Zombos' Closet

Ugly Americans Halloween Contest Giveaway

Because Zombos' Closet cares that we all get along...with another contest!

Leave a comment by October 7th to enter or be square! Winner will be notified by email! Comment on Ugly Americans (the animated show, that is) or anything related to freaky fun animation! And hurry before I run out of exclamation marks!

Calling All Ghouls, Freaks, and Monsters – This means YOU!
Win a copy of Ugly Americans: Volume 1!

Ugly Americans: Volume One will be released by COMEDY CENTRAL Home Entertainment and Paramount Home Entertainment on Tuesday, October 5. Every release includes an official publication from the Department of Integration, plus a horrifying selection of special features:

• Gruesome Original Webisode!
• A Terrifying Animatic Sneak Peak!
• Bloodcurdling Audio Commentary with David Stern, Devin Clark and Dan Powell!
• Ghastly Art Galleries!

And tune in to Comedy Central for new Episodes of Ugly Americans starting October 6^th.

"Take New York City, add every horrifying beast, science-fiction freak, and fantasy faerie, shake thoroughly, and you've got Ugly Americans. This animated horror-comedy series follows one Mark Lilly, social worker at the Department of Integration, as he helps new citizens both human and "other" adapt to hectic life in the Big Apple. 

"There are easier tasks than weaning vampires off blood, socializing land-whales and housebreaking werewolves, but Mark is up to the challenge.  Between his stressful job, a zombie roommate and a demon girlfriend, Mark’s lucky if he can sneak in a few minutes of sleep. But who can sleep when there's a drop-dead gorgeous Mermaid sitting at the bar?"

Ugly Americans	Weds 10:30pm / 9:30c
The Demon Chick
www.comedycentral.com
Department of Integration Field Guide Follow the Show on Twitter

Coraline (2009) Sweet Without Sugar

ZC Rating 5 of 7: Excellent 

The cat dropped the rat between its two front paws. "There are those," it said with a sigh, in tones as smooth as oiled silk, "who have suggested that the tendency of a cat to play with its prey is a merciful one--after all, it permits the occasional funny little running snack to escape, from time to time. How often does your dinner get to escape?" (Neil Gaiman in the novel Coraline)

 

Right after seeing Coraline, an urge to read the novel drove me straight to the bookstore. I needed to know more of Neil Gaiman's tale of Coraline Jones and the bizarre neighbors and ancient wickedness living in her new home. I needed to know how much of the literary story was captured in Henry Selick's stop-motion animated screenplay. With a dad-playing piano, glowing flowers and snapdragons that really snapped, and a peculiar room where giant bugs are the furniture, I was curious. Gaiman might be that odd individual with sleeping dust in his side-pockets, a razor-sharp, barely chipped axe in his hip pocket, and a candle flame floating to and fro behind his eyes, but the visual tone of Coraline, the movie, is dark but strikingly peppered with color, making it festive and morose and desolate and cheerful all at once. There is no brave little mouse, no fumbling robots, no dancing zoo animals to liven up culturally proscribed moral lessons because there are no moral lessons. Coraline, without the usual spoonful of sugary-animated, paternally medicinal Hollywood characters, is a Halloween treat in February that goes down smashingly well without the sweetness.

Monster House in 3D (2006) Monstrous But No Fun

Rating 2 of 7: Fair

Monster House is a disappointment.

It seems like a natural Halloween treat; take the decrepit old "haunted" house every small town has, toss in the decrepit, loony old hermit--that every small town has--to live in the house, then play on all our childhood fears by making the house a monster that eats people, gobbles them up when they step on the lawn or get too close. But this almost goody-bag treat quickly turns into an out-of-candy trick itching for a few eggs tossed its way. The animation lacks whimsy, charm, and style in its characters as directed by Gil Kenan. From the too-realistic, nasty Goth baby-sitter with the dull-witted, drugged-out boyfriend, Bones, to the fat kid sidekick, Chowder, the tone of the story is humorless and the dialog lacks wit. Instead of naive, carefree chat between friends, we listen to recycled potty jokes, the highlight of which is pee in soda pop bottles. The writers apparently forgot their own childhoods when bringing Chowder, DJ and Jenny to life.

Igor (2008) Where's Dwight Frye When You Need Him?

ZC Rating 2 of 7: Fair

The most clever artifice in Igor is the name of the country the title character lives and works in--Malaria. That is as clever as it gets in Anthony Leondis's animated movie about a mad scientist's assistant who wants more out of life; to create it, mostly, like any self-respecting mad scientist craves to do.

Missing from this fairy tale of endlessly dark and stormy days, laboratories in high towers crackling with electricity and maniacal laughter, and evil scientists churning out evil devices, is the defining touches that Dwight Frye brought to the role of Fritz--not Igor--the hunched back assistant in Frankenstein. Absent, too, are the refining touches that Béla Lugosi brought to Ygor--pronounced E-gor--the hunched back, broken neck lunatic and part-time assistant in Son of Frankenstein. Not even a hint of Marty Feldman's hilarious Igor--pronounced Eye-gore--another energetic, rather persnickety laboratory assistant in Young Frankenstein sparks life into this surprisingly lifeless nuts and bolts story by Chris McKenna.

Surprising because given the rich cinematic history of monsters and madmen this film should have drawn upon, we are instead given yet another reworking of what has become a clichéd theme in animated movies geared toward the younger set: disillusioned male yearns to break the mold and become something he is told he cannot be. Toss in misfit--but funny--sidekicks, add a dramatic failure or two, then end with boy making everyone see the life-altering truth he triumphantly uncovers as he achieves his dream. Along the way, make sure to depict female characters in conniving, devious, helpless, clueless, romantic, or otherwise secondary roles. Unless, of course, this is a Walt Disney movie; then just switch male and female roles: everything else still holds (at least before Pixar, anyway).

Ray Harryhausen Presents: The Pit and the Pendulum (2006)

I was sick, sick unto death, with that long agony, and when they at length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses were leaving me.

--Edgar Allen Poe, The Pit and the Pendulum

ZC Rating 4 of 7: Very Good

Having grown up on TV shows like Davey and Goliath and Gumby, stop motion animation is an enjoyable form of storytelling for me. From the simplicity and witty fun of Gumby, to the richness of design found in The Nightmare Before Christmas, the stories are often magical and the characters always imaginative. Stop motion techniques can be used with clay, puppets, and realistic-looking articulated models like Willis O'Brien's emotive King Kong or Ray Harryhausen's creepy fighting skeletons in Jason and the Argonauts.

Stop motion has been skillfully and shoddily used with many traditional and avant-garde horror and science-fiction films since around 1908, and lends itself to the short subject rather well, especially when the setting is simple, and the actions straightforward. Marc Lougee's stop motion adaptation of Poe's, The Pit and the Pendulum, is a good example of this. Poe's story is a straightforward narrative of despair, desperation, and horror. The anonymity of the villains, the delirium of the victim, and the increasingly horrific situations he confronts is ripe for a short film that captures this singular time frame of struggle against increasingly dire odds.