From Zombos' Closet

Movie Review: Jennifer's Body (2009)

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

Zombos Says: Excellent

With Diablo Cody's pop, slang-twang dialog peppering the lines in Jennifer's Body, imparting a youthful, social media slickness to this story of girlfriends, boyfriends, and evil that is not just high school evil, physical looks can be deceiving. It’s 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 in cinema.

Needy (Amanda Seyfried with her beauty toned down to bookworm dull) tells us how it all started, from her room in the asylum, and how she finished it (make sure you stay to watch the ending credits). Like Faith the Slayer in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series, Needy is a confused, antagonistic survivor living by the fingernails she's dug deeply into the edge of the personal cliff she's dangling from. How she gets to that point is a story that starts with her and Jennifer (Megan Fox) as best buddies "since the sandbox," and now close friends in high school.

Director Karyn Kusama (Aeon Flux) and Cody take us around the high school, Needy's thoughts and remembrances, and the blood-spouting boy-munching with an aplomb that easily shifts between somewhat serious and acerbically light. I don’t recall a recent horror movie where the hues from clothes, lighting, and surroundings are subtly blended in each scene to fortify the tone and actions as well as they do here. Die-hard horror fans will rebuff me, I am sure, for my saying this is a horror movie. But it is a horror movie; just one that tops off its deathly pallor with a light polish of black devilish fun.

Which begins when the rock band Low Shoulder comes to the town of Devil's Kettle (named after a weird waterfall-like sinkhole) to play at the local dive bar, Melody Lane. Jennifer is eager to meet the band, the band is strangely eager to meet her, and Needy asks why a band like theirs is playing a backwash, situated-in-nowhere town like the Devil's Kettle. She does not like the band's leader Nikolai Wolf (Adam Brody); he reminds her of the black twisted tree she was frightened of as a child. The band's purpose becomes clear after a fire decimates the bar and Jennifer irrationally insists on going with them in their van. They think she is a virgin because Needy told them so. Needy was mistaken. Only virgins fare well in horror movies; at least better than non-virgins on average, anyway.

When Jennifer returns later that night, she is ravenous, listless, and vomits up black, oily puke all over Needy and the kitchen floor. Needy stays up cleaning the vile mess while a beauty sleep apparently does wonders for Jennifer. She is all pink and perky the next morning and oblivious to what happened.

In a short amount of time, Low Shoulder becomes rich and famous, and Jennifer chases after the boys for a change instead of them chasing after her. Needy realizes her best friend is not herself and researches in the school's library how best to deal with her. In one of those how odd moments, Needy, the bookwormish geek, actually does research using real books instead of the Internet. I suppose book illustrations of demons are more artistically effective to dissolve through onscreen than flipping through them on a computer monitor. On average, how many times have you seen books used to research demons and such, instead of computers, in horror movies?

Needy's "hard-ass, Ford-tough, mama" is no help, and Chip (Johnny Simmons) thinks Needy is losing her grip on reality and him. The Spring Formal high school dance is coming up and Needy has to stop Jennifer from turning the boys into "Satan's chow." A brief glimpse of the loneliness you can find in one of those social dances (believe me, I know) gives way to a showdown between Needy, Jennifer, and Chip, who is close to becoming another helping of "lassagnia with teeth" for Jennifer's hunger.

The smackdown fight takes place in a decrepit, abandoned, pool house overgrown with huge vines.

There is so much style to savor in Jennifer's Body. I disagree with Roger Ebert who said there is no art here (although he did rate this movie 3 of 4 stars). Jennifer's Body has artistic touches that come from how it uses dialog, its characters, and its story to create a familiar but stylish rhythm, scored with traditional horror tropes. That it does so with a slight poke in the eye, which more serious-minded horror fans will possibly not like, should not be held against it.

Meet the Horror Bloggers: Reflections on Film and TV

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, John Kenneth Muir of Reflections on Film/TV shares his adrenaline rush with horror, writing, and blogging.

It was a Saturday in 1975, and close to Halloween. As dusk approached, my parents sat me down in front of the TV and, in particular, an episode of a new series called Space: 1999. The episode airing that night was titled “Dragon’s Domain” and it concerned a malevolent, tentacled Cyclops entrapping and devouring hapless astronauts in a Sargasso Sea of derelict spaceships. In an image I’ve never forgotten, this howling, spitting monster regurgitated the astronauts’ steaming, desiccated bones onto the spaceship deck. The episode was one part 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, and one part precursor to Alien (1979). But the direction of this five year old boy’s life was set in stone during those 50 minutes.

By the time I was in sixth grade, a viewing of Tobe Hooper’s intense The Funhouse (1981) at a girlfriend’s Friday night movie rental party – a big thing in those days -- deepened my obsession with the horror genre. The film terrified me on a level I had never before experienced (or even imagined, frankly…), but I survived it. And afterwards, I couldn’t stop thinking about the nerve-tingling experience of being really frightened by a film, or about the specific details of Hooper’s grisly narrative. I wanted to know more, to understand more, and most importantly, to talk endlessly about the experience and what it had meant to me. Many of my friends thought I was nuts. It's just a scary movie, right?

Meet the Horror Bloggers: Zombos' Closet 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, Iloz Zoc (that's me) lazily borrows heavily from previous interviews to conveniently provide excuses for my cheeky horror excesses.

I remember it all quite well.

I was old enough to hate the babysitter and young enough to play the guilt trip on my parents. So I admit I ruined their night out at the movies by sitting between them during Roger Corman's The Terror. They were married so nothing naughty would have happened anyway; except for the effect on my impressionable young mind. This was my first time at the movies, and my first experience with horror. My most vivid memory, to this day, is watching the girl melt away into bubbling goo as Jack Nicholson looks on in terror and my parents taking it all in stride, like scenes with melting girls happened every time they went to the movies. The horror bug nipped me that night.

And so it began. I loved watching Shock Theater movies on television, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Twilight Zone, and my mother--a big horror and sci fi fan--took me to the best and worst movies, like Night of the Living Dead, Dr. Phibes, and Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster. Speaking of that last movie, we actually went to see James Bond in From Russia With Love , but the theater, I don't remember why, was showing that hokey movie instead. We stayed anyway.

LOTT D: Pick a Post Sensation 14

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!

 

Slasher Speak shrinks in terror from The Invasion:

In this third retread of the 1956 sci-fi classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers (based on Jack Finney’s 1955 novel The Body Snatchers, critics and audiences will likely be caught up in the backstage brouhaha that had director Oliver Hirschbiegel’s original cut deemed “too cerebral” for studio execs, the much-ballyhooed Wachowski brothers of Matrix fame being brought in for eleventh-hour rewrites, and up-and-coming action director James McTeigue V for Vendetta adding extra action sequences to the mix.

Goblin Books shows us Dark As It Gets in short fiction:

“She collected her entire life, but acquired almost a third of them – more than a hundred – during the last two years of her marriage. Those weren’t pleasant years.”
“Where are they from?”
“All over the world. She stacked them on specially-made bookcases that line the room. You might want to prepare yourself. It’s a bit of a shock, walking in and seeing them all…”

The Uranium Cafe goes nutty for the Jekyll and Hyde comedy of Jerry Lewis's The Nutty Professor:

What many people do not realize is the body of work Lewis did behind the camera as producer, writer and director as well as a developer of technogloies still used today. One is the directors video assist system, once referred to as “Jerry’s noisy toy” that he basically invented and owns the patent to after having worked in the television medium in the 60’s. Lewis has become an object of ridicule in the last couple decades and his often crass behavior and sexist and anti-gay remarks have done little to endear him to our newer world. I don’t really care about any of that and I think he is a sadly forgotten talent.

Sorority Row (2009) Press Kit

"When five sorority sisters of Theta Pi cause the death of one of their own during a foolish prank gone wrong, they conspire to discard the evidence and never speak of the nightmare again. But when a mysterious killer targets the group a year later with a series of bizarre attacks, the women find themselves fighting for their own lives amidst the revelry of an out of control graduation party.

"Based on the original screenplay, Seven Sisters, this modern tale of revenge served icily cold echoes the original’s mix of horror and humor while creating a fresh take on terror uniquely its own."

Download Sorority Row_Pressbook

See more movie pressbooks From Zombos' Closet.

Meet the Horror Bloggers: The Moon is a Dead World

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, Ryne Barber of The Moon is a Dead World talks about his dad's involvement with his love for horror, and why the shadows on your ceiling are so important to dwell on.

You know when you’re lying in bed, looking at the shadows that a particular object is throwing off on your ceiling, and thinking up different ideas of what the shapes look like? Trying to decide what looks most similar? Attempting to define the experience that really hooked me to the horror genre is kind of like that.

Movie Review: Sorority Row (2009) Party Hardy Till You Die

Zombos Says: Very Good

What a difference a decade or two makes. In this remake and retinkering of The House on Sorority Row (1983), the overheated and nubile Theta Pi girls are non-stop partying like it's 2009; and the usually horribly-deformed-and-mentally-somewhere-beyond-Saturn stalking killer is easily a People or US magazine cover candidate. Stewart Hendler'sSorority Row is overly-sexed, overly slick and glossy, and murderously fun.

All the elements for successful slashing are here: a prank gone horribly wrong; a deep dark secret to be kept; a mysterious killer who, months later, knows the deep dark secret that apparently has not been kept very secretive. And then people start dying in creative, bloody ways with a signature weapon--in this case a pimped out lug wrench. What is different is Hendler's playfulness with an audience's expectations for the murderous mayhem, and the sincere acting from a cast that is not just eye-candy, which balances this cat and mouse game between tongue in cheek and serious terror. Carrie