987.

Shot for around $3m in and around Wellington, New Zealand (where Bad Taste was also filmed), Braindead is a beautifully photographed period piece, setting the action in the 1950s and thus immediately setting it apart from its contemporaries. Based on a story by Meet the Feebles‘ Stephen Sinclair (who would later adapt The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers), Jackson’s script is a fast-paced affair that pays more attention to the laughs than the scares, with one iconic scene showing a priest stating ‘I kick arse for the Lord!’ There are various gimmicks throughout the series, such as the aforementioned priest (now one of the undead) having sex with a decapitated nurse and producing a hideous zombie baby.

By far the most impressive aspect of the movie is the special effects, which during the final act become excessive and grotesque. Amongst the bizarre imagery is farting colon attempting to strangle its victim, a headless zombie with a garden gnome on its shoulders and the zombie child ripping apart a woman’s face. Yet arguably the most memorable sequence of the film is when Lionel, no longer able to tolerate being pushed around by both the living dead the dead, appears with his lawnmower and begins to eviscerate and mutilate an army of zombies whilst grinning maniacally. By the end of the scene, he is unable to escape because the ground is covered in blood and guts and he keeps slipping on the entrails.

Braindead is arguably Jackson’s best movie. Lacking the self-indulgent CGI fest of The Lord of the Rings and King Kong, the director clearly wanted to repulse and entertain in equal measures and succeeds with ease on both accounts. The film is extremely inventive and manages to throw some new ideas into a well-worn genre, whilst presenting a hero that transforms from the boy next door to the man of the hour, aided by the adorable Paquita. There is something about old school Jackson that is addictive: his work felt fresh and fun and he was clearly a filmmaker stretching above his budget to make the most of his resources. And whilst he may now be more renowned for goblins and elves, horror fans will always remember him for his blood and guts.

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REVIEW – Return of the Blind Dead

Christian Sellers — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 22:34:21 +0000

Spain is hardly renowned for its classic horror. Whilst Jorge Grau’s zombie classic Non si deve profanare il sonno dei morti (The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue) had achieved critical acclaim and Jesus Franco gained a cult following, its horror scene had always been eclipsed by the more successful and prolific Italian film industry. One Spanish filmmaker who would be renowned for producing atmospheric and stylish horror movies was Amando de Ossorio (who passed away in 2001), whose breakthrough feature, 1971’s La noche del terror ciego (Tombs of the Blind Dead) gave the zombie genre a unique spin. Inspired by the legend of the Knights Templar (who had existed during the Crusades and had been tried on charges of heresy), resurrected skeletons of soldiers from the Dark Ages who, due to lack of sight, hunt their prey by sound. The movie became an unexpected success overseas, prompting de Ossorio to rush a sequel, El ataque de los muertos sin ojos (Return of the Blind Dead), into production.

Centuries ago, the Knights Templar had been found guilty of devil worship and were sentenced to death by a lynch mob, who burn out their eyes before executing them. Vowing to one day claim revenge, hundreds of years go by until Murdo (José Canalejas), a creepy Dwight Fry-style villager, murders a young woman and offers her as sacrifice to the knights. Their resurrection coincides with the six hundredth anniversary of their punishment and the village is in full celebration. Assisting with the fireworks display for the party is Jack, who has returned to town years after having an affair with one of the residents, the fiancée of the mayor (Fernando Sancho). Having to put their differences aside, Jack (Tony Kendall) leads the locals in a fight against the blind dead, barricading themselves inside a church as the knights search for a way in.

de Ossorio’s Blind Dead series put a fresh new spin on the zombie formula: just three years after Romero had brought the dead out of European folklore and into modern day, Tombs of the Blind Dead and its sequels took the genre in a new direction. Avoiding excessive gore or nudity and instead relying on good old fashioned atmosphere and scare tactics, Return of the Blind Dead (later renamed Return of the Evil Dead as an attempt by the distributors to capitalize on the success of Sam Raimi’s cult hit) slowly builds the tension whilst paying considerable attention to the characters. Feeling like a cross between a Sergio Leone spaghetti western and a Hammer picture, de Ossorio was clearly a talented and unique filmmaker.

Italian star Kendall (who had previously appeared in Mario Bava’s classic La frusta e il corpo/The Whip and the Body) makes an entertaining antihero, clearly as preoccupied with winning the affections of his old flame as saving the villagers. With the zombie genre predominantly produced in America or Italy, de Ossorio seemed to add something new to the mix and the results were very effective. Whilst Tombs of the Blind Dead is the more acclaimed of the series, Return of the Blind Dead is the far superior: with well drawn characters and tense set pieces, particularly during the final act when those who attempt to silently escape the church are ambushed by the knights.

With the living dead not being traditional zombies, in that they do not devour their victims or tear them to pieces, the movie is less gruesome that many of its contemporaries. The opening sequence, in which the knights are tortured and executed, is suitably grizzly, but the majority of the running time is relatively blood-free. The special effects themselves were created by de Ossorio, who would repeat the duty for 1975’s La noche de las gaviotas (The Night of the Sea Gulls), the fourth of the Blind Dead franchise. Miguel Fernández Mila, meanwhile, managed to create a sense of forbidding within the town with his stunning cinematography, which proved to be one of the movie’s greatest assets.

Return of the Living Dead works at its best during the tense moments when a character desperately tries to sneak through the knights as they stand guard, who are unable to see their prey and are forced to act on sound. One inspired moment saw them using one victim as bait, forcing the others to leave their hiding places in order to save them, allowing the knights to spring their trap. With both de Ossorio and Jorge Grau producing such inventive and effective zombie films during the 1970s, it is a shame that Spain were not responsible for more, as if this is anything to go on they could have given Italy a run for their money. One of the best zombie movies of the decade and most certainly a lost classic.

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