Zombos' Closet of Horror

The Book of Eli (2010): Grindhouse Meets Dogma

ZC Rating 4 of 7: Very Good

Grindhouse determinism and dogma meld into a spiritual and violent road trip in The Book of Eli. Denzel Washington is Eli, and the book he carries on his journey westward--or thereabouts for thirty years--is desired by Carnegie (Gary Oldman), who has been searching for it for probably just as long. Their struggle over possession of the book provides the movie's grindhouse-styled bedlam, but the movie transcends blatant exploitative elements by substituting faith, destiny, and the passion of the Gibson's Mad Max sense of purpose when surrounded by despair for the more lurid and gratuitous action of pure exploitation.

Eli's arm-length knife, one that would make Crocodile Dundee wet his pants, is exploited for all its heft. Worth more than a flaming sword, Eli wields it with uncanny precision; even, it seems, as if the blade moves before he does. He carries the book, his knife, a dingy iPod connected to a large battery, and a prayer down a near-endless road stretching off into the distance under a cloudy sky. All around him is bleak terrain, desolation, and post-apocalyptic wreckage of people and artifacts. The human wreckage is the most dangerous. His only purpose is to keep moving westward and keep the book safe, but Carnegie and the occasional gang looking for their next meal interfere. He says "we don't have to do this" just before he does, and what he does with that blade is fast and lethal.

Dragged to Hell With KNB EFX

Written by Scott Essman

When directors hit box-office gold, it is common knowledge that they can make whatever they wish for a followup film. For Sam Raimi, coming off of three Spider-Man films which all rank in the top 50 domestic box office grossers of all time, he could have made virtually any film he could conjure as his next cinematic venture. But, what did the director of such cult classics as Within the Woods (1978), The Evil Dead (1981), Evil Dead II (1987), and Darkman (1990), decide to do after exiting the world of Spider-Man? One only need look at the opening animated Universal logo to determine Raimi’s intentions: the director chose a pre-1997 Universal opening to set the stage of this film: we were going on a journey that would be a throwback to the time when Raimi was a cult director, still largely undiscovered by the Hollywood mainstream.

For horror enthusiasts, when you think of Raimi’s early work, you recall shaky but taut camera moves, a mélange of harsh sound and light, intensified performances, and unsubtle moments of discovery and revelation. You simultaneously remember the outrageous often guttural practical makeup effects in those films: Evil Dead featured buckets of blood while the sequel was somewhat refined if still surreal in its over-the-top portrayal of horror as a genre that was being infused with new post-slasher film blood, built on the heels of the successes of the original Halloween, Dawn of the Dead, Friday the 13^th, and other instrumental films in the genre.

Enter into this world a name that goes hand-in-hand with horror over the past decades that Raimi has been active in reinventing the genre. “If you’ve seen a horror movie in the last 15 years, they did it,” said special ‘horror’ makeup effects legend Tom Savini of the KNB EFX Group, a makeup effects and creature shop lead by Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger, and co-founded by ex-member Robert Kurtzman in 1988.

Jennifer's Body (2009)

I need you frightened. I need you hopeless. (Jennifer in Jennifer's Body.)

Rating 5 of 7: Excellent

With Diablo Cody's pop, slang-twang dialog peppering the lines of Jennifer's Body, imparting a CW slickness to this story of girlfriends, boyfriends, and evil that is not just high school evil, looks can be deceiving. It is a blend of dark humor involving the gray relationship between the desirable Jennifer and her groupie-like friend since childhood, the desirous Needy Lesnicky, and witty, supernatural gore that revisits and updates 1980's teen horror movie angst with tongue in cheek playfulness and a knowing nod. Not that this movie is all pom-pom kicks and giggles: Cody's dialog goes down like spooned sugar with Castor oil, her adults are few and out of touch, and her characters are lost, nearly found, then lost again. The ugly demon inhabiting Jennifer's beautiful body is the only one not lost, or uncertain, or confused, or lusting after fame, fortune, love, or identity. Demons are always so damned self-assured.

Killer Klowns From Outer Space (1988)

Part Three of The Shudderites Attack
(Read Part Two)

Things are looking grim for our heroes at the mansion. Steve Brown, Zombos and Chef Machiavelli are desperately trying to hold off the Shudderites and their vile, but playful, pets at the pantry door. But can they be stopped? Will Chef Machiavelli ever be able to prepare the evening meal, or will Zombos be shaked and baked instead? Looks like another takeout night at the mansion.

"Mr. Zoc! Mr. Zoc!" cried Glenor Glenda the maid, running down the hall from the pantry.

"I'm rather busy blogging," I told her.

