Mexican Lobby Card: Amor Y Sexo
Love and sex, Amor Y Sexo; yup, that’s horror for you. Just look at the movie scene on the card.
Frankenstein’s Army (2013)
The Dieselpunk Dead Are Alive!
Zombos Says: Good (in spite of the found footage POV inconsistencies and inaccuracies)
I was expecting a larger scale of military engagment from director Richard Raaphorst for Frankenstein’s Army, but he and his scripters (Chris W. Mitchell and Miguel Tejada-Flores) create strong dieselpunk and art house aesthetics with a haunt attraction’s worth of frenzied
creature-fest chills. Madcap amalgams of mech and flesh kill anything and everything within striking distance with their propeller heads, long drill-bit snouts, and skull crushing claws.
I wasn’t expecting the gimmicky found footage approach. Even if Raaphorst and cinematographer Bart Beekman know how to exploit it for all it’s worth with clever POV positionings and digitally mottling the “film” to show Frankenstein’s grandson Viktor’s (Karel Roden) sadistic megalomania and perverse family skills with dead body parts (or
living ones). With a Hammer-styled blood infusion of pacing and cinematography
(I’d also add a touch of Amicus) and a Hostel and Saw-liberated gory relish, and even maybe a Fulci’s sensibility for crazy deep-dish body-zombie-horror, the use of a wind up motorized handheld camera interferes as it goes well beyond what would have been possible with such technology available during World War II. Ignore the fancy but impossible use of the camera and you have an artsy-trashy Octoberfest delirium dressed with exposed
brains and sudden deaths that is compellingly and intentionally awful; don’t ignore the found footage inaccuracies and inconsistencies with the then level of technology and you are left with only an artsy-trashy misconception filled with nightmarish haunt-attraction worthy monsters doing serious body damage to anyone unlucky enough to cross paths with them.
The unlucky ones include the Russian soldiers, whose unsavory character traits are given as such to alleviate our concern over their eventual splattery dispatch, or Raaphorst is making a political statement but it’s lost in the helter skelter. In either case, cracking open the skull of one unfortunate individual–which is as upsetting to watch as it is for the poor bastard to experience–to remove a hemisphere’s worth of gray matter from his head, and then chop around the edges to make what remains fit with another person’s other brain half, is effectively over the top (or off the top, to be more precise). Watching this movie is like re-experiencing the tacky excesses of the Video Nasties from another decade, but done here with more verve for shock value to compensate for our jadedness.
And it does work to a good degree.
Horror can be most memorably terrifying and perversely exhilarating when it assaults our sense of propriety or dares to insult our intelligence with clever but contrived artifice. Frankenstein’s Army does both, which makes for great critical analysis on the one hand,
and great criticism on the other. At its center is a highly creative and well executed terror movie for those who like their horror served raw on the plate without garnish. Story elements are minimal, focusing on the Russian soldiers being filmed for propaganda and archival purposes as they travel through enemy territory to find supposed comrades held captive by the Nazis. It’s toward the end of the war and the Nazis are in retreat. Except for Viktor. He’s following Henry Ford’s assembly line process to create undead zombie robot (zombot)
soldiers: Mr. Potato Head assemblages of men, spare body parts, and whatever machinery or tools are at hand. Once assembled they roam around, killing anyone they come across. Whatever Viktor’s purpose was originally, clearly his insanity has reassembled it, too.
Slowly the Russians come across the remains of Viktor’s surgical skills. For a spring powered camera it runs for a noticeably long time without needing rewinding. Held by Dimitri (Alexander Mercury) it never falters to record everything, stretching our credulity as does every POV found footage movie since The Blair Witch Project. A failed zombot hooked up to a generator eviscerates one soldier, signaling the stalk and skewer phase of the story. Another zombot with a crushing propensity leads to a grossly funny helmet removal as more than the helmet is accidentally removed. Each zombot appearance is more outrageous than the other, and the terminal visit to Viktor’s fright-assembly factory reveals more secrets and more horrors.
Given a larger budget, grander scale of Allied military carnage, and a lighter, more mainstreamy tone shot with conventional
camerawork, Frankenstein’s Army could have won over a larger audience. But there is no nostalgia here or matinee popcorn to be served. The Andrews Sisters do not perform their musical interlude of Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, and no U.S. Commandos come to the rescue.
But the zombots and Viktor’s crazy behavior make up for what’s missing, at least for those horror fans who don’t cover their eyes when it gets messy and who aren’t enamored of subtle terrors and highbrow storylines.
Dead Before Dawn 3D (2012)
It Certainly Is
Zombos Says: Why?
Not often do words like lame, ill-considered, stupid, not funny, and waste of time come to mind when watching a movie, but they did as I watched Dead Before Dawn, a horror-numbedy from Canada that misfires on both key areas: horror and comedy. Some things really shouldn’t cross the border and this lacklustre paycheck-maker is one of them. Maybe if you had a few tokes before or during this zombie thriller manqué it would be tolerable, but you better have a BIG bong.
Horus Galloway (Christopher Lloyd) runs The Occult Barn (the Magic Box from Buffy it isn’t), which must never close during business hours (it’s not explained why), but no patrons ever visit because no one else is ever in the place except for him and the college-aged instigators (they look really REALLY much older) who will eventually upset the most demonish of demons stashed in the fragile urn capped off by a human skull. That rests on the top shelf of a rickety cabinet in plain site and without any caveat emptor or protection against slippery hands and the bumbling curious reaching for it. You want foreshadowing done with the subtlety of a sledgehammer? There you go. If that wasn’t enough, a bad dream shows us how Casper Galloway’s (Devon Bostick) father dies just holding it, after he catches Casper not heeding his warning to stay away from it. (Devon Bostick’s acting throughout appears to be heavily influenced by excessive toking, by the way. Just saying.)
Here’s the setup in a nutshell.
Horus implores Casper to man The Occult Barn’s cash register so he can receive his life-time achievement award, in person, from the supernatural occultists’ society. Casper refuses. His mom insists. And after she cuts the crusty ends off his sandwhich just the way he likes, she gets her way and he’s off to confront his fear and man the register. His college friends and the requisite make-fun-of-the-nerd frat pack show up. So does Becky (April Mullen), the girl he has a crush on. She wants to see the urn. She gets her way. They drop it.
Let the curse begin.
The one really smart ploy here (and it’s the only one in this movie so enjoy it) is how everyone starts adding in their variation of what the curse will cause to happen as Casper tries to warn them of impending doom and to please shut up. Here’s what they wind up with: the “zemons” or zombie demons will cause death by hickies, but French kissing a zemon will make it your slave; and the kicker is that anyone they look at will kill himself or herself and turn into a zemon to attack them.
Rather quickly the zemons start multiplying with inexpensive but competent gory results. It starts with a football player impaling himself with the first down marker; then cheerleaders start dropping each other on purpose; Casper’s mom takes a warm bath with a hot toaster, too. Now a zemon, she chases him out onto the street where two hillbillys—yes, that’s right, I did say HILLBILLYS—run over her in their car. One jumps out of the car with a shotgun and says not to worry, he’s carrying it because they just got back from duck hunting. And yes, that’s the height of comedy brilliance achieved in this movie.
I couldn’t tell if the actors were following the script or ad libbing, but one thing I can say with certainty: if they were sticking to writer Tim Doiron’s script they should have ad libbed instead; but if they were ad libbing, they should have stuck to his script instead.
Horus returns to The Occult Barn in time to brain himself with his own award after they look at him, but before he goes all zemon-like, he manages to, cryptically of course, and with much hamming on wry, hint at how to reverse the spell. Like a Goosebumps episode that was written by 500 babboons locked in a stuffy room with iPads and only one charger, Casper with his rolling pin, Becky with her crossbow, and their freaked-out companions armed with lesser weapons, pile into a Winnebago to find the ingredients needed to seal the demon back up and stop the curse. Winnebagos are all the rage for zombie-related trips after one was used in Diary of the Living Dead.
So many wonderfully terrifying and funny horror movies have crossed the border from Canada: Black Christmas, The Gate, The Changeling, and PontyPool; just to name a few.
This movie isn’t one of them.
Cockneys vs Zombies (2012)
Guns and Gory
Zombos Says: Good
Sometimes a zombie movie is just a zombie movie. It’s at those times that a zombie movie can be most entertaining, too. There are no metaphysical inflections, no religious thought-munchies, no ulterior sociological or political motives to be plumbed, or character digressions to be dissected in Cockneys vs Zombies; just a lot of hot and heavy guns, grenades, fiesty old people, motley younger people, and lots of ravenous zombies to mix it up with, which director Matthias Hoene does with lively gore and cheeky zest and lots of ammo. The heavy weaponry and unlimited ammo supply is provided by Mickey (Ashley Bashy Thomas), the metal-plate-in-his-head, sanity-challenged, neighborhood thug who keeps his stash in a cargo container. A large cargo container.
The zombie menace begins when an East London construction crew unearths an underground vault. On the stone door is written “sealed by the order of King Charles II.” They open it. Among the hundreds of skulls and skeletons and rats are a few lively corpses. Let the bloody mayhem begin.
As the outbreak spreads, two brothers (Harry Treadaway and Rasmus Hardiker), unaware of the growing menace (and in general, not very aware of their future prospects whatsoever) want the local bank to chip in to help save their grandad’s (Alan Ford) nursing home, the Bow Bells Care Home. They enlist the aid of Davey (Jack Doolan), a not so good alarm tech specialist who gets caught a lot: Katy (Michelle Ryan), a looker added primarily added to the script so we would keep looking (especially when she carries her handgun in her butt-crack); and Mickey, who we already know is bonkers, but still well-equipped with the hardware needed to heist the bank. What could go wrong?
It all goes wrong as the zombies close in and the gang that shouldn’t rob banks and the old folks at the home (Honor Blackman among them) need to survive the onslaught. And try to wake up Hamish, who’s hard of hearing and sleeping in the back yard that is filling up with zombies. The brothers have guns, the old folks have walkers. This is possibly the first time in a zombie movie we learn who is faster: an old man in a walker or the shambling George Romero-styled zombie chasing him.
Moving back and forth between the dire predicaments both brothers and the Bow Bells Care Home occupants find themselves in, the script isn’t as witty as Shaun of the Dead or Zombie Land, but is as much fun to watch. The make up effects lean toward wet and messy, with a little CGI added to punctuate head removals, close proximity gun blasts to appendages, and de rigueur intestinal slurpages. In dispatching one zombie chomping down on a fresh forearm, a shotgun blast to the zombie’s face leaves its lower part still firmly attached to the victim’s arm; for a long while, which is gross but funny, and that’s par for the tone of the effects.
The brothers eventually figure out how to rescue the old folks trapped in Bow Bells, but wheelchairs and walkers are a burden. Lucky the zombies are slower than the old people. But there are still a lot of them. And a lot of guns to go around. And a very sharp Samurai sword to swing for a bloody good time.
Mexican Lobby Card:
Blood of Dracula’s Castle (1969)
Here's the Mexican lobby card for Blood of Dracula's Castle with John Carradine. The art reminds me of the lurid and garish tableaus painted across the old buildings housing spook show rides.
Movie Pressbook: The Mad Magician (1954)
The Mad Magician was shown in both 2-D and 3-D screenings. Here’s the pressbook for the 2-D theaters.
The Lone Ranger (2013)
No Happy Trails for You Here
Zombos Says: Where have all the heroes gone?
Finally, there’s one glorious moment where the Lone Ranger gallops across the town’s rooftops on his white horse, Silver, as the rousing William Tell overture kicks in. One moment. It’s exciting, thrilling, and fleeting, except for the loud soundtrack, which continues well past its purpose.
I don’t understand Hollywood’s creative-mangling; its keenness for techno-virtuosity and loud breakage, and deaf ear for a logically plotted and dramatically characterized narrative to carry it. All these sound and fury moments have become repetitious and only pander to audiences gorged on sugar but who have forgotten what sweet really tastes like. How ironic is it that as the movies get BIGGER, they play smaller.
Two misguided moments have Tonto first taking a shovel to John Reid’s head for a cheap chuckle–he’s the future Lone Ranger, played by Armie Hammer–and then dragging his head through road apples for another kiddie-quality grin. I’m dumbfounded. I don’t know why this script etiquette of writing antagonistic relationships between buddy-characters who actually got along swimmingly in their original incarnations is now always part of Hollywood’s re-imagining process. It undermines the intrinsic nature of why the original series works. The abysmal Wild Wild West remake with Will Smith and Kevin Kline is another sad example of this lazy scripting staple. Note to Hollywood: maybe try finding comedy through the characters and not artificially by dumbing them down with rehashed pratfall situations and trumped up relationships in EVERY movie.
By now you should get a good sense of how much I feel this movie fails its promise. I’ll go a step further and even say it stinks. I realize “stinks” is not a Pulitzer Prize worthy word for a reviewer to use, but it best sums up the failure of yet another expensive franchise reboot that deserves better than Gore Verbinski’s beautifully directed but gaseous, blockbuster-less, movie.
Its failed ideas include another brothel-madame-with-a-quirky-twist–Helena Bonham Carter doing her standard weird woman role accompanied by an ivory leg holding an amazingly accurate shotgun; then there’s a varmint (William Fichtner) who likes to eat people’s hearts raw; then there are his evil but comedic henchmen, a la Pirates of the Caribbean, with feminine dress-up habits and especially grimy appearances; and, of course, there’s Johnny Depp’s Tonto providing his patented greasepaint antics like wearing a bird cage on his head, or feeding his dead-bird-hat, or speaking to a horse that likes to sit in trees and transcend gravity at opportune moments when that ability is most needed for the action.
And that action isn’t bad, just pointless because it’s devoid of any emotional punch when every character is written as fiberboard instead of oak, and consigned to doing familiar shticks in a strikingly colorless frontier. This story is cynical when it needs to be sincere, and Tonto and the Lone Ranger are caricatures when they need to be heroes. The U.S. Cavalry is present to fire off their Gatling Guns. Native Americans are present to be massacred by those guns. The power-hungry railroad tycoon wannabe (Tom Wilkinson) is here to be overbearingly power-hungry, although Wilkinson does have a knack for such dastardly roles.
Perhaps this movie didn’t start out poorly? Perhaps the “memos” mori and apparent overhanding rewrites pounded the original story’s whole grain into mush? When John Reid holds up John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government as his bible you get the sense this young and idealistic, newly minted, attorney is in for a letdown, forcing him to become the legendary masked lawman to realize the justice he seeks. The letdown comes, but it’s buried under a ton of screeching metal and loose storylines that don’t fortify his transformation. When Tonto’s bizarre behavior is explained by a compelling backstory, it comes at a time we can’t appreciate it; it’s lost in the loud bangs and rush to blow things up with lots of dynamite.
And the biggest letdown is for us, the fans of the Western and Cowboy genres. That’s Western, as in not the Caribbean.