From Zombos' Closet

Movie Review: Zombie's Halloween II (2009)

Zombos Says: Very Good

I did not expect Rob Zombie to surprise me with Halloween II. Beyond his unavoidably repetitious metal-rockers, hippie-hillbillies, and tattoo-punkstering of Laurie Strode and Haddonfield Illinois' social set, miring Halloween II in a seedy glaze of grunge, strip joints, and Alice Cooper and Frank Zappa posters, he surprised me.

Probably many horror fans are surprised, too, and will be dismayed or downright violently annoyed with this bold mashing of J-horror's quintessential rage-filled imagery into Myers' endless angst-driven slashing ouevre.

In this brilliantly audacious diversion from John Carpenter's classic bogeyman, Michael Myers (the towering Tyler Mane) becomes a deadly juggernaut guided by a mysterious other embodied in the white gossamer spectre of his dead mother and her majestic white stallion. But to what purpose? Is she a vision of Shiva the Destroyer? Or is she a demonic chaos seeking succor? Or is she simply a confabulation in Myers' tortured mind? Zombie builds mystery by confounding us with this and an unexpected folly a deux between Myers and his sister, which now takes the Halloween franchise into a strikingly new direction.

My surprise comes from how Zombie's bizarre imagery grates against my expectations (and probably those of most of the audience): a mad-hatter's kind of tea party in Hell; Myers' adult skeleton--its skull wearing his scarecrow-like mask--eerily hanging in the background as young Michael and spectral mommy chat about the future of the Myers family; and then the final jarring image that completely displaces Halloween II from its slasher underpinning by invoking the psychologically terrifying hallmarks of Samara from The Ring and The Grudge's unstoppable curse of violence. I am more than surprised: I did not think Rob Zombie capable of such creative impudence.

Teasing with a beginning that makes us believe he is comfortably rehashing the hospital mayhem from 1981's Halloween II, Zombie instead drops us off in Haddonfield a year later. Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton) now lives with long-haired--and burned-out--Sheriff Brackett (Brad Dourif) and his short-haired, more healthy-eating, daughter Annie (Danielle Harris). Laurie suffers from horrific nightmares and attends therapy sessions. She is a wreck physically and mentally, and cannot get her life--after that night Michael came home--jump-started again. Meanwhile, Dr. Loomis (Malcolm McDowell) is doing smashingly well. He is promoting his succcessful book on Myers. Zombie alternates between showing Laurie's ongoing struggle with her trauma and Loomis' unsympathetic attitude to the fallout from Myers' serial-killing as he tours the book-signing circuit. More and more, the limelight reveals Loomis' callousness in contrast to Laurie's growing despair when she cannot find forgetfulness in the shadows.

There is no suspense generated from this shifting focus between Laurie, Loomis, and Myers' continuing killing spree, even after Zombie gives Myers a shiny new knife, one Jim Bowie would be proud of, and sends him off, guided by his visions, to bring Laurie home. I wondered how all this carnage leading up to another Halloween night with Michael Myers could leave no room for suspense. I will pin it on Zombie paying greater attention to his imagery, which is wonderfully macabre and wicked and filled with malevolent long-haired spectres (although in a Zombie movie just about everyone has long hair), to the detriment of his more perfunctory treatment of Myers. He is big, he is bad, he is unstoppable; yes, we get that. Having Myers kill and eat a dog, uncooked, also seems a gratuitous gorehound moment, which Zombie seems to relish. Missing from this Halloween movie is the signiture music, which only comes into play at the end for the revelation that, ironically, changes everything. Carpenter's music would have been out of place here anyway. This is no longer Carpenter's classic vision: it is Zombie's.

There is a sad flashback involving young Michael at the sanitarium. Michael wants to know when he can go home, while we know he can never go home; making him a lost soul who will stay lost. The gift of a toy white horse figures prominently in adult Michael's visions. But the ultimate meaning and significance of those visions will have to wait until Halloween III.

Which leads me to another surprise: I never thought I would be eager to see a new Rob Zombie movie. If he directs Halloween III, I will be. Hopefully he can put the suspense back into the next one.

Halloween Table Toppers: Witch, Mummy, Vampire

I found these irresistible table toppers at Dollar Tree for one dollar each (click the image to enlarge). A bargain indeed for these fairly large and stylish paper decorations that don't play it cuddly cute, yet don't overly traumatize with terror, either.

Just look at those faces! The witch actually leers like a creepy wicked witch should for Halloween. And both the mummy and the vampire look like they want to scare the hell out of you with their ominously gaping mouths filled with sharp teeth.

While perusing the slim offerings on the shelves (this year it looks like every store is cutting back on inventory), a little girl in the next isle over--I'd say no older than five--told her mommy to hurry up because she wanted "to see Halloween."

She ran over to the display of decorations, taking in everything with glee. She seemed most fascinated by the life-size, plastic, dismembered feet dangling in pairs from the hooks. I was going to mention they were fake, since her mother seemed not to think it important enough to tell her,  but decided not to after I saw she was not frightened at all. Just mesmerized.

I am sure most of you will recall that feeling. Why spoil it?

Meet the Horror Bloggers: Evil On Two Legs

Many fans of horror, amateur and professional alike, have devoted themselves to blogging about the thrills, chills, and no-frills side of the genre as seen in cinema and print. In this ongoing series that highlights the writers behind the blogs, we meet the unique personalities and talents that make the online horror scene so engaging. Up close and personal.

In this installment, Corey at Evil On Two Legstalks about what makes his blog unique and fun to read as well as write.

I've always loved horror. My earliest memory is of the first day of pre-school and finding the 2-XL robot hidden behind the nap mats and Legos. One of the multiple choice 8-track quiz tapes dealt with vampires, werewolves and other classic monsters. I don't believe I ever put in the tapes on sports or history, but I must have played the monster one a 1000 times.

As soon as I could read I was lost in the public library searching out books on UFOs, Big Foot, the Loch Ness Monster and horror story collections like "The Headless Roommate and Other Tales" and "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark." Early exposure to the films Halloween, An American Werewolf in London and The Prowler set me up for what's become a life-long love of the horror film genre. My happiest memories of childhood involve roaming the endless horror aisles of oversized VHS boxes at Encore Video (a local mom & pop video store), looking for something that sounded scary but whose name and cover would be acceptable to my parents... and dreaming of the day when I could have my own video card and would finally be able to rent some of the titles that featured really graphic cover art and enticing names like Faces of Death, I Spit On Your Grave and Slumber Party Massacre.

Meet the Horror Bloggers: Slasher Speak

Many fans of horror, amateur and professional alike, have devoted themselves to blogging about the thrills, chills, and no-frills side of the genre as seen in cinema and print. In this ongoing series that highlights the writers behind the blogs, we meet the unique personalities and talents that make the online horror scene so engaging. Up close and personal.

In this installment, author, and League of Tana Tea Drinker's member, Vince Liaguno of Slasher Speak gives us good reason why the standards of normalcy are overrated.

Let’s get one thing out the way: I love slasher films and am unapologetic about it. There is no hanging my head or lowering my voice when someone asks me what the last film I saw was and the answer includes the words bloody or massacre and is either preceded or followed by the name of a holiday or power tool. Buckets of blood, guts, and gore…mass murder, misogyny, and madness – it’s all good.

Meet the Horror Bloggers: Paradise of Horror

Many fans of horror, amateur and professional alike, have devoted themselves to blogging about the thrills, chills, and no-frills side of the genre as seen in cinema and print. In this ongoing series that highlights the writers behind the blogs, we meet the unique personalities and talents that make the online horror scene so engaging. Up close and personal.

In this installment, Richard Peter from Paradise of Horror invites us to become castaways on his ideal isle where horror fans can get their geek on.

I have always been a huge fan of horror ever since me and my grandmother would watch Tales from the Crypt back when she got HBO for free. It was always my favorite show, but my parents would make me watch Goosebumps since it was a bit more toned down. Though, Goosebumps wasn’t scaring me the way I wanted it to, so I picked up two movies that would forever haunt me, and provided me a gateway into horror: The Thing and The Blob (1988).

With those movies burned into my skull and frightening me to no end, I had to turn it down and switch from Goosebumps to the sci-fi/horror show The X-Files. After that show I finally started watching good horror movies and it’s been history ever since.

I turned into a regular horror movie guru and now I want to be a filmmaker and movie editor.

LOTT D: Pick a Post Sensation 11

Beware! Once again, the archives have been unburied, and the hideous horrors unleashed! For your entertainment and edification pleasure, of course. Members of the League of Tana Tea Drinkers dig six feet deep to find their past misdeeds...and reveal them to you, one favorite and notable post at a time!

 

Horrors Not Dead quenches our Thirst:

Thirst is the kind of film I don’t want to say anything about. I just want to point it out, say, “Yep, this is the one”, and move on until more people have an opportunity to see it. It’s the first time all year long at a theater that I’ve felt at the mercy of a filmmaker.

Slasher Speak remembers His Name Was Jason:

Produced by Anthony Masi and Thommy Hutson and directed by Daniel Farrands, His Name Was Jason is a love letter to fans of the hockey-masked, machete-wielding Jason Voorhees and his myriad victims.

Attentiondeficitdisorderly Too Flat looks on the inhumanity in District 9 with horror:

But when you see just how bad things get, in a sequence that's like some nightmare cross between Hostel, Brazil, Starship Troopers, and (at least to me--it's something in Wikus's voice) the baseball bat scene in Casino...the audience on 34th St. gasped in horror, the couple in front of me clung to each other, and I literally fought back tears. Even though you've still got most of the movie to go before you reach the final shootouts, I think that sequence is where my patience with the explosions and derring-do at the end was earned.

Movie Review: District 9 (2009) Aliens, Apartheid, Aggression

Zombos Says: Very Good

The striking thing about District 9, the expanded version of Neill Blonkamp’s short science fiction movie Alive in Joburg, is how it reworks familiar plot elements from movies like Alien Nation, The Fly, and The Matrix, cements them together with tableaux of apartheid and Nazi-like genetic experimentation, and still gleefully gets away with blowing lots of things up with popcorn-movie zeal.

Important to both the incidental social commentary and the loud action is Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley), who makes us first dislike him for what he blindly stands for, then like him for what he learns to stand for. All of this does not make District 9 a great film, just a very good one; lying somewhere between Armond White's energetically overreaching discontent with its "sloppiest and dopiest pop cinema" substance, and Roger Ebert's ultimate disappointment that it "remains space opera and avoids the higher realms of science-fiction."

It is to District 9's credit that it dares to place more emphasis on its pop cinema approach, and less on those higher realms, to deliver pulp science fiction that, blow for blow, gets its deeper message across without preachiness or prompting moral revelation above the basic template of blood splatter, bullets, and bombs. Social commentary has all been done effectively and artistically before, frankly, to the point where it no longer really matters it be spelled out for us yet again in a movie that flows much better without it. Sometimes a movie should be just that, a movie; and not held to a higher accountability.

One aspect remaining uncluttered from higher philosophical exploration is the relationship that grows between the commonly—and somewhat derogatorily—named Van De Merwe, and the non-human alien with oddly human attributes, Christopher Johnson. When both must work together, each desperately needs something from the other, or die separately, everything else flows. It is this working together against an aggression now directed at both of them that District 9 manages to convey its social commentary in an entertainingly lively way.

Like 1988's Alien Nation, whose Newcomers were stranded in Los Angeles, the derogatorily named Prawns are stranded in Johannesburg, South Africa. But where the more human-looking Newcomers were assimilating, albeit slowly, into human society, after twenty years of not integrating well with the native population (they are mug-ugly and have seriously bad hygiene issues), the Prawns are herded into District 9, a government camp turned slum, where they are exploited by Nigerian gangsters who sell them cat food for technology, and quietly experimented on by the MNU; a privately-run defense and security contractor looking to harness alien technology and weaponry. But alien technology requires alien DNA to work, thus rendering their weapons useless to humans. Van De Merwe, through his clumsiness, provides MNU with the solution.

That solution is to harvest Van De Merwe's changing genetic material. All of it. After exposure to the alien ship's fuel source during a forced relocation of the Prawns, he begins changing into one. The transformation he goes through is similar to Jeff Goldblum's transformation from man to insect in 1986's The Fly, loose teeth-pulling, changing limbs, and fear included.

Fighting capture from the MNU, Van De Merwe is captured by the Nigerian gang. A black market has sprung up between the Prawns and the Nigerians, trading technology for cat food, which the Prawns love to eat. The gang's leader figures he can power the alien technology if he eats Van De Merwe's alien-mutated arm. At this point, the only person who does not want a piece of him is his wife, who has been led to believe his transformation results from having sex with a female Prawn, as preposterous as that may sound given their physical attributes.

All this explosive aggression culminates in Van De Merwe donning an Iron Man and The Matrix-styled exo-suit. Strangely, although the techno-suit is designed for an alien whose body is clearly non-human, the technology fits him like a glove. The Nigerian gang, MNU force, and Van De Merwe duke it out as Christopher Johnson tries to return to the mother ship, providing much opportunity for gory body explosions, vibrant vehicle explosions, and shrapnel-flying bomb explosions.

The movie unfolds after the events have taken place, using interviews and news footage mixed in with shown-in-the-moment situations; not shaky-cam, not cinema verite, but a smattering of the two, handled in such a way as to keep up the momentum for tension-building. Interestingly, critics have spent more time on its shallow apartheid and sociological underpinnings, and not enough on the movie's more interesting mechanics.

Moving between third-party retrospections on Van De Merwe's behavior and showing his panic brought about by his predicament, along with those pop cinema trashy explosive situations, Blonkamp and Terry Tatchell (co-screenplay) accomplish something unique: Van De Merwe's pain and hopelessness, even the Prawn's exploited and hopeless situation, in spite of their complete alienness, becomes personal and realistic for us, even through its science-fiction artificiality.

Fans of Stargate SG-1 will recall the need for alien DNA to power ancient alien weaponry in order to save earth from the Goa'uld. I wonder if Blonkamp is a fan of that television series?

Meet the Horror Bloggers: Gospel of the Living Dead

Many fans of horror, amateur and professional alike, have devoted themselves to blogging about the thrills, chills, and no-frills side of the genre as seen in cinema and print. In this ongoing series that highlights the writers behind the blogs, we meet the unique personalities and talents that make the online horror scene so engaging. Up close and personal.

In this installment, author and horror blogger Kim Paffenroth of Gospel of the Living Dead talks about zombies and religion, and how the two meet to provide enlightening revelation.

I think, like many people, my first interest in horror goes back to adolescence, when I was fascinated with some horror movies (especially Romero's zombies), and with some written expressions of horror (especially Lovecraft). I thought gross, bleeding, oozing things were cool. I think it's pretty typical at that age. Then my mother died a slow, lingering death from cancer, and that made my interest a little less "cool" and a lot more brooding and sullen. I put some of my feelings into bad fiction writing and bad poetry at that age, I suppose as a kind of catharsis or self-therapy. It worked, for what it was, I guess.

But when I went off to college, that phase just stopped. It didn't trail off, it just stopped the day I got off the bus in front of Campbell Hall. Something about the place (St John's College, Annapolis, MD) just awed me with the ideas of dead guys who knew so much more than I did; I should stop and read every word I could and not interrupt with my sophomoric attempts to put angst or pain or rebellion into words. (I know, I wouldn't have articulated the feeling that way at the time, but in hindsight, that's what I was feeling at all the ivy-covered walls and dusty books and rather arcane, 19th century-looking lab apparatuses.)

Bony Bunch Coffin and Skeleton Tea Light Holder

Can you smell it?

Even through this hot, sticky air of August I can smell Halloween approaching. It's even appearing here and there, in teasing bags of candy suddenly appearing on store shelves in preparation for the October rush of hungry, sweet-toothed, ghouls, and in store displays like Yankee Candle's exclusive Boney Bunch collection of candle holders.

I picked up the Coffin Tea Light Holder. It was the last one in stock. The cute Goth-looking girl in back of the counter told me it was popular. She wrapped it up for me, along with a box of black patchouli tea lights to go with it. Yes, I'm a softy when it comes to Halloween.

If you're in to Halloween and candles, check out the Boney Bunch at Yankee Candle (online or in the store).

Meet the Horror Bloggers: And Now the Screaming Starts

Many fans of horror, amateur and professional alike, have devoted themselves to blogging about the thrills, chills, and no-frills side of the genre as seen in cinema and print. In this ongoing series that highlights the writers behind the blogs, we meet the unique personalities and talents that make the online horror scene so engaging. Up close and personal.

In this installment, CRwM from And Now the Screaming Starts proves that horror fans do not need a lifetime of experience to share in the fun that comes from terror onscreen.

I'm a pretty lame horror fan. I say this because I lack the long involvement that is a hallmark of most fan bios.

I came late to the whole horror thing. Or, rather, I started out as a sort of "monster kid," fell out of love with the genre in the important teen years, and then returned after more than a decade of resistance.

It all started out classically enough. When I was a little kid, I had this pact with my pops. If I waited until my mom went to sleep, then I was unofficially approved to "sneak" out of my room and hang with him. We'd catch old monster movies on the local channel. I remember Tarantula specifically.

Meet the Horror Bloggers: Fascination With Fear

Many fans of horror, amateur and professional alike, have devoted themselves to blogging about the thrills, chills, and no-frills side of the genre as seen in cinema and print. In this ongoing series that highlights the writers behind the blogs, we meet the unique personalities and talents that make the online horror scene so engaging. Up close and personal.

In this installment, Christine Hadden of Fascination With Fear talks about her ominous Saturday night alone, and the ensuing damage it wrought. Lucky for us.

My obsession with horror came at a very young age. As a small child, my grandfather (a Methodist minister, no less) introduced me to The Wizard of Oz and Willy Wonka - both of which actually have horrifying undertones for kids. (Gene Wilder was seriously demented in that freaky psychedelic boat sequence!) To that effect, a lot of the better Disney features can be brutal as well. Exposing a child to Bambi at too young an age--and I'm telling you from experience--you'll scar them for life. My grandpap and I would also stay up late watching Bill Cardille ("Chilly Billy") on Chiller Theater (a Pittsburgh legend). My parents bought me all those crazy Disney ghost story records, I watched all the old Godzilla movies on Saturday afternoons, and, truth be told, I read every last Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew mystery, okay? After school I rushed home to watch the iconic (?) Lost In Space...so there's my sci-fi link.

I can't recall how old I was when my parents left me alone for the first time on a Saturday night to go out. Was I ten yet? I should have been but I'm really not sure. But I was forever damaged (and enchanted) after turning on a movie called The Exorcist. And what was that movie doing on regular TV, anyway? Must've been around Halloween.

LOTT D: Pick a Post Sensation 10

Beware! The game's afoot. Once again, the archives have been unburied, and the hideous horrors unleashed! For your entertainment and edification pleasure, of course.

Members of the League of Tana Tea Drinkers dig six feet deep to find their past misdeeds...and reveal them to you, one favorite and notable post at a time!

 

Classic-Horror dares to delve deeply into Blood for Dracula:

With all the revolutions in the film industry in the late 1960s and early 1970s, many of the older film monsters were starting to appear cliché, even trite. Dracula, long the enemy of Victorian standards, needed to be updated for a time when such standards had long passed. Leave it to pop artist/film producer Andy Warhol and director Paul Morrissey to do this by flipping the rules around and making Dracula the pathetic victim of permissive social mores.

Attentiondeficitdisorderly Too Flat reviews Duncan Jones's indie sci-fi thriller Moon:

I finally saw Duncan Jones's science-fiction character-piece-cum-thriller Moon, and was glad I braved the sweat-soaked journey down to the Landmark Sunshine to do so. Moon is very, very much a creature of its own influences, and owns up to this repeatedly--and wisely, I think. If you're going to do a suspense story about a man stranded in a cabin-fever outer-space environment with a soft-spoken computer for company, what's the sense of playing cat and mouse with Kubrick?