"But you must come at once! Mr. Zombos is taken by those nasty creatures, and Steve Brown is lying unconscious by the pantry door."

"Where's Chef Machiavelli?" I yelled back.

"I don't know."

Great, I thought, definitely a takeout night. Must I do everything around here? I am, after all, only the valet. I pushed aside my laptop. Killer Klowns From Outer Space would have to wait until I attended to this annoying 8th Dimension incursion into the mansion. As I hustled down the hall, I stopped briefly to pick up a nice Narsil-looking sword and hefty battle-axe from one of the medieval suits of armour that line the east hallway leading to the kitchen.

I found Steve Brown lying unconscious on the kitchen floor. "Fetch some Scotch whiskey, if you please," I told Glenor. "Make it snappy."

She quickly returned with a bottle. "Have you no sense of decency, woman?" I told her, seeing she brought the wrong bottle. "Not the vatted malt! Bring back the Royal Brackla. The man is unconscious you know. I mean really."

House on Haunted Hill (1959)

Filmed in "Emergo". An inflatable skeleton attached to a wire floated over the audience during the final moments of some showings of the film to parallel the action on the screen when a skeleton arose from a vat of acid and pursued the villainous wife of Vincent Price. The gimmick did not always instill fright; sometimes the skeleton became a target for some audience members who hurled candy boxes, soda cups or any other objects at hand at the laughable fake skeleton.
--Wikipedia entry on William Castle and his gimmicks

ZC Rating 4 of 7: Very Good

In his book, Step Right Up! I'm Gonna Scare the Pants Off America, William Castle describes his chance meeting with a depressed Vincent Price in a coffee shop on a rainy evening. Price, melancholy over losing out on an important picture earlier that day, listens to Castle's pitch on the role of the scheming millionaire, Frederick Loren, out to murder his wife.

"Sounds interesting," he said. "Go on."

"During the night, many strange ghostly things happen...blood dripping from the ceiling...walls shaking...apparitions appearing. The millionaire--the part I want you to play--has plotted to kill his wife. She plots to kill you...It's a battle of wits."

Price smiled. "Who wins?"

"You do, of course. She tries to throw you in a vat of boiling acid."

Price's eyes gleamed. "How charming!...I think I'll have another piece of pie."

Castle sums up by saying "the deal was made on the second piece of pie that same rainy night."

Silent Hill (2006): Dear Mr. Ebert

ZC Rating 3 of 7: Good

Dear Mr. Ebert,

I am aghast that you, as mentioned in your review for Silent Hill, cannot describe the plot for this movie. I, as you, have not played the video game, but even so, I think the plot woefully obvious. Allow me to illustrate it, with as much brevity as possible, so you can better appreciate the nuances of this story.

But before I begin, I was wondering what you use for a light source when you take notes during the movie? I've tried various book-lights and pen-lights, but they're either too bright, usually annoying those sitting around me, or too awkward to position or uncomfortable to hold for long periods of time. I was lucky with Silent Hill, as there was an Exit sign which cast just enough reddish light for me to see what I was writing. Of course, I had to sit on the floor next to it, but it wasn't too uncomfortable, except for the occasional person stepping over me to go to the bathroom or concession stand. It's a good thing I don't review Disney films, as I'd have had the little monsters and their rude parents incessantly running back and forth, trampling me.

Re-Animator 1985

After posting Peter Hyoguchi's interview link, I realized I hadn't brought my Re-Animator review over from my old Blogger site. So...here it is for your edification pleasure. By the way, I updated the Summer Camp link for 2007's film listing.

Summer Camp has started at the Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington, Long Island. Every Saturday, beginning at 11pm, and running well into August, a double-bill of classic horror treats is presented on the big screen. And the Cinema Arts Centre is the only theater I know of that actually pops its own organic popcorn! Horror and freshly popped organic popcorn, smothered in butter and salt; how much more sinful can you get? Kicking off this summer of terror is Re-Animator and Return of the Living Dead III, both gloriously uncut.

Re-Animator with Jeffrey Combs--one of my favorite horror and sci-fi actors by the way--is a superb onscreen realization of H.P. Lovecraft's Herbert West: Reanimator series of short stories.

Stuart Gordon directs this gory-to-absurdity film with one body part humor and multiple body parts 'Theater of the Grotesque.' Comb's exuberance and intensity as Herbert West is a perfect melding of histrionics and gleeful, devil may care, hubris. Add Richard Band's driving, Bernard Herrmanesque score with its incessant and forceful strings and sardonically playful cat and mouse orchestrations, and what you have is a treat that most any horrorhead would die for, along with the organic, freshly-popped popcorn drowning in real butter and salt.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)

ZC Rating 5 of 7: Excellent

Yo ho yo ho, it's the pirates life for me! Crack open the rum, and butter me bum,this sure is a fine film. Before I drag my dead man's hairy chest to the office after spending the night watching me boy Jack Sparrow shiver his timbers, I want to put a few comments to digital paper for you landlubbers.

This summer movie sizzles! It has everything a good swashbuckling movie should have. It's a treasure chest full of pulse-pounding adventure and more; and more includes beautiful bonnie lasses, handsome men, rigorous swordplay, dastardly scoundrels, flogging, a scintillating score, and thar be monsters aplenty. Aye, mateys, monsters! From the legendary Kraken to old squidhead himself, Davy Jones, and his barnacle and mollusk-encrusted crew of the damned, they will take your breadth away through the clever and seamless use of CGI, makeup, and damn fine acting.

And sloshing his way through it all, from ship to island, is rum-soaked Jack Sparrow—oh, sorry, Captain Jack Sparrow. Just as he escapes from a nasty prison that features eye-plucking crows and very uncomfortable accommodations (wonder if they will add that to the Disney ride?), Bootstrap Bill comes calling with an untimely message from Davy Jones. Seems Jack made a bargain with the sea-devil many years ago, and his time's run through. But always-conniving Jack brokers an interim deal, involving 99 souls, or so it would seem, to take his place aboard the Flying Dutchman, and he soon embroils Will Turner and Elizabeth in his little gambit with his impending eternal date with destiny. But Jack, Will and Elizabeth have their own agendas, and each go their separate ways until their paths cross a wee bit amidships, right about when we find them in Tortuga.

The Flesh Eaters (1964): The First Gore Film?

ZC Rating 3 of 7: Good (but just barely)

Back in 1964, The Evil of Frankenstein, 2000 Maniacs, and Black Sabbath flickered across theater screens, as well as other notable horror movies. Then there's The Flesh Eaters; a B-Movie that, while not very good, is not all that bad. Written by Arnold Drake and directed by Jack Curtis, it combines pulp-dialog with a minuscule budget  confining action to a small tent, a Long Island beach, and a few over the top characters.

With it's neo-Nazi marine biologist, Professor Bartell, played with malicious glee by Martin Kosleck (I doubt he could play any other type), an All-American pilot named Grant Murdoch (Byron Sanders) who keeps taking his shirt off, Omar the beatnik (Ray Tudor), and glowing parasitic flesh-eating nasties stripping flesh from bone faster than you can yell that's gonna hurt!, the movie is a fast and fairly fun 87 minutes. It's also touted as being the first gore film by some reviewers, though that's debatable.

It opens with two frolicsome young people going for a dip, only the dip goes for them and they wind up picked clean down to the bone. Cut to the big city and Laura Winters (Rita Morley), movie starlet and lush, who, along with her comely assistant Jan (Barbara Wilson) , needs a quick flight to Provincetown for one of her few acting gigs.

Zen and the Art of Ghost Rider (2007)

ZC Rating 3 of 7: Good

"Why's he staring at you like that?" Lea Persig asked. Her raven-black hair moved softly in the light breeze coming off the water. As our perky garage mechanic, she keeps the numerous vehicles Zombos never rides in tip-top shape. She turned again to look at Zombos sitting on the veranda, sipping his coffee and glaring at us.

"Oh, that's his Penance Stare. He's just sore that I went to see Ghost Rider while he had to take Junior to see Bridge to Tilapia, or whatever it's called," I said.

"That's Bridge to Terabithia, you goof," she laughed. She has such a wonderful laugh.  "Tilapia's a fish."

"Whatever."

"What's the Penance Stare?"

"That's the Ghost Rider's main weapon against evil-doers. He forces you to look deep into his empty eye-sockets and soon you feel all the pain and suffering you inflicted on others." I smiled and waved at Zombos. He glared more intensely, took a sip of coffee, and glared some more. I still didn't feel any pain.

"So what did you think of the movie?" she asked as I handed her another wrench. She was working on the 1960 Harley-Davidson Glide motorcycle to smooth out the ride. "I mean, was it any good?"

"Any good is a broad range that can cover a lot," I said. "I would easily say there is some good in it."

"Like what?" She wiped the grease mark from her pale cheek with the handkerchief she always carried in a back pocket, and took a breather.

"For one thing, the story is a nice departure from the usual slasher and cannibalistic-serial-killer or psycho-mutants-among-us storylines coming out of Hollywood these days. It's always nice to see a return to the more supernatural underpinnings that modern horror grew from. A good good-versus-evil story can be inspiring."

"Was it inspiring then?" she asked, putting her handkerchief away.

"Well...no. Unfortunately it was not inspiring. The film lacks emotional punch."