Atom Age Vampire (1960): a stripper, a scientist, an accident, and much mayhem ensues. The Italian horror movies of the 1960s are a hoot. This Mexican lobby card is particularly well organized, giving us a feeling of terror that rises above the level it has in the movie.
Apes and blonds are an oddity of plot dynamics in horror movies in the 1940s through 1960s. I have no expert opinion to give as to why: just accept it. Hillbillys in a Haunted House (1967) also has John Carradine, Basil Rathbone, Lon Chaney Jr., and music. Let the mirth begin. This is one of those movies you just itch like crazy to see. I have no explanation for that, either.
Zombos Says: Udderly Good
Reading Michael Logan’s novel Apocalypse Cow, I was reminded of the New Zealand movie Black Sheep. Both works of fiction are darkly humored and both don’t reach the level of wit of a Shaun of the Dead or that deadpan delivered outrageousness of a Dead Alive, but Logan’s Scottish cows contrast well with his acutely offbeat characters that fall into neat categories of meat lovers, vegetarians, and government cover-up specialists.
Terry's the abattoir worker who can't get the meaty smell off him, no matter how much Old Spice he sloshes on. He survives the cow uprising that slaughters his co-workers. Young Geldof is seriously undernourished, bullied about by the nasty twins living next door, and is forced to wear only natural plant-based clothing by his mum Fanny, the devout vegetarian. Geldof's allergic to the clothing, and both mum and dad like to doff their clothing while at home, making Geldof's home life equally uncomfortable. Fanny is an activist in search of her next diatribe and crusade against the establishment this or that, and she is vexed daily by her meat-eating neighbor David, who ate his pet hamster when his parents died suddenly, leaving him locked in his room for three days and quite famished. Geldof's dad is a pothead. He only crusades for his next high. Crusading for her big journalistic break is Lesley, who is about to be fired from her uneventful job just when the bovine zombieness breaks out.
It's the odious government villain, Brown, and his evil intention to wipe any trace of the virus that leaked out of a secret testing facility from the public's eye, that brings everyone together. And sends them on the the run from him, the infected cows, the infected rats, the infected squirrels, and then just about anything else with four legs, hooves, paws, and could be mistaken for being cute and cuddly. Logan delivers the contagion-spreading with restraint, making it hard to tell when he's being deadly serious or earnestly cheeky, but each character participates in the action enough to make each chapter a good build on the previous one as they make their escape to the Chunnel and hoped for safety in France.
While about every overly modulated wave of the modern zombie outbreak codec is chewed on and regurgitated more than a cow's cud by Logan's pen (or keyboard), he does twist up the bits here and there to curveball a surprise, overindulge on squirrels that want more than nuts, and maintain what could have been a one-note gimmick with a very short half-life into an engaging adventure with a little social finger-pointing to broil up the parody.
Dare I say it, his novel is udderly good.
Silent Night, Bloody Night (Night of the Dark Full Moon, 1972) Mexican lobby card. I'm always reminded of the Night Gallery episode with Patrick O'Neal and that spider…I hate spiders, too.
I met Patrick O'Neal at a daylong seminar given by some Guru, at some institute in upstate New York, quite some years ago. I forget much of the event. Beyond the uncomfortable sitting posture for hours on end (no chairs), the tasteless vegan lunch (lots of sprouts and green things), and me and Mr. O'Neal standing in an interminable line to get to those sprouts and green things, I've buried much of the experience deep beneath my subconscious. I was dragged to it by a friend, who was motivated to do the dragging by her friend, who liked me a lot. I wonder where they are now.
I recall Mr. O'Neal seemed as perplexed as I was, but I don't know which friend of his dragged him to the event.
Zombos Says: Very Good
You already made up your mind about this reimagining, didn’t you? If you’re a fan of the original, you’re thinking why bother? Even if you’re not a fan, you’re probably wiped out from all the bad remakes and updated takes on the tried and true, right? So you already have the notion that if Hollywood can’t think of anything new, why bother, right?
It’s easy to say this movie isn’t as good as the original The Evil Dead because it doesn’t have Bruce Campbell, but that’s not entirely true. What’s also missing is Sam Raimi’s hysterical camera that follows the demonic torture so well in the original: it tilts dangerously, it frantically moves around, and it becomes another panic-stricken character desperately trying to survive the night. Fede Alvarez can mimic those camera motions to some extent, but he never reaches the feverish pitch of frenzy in this film that assails Bruce Campbell in the last 15 minutes or so of the original.
But that was 1981. You can be nostalgic all you want for that wonderful decade of horror movies—I do fondly remember it—but this Evil Dead does have its moments, and considerably better practical makeup effects, and even more gore, vomit, and mutilations to shake up the respite in the derelict cabin
in the woods.
This backstory isn’t as much fun, though. How can you top finding a Panasonic reel to reel tape recorder in a deserted cabin’s decrepit basement, and that professor’s unusually calm voice setting events in motion by repeating all those bad words? And what about that smoky atmosphere of waiting evil, pouncing willy-nilly on each victim, produced with less production gloss and more average-looking victims, making it more effective because watching pretty people get offed isn’t all that thrilling: average people getting killed brings it closer to home for average you and average me.
Comparison nitpicking? Yes.
I even watched the original movie after seeing this one to jog my memory. When you do a remake of a horror classic it’s to be expected you’d want to watch the original to see which one’s better.
Okay, make that the first original movie: the original remake of the original movie, Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn, doesn’t count here. Although it’s called a sequel, it really is a remake, but done as a horror-comedy.
Critics and fans look for differences and similarities and fret over them. But it’s the little things that amount to whether a movie that’s based on another movie will stand or fall. So, yes, everything counts.
Now, of course Alvarez and company take bits and pieces from both the deadly serious Evil Dead and crazy-sh*t Evil Dead II, but I’ll stick to the serious movie for comparison since Fede keeps his movie serious.
For one thing, this updated script is more practical. Instead of college kids on Spring Break heading to the woods for a weekend of fun, a group of friends are set on a noble mission, to rescue the drug-sopped Mia (Jane Levy), whose brother, David (Shiloh Fernandez), has been less rescuer and more absentee, so you know he’s got guilt up the wazoo. Which is why he’s slow to realize Mia’s problem is not the drugs but a demon possession. Even when her voice gets all demon-like and her face turns to demon-veiny-and-puss face, David’s slow on the uptake.
A little too slow to sustain our credulity, but this is a horror movie, and much dramatic tension, or so some directors today believe, is garnered from an audience screaming in their minds how dumb-sh*t stupid YOU ARE DAVID! and when ARE YOU GOING to realize Mia’s not Mia but the Taker of Souls come to make you and your friend’s the devil’s bitches.
Then again, maybe it was just me thinking that.
But after all the juicy face-slicing, gallons of blood-vomit projecting, lots of dead cats hanging in the basement, the finding of an evil looking book wrapped in barbed wire and human skin, and enough demented woodcuts in it showing nasty things happening to anyone stupid enough to read the bloody damned thing, well, my mental scream sparked naturally from my credulity dial getting twirled way past the red zone.
Then David starts pulling out the duct tape to patch up the slicing and dicing and meaty chunk craters of damaged flesh in his friends and I start to wonder if Alvarez is going Three Stooges intent here, but below the radar and without the yucks, which pulls my brain right back into the story.
A gushy and stringy dismemberment or two later and David’s doing a Bruce Campbell with a bit of the chinny-ness to save Mia, creating a memorable
ending that makes this movie stand on its own and looking good for a sequel.
I think Mia’s got even more chin going for her than Campbell.
So, yes, it’s groovy.
Because fans don’t live by horror alone. Okay…this fan, anyway.
Zombos Says: Good show, old chaps!
The authors of Vintage Tomorrows: A Historian And A Futurist Journey Through Steampunk Into The Future of Technology undertake a daunting adventure: define what steampunk is and figure out what its future and its impact on technology and popular culture will be.
Along the way are lots of interviews and dinner dates with notable people. Even Timothy Leary and William Gibson are brought into this discussion as to what steampunk is all about and why it is all about these days as this question is repeatedly asked of the makers, shakers, and major scene-players.
I can rattle off the many names of the people interviewed espousing this cultish passion over steam powered technology retro-fitting, this alternative lifestyle, this role playing extravagance, this myth-making and reality-nullifying–and quickly becoming commercially viable industry–but if you're into steampunk, you already know them; if not, you'll be looking these people up anyway as you read, so go at it.
Lots of counterculture history is referenced to fortify the instigations and permutations to be found in the punkier aspects of steampunk, and numerous–almost too many–explorations into this plucky yearning for yesterdays that never were are enumerated. What drives all this coloring of techmorror into more witty and creative landscapes over the color by numbers arrangements handed to us by corporate commercialism and mass production consumerism is plumbed for all its worth. Of course, if more and more steampunk products wind up on Etsy, you could argue for those brass balance scales tipping steampunk into commercialistic imbroglio, too.
Is there a definitive what is steampunk answer to be found at the end of these pages? Not really. But once you get past the glued on goggles, the fetishistic passion for accouterments of a bygone era that itch like crazy, and the intentional and problematic lapses of historical accuracy where the evils of empire are concerned and why Victorian England isn't all it was cracked up to be, but still is imagined to be, there's a cultural chestnut here sprouting into a great oak that's mesmerizing in its read.
It's not an easy task, but some historian and futurist have got to do it. And after a few cold ones downed in the Pike Pub & Brewery, Carrott and Johnson are off and running. Be prepared to pick this book up, put it down, do a little research, than pick it up again. Maybe you know about the Beats, and the Hippies, certainly the Yuppies, and maybe what Burning Man is all about, or even what the peach fuzz whack of the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and a social movement that reached Further to an horizon that Neverwas. But if not, you will need to take a little time to identify these sights along the way of this mental expedition the authors do their best Lewis and Clark on.
And therein lies the secret of steampunk's allure: anyone can make the trip.
A courtesy copy of this book was provided for this review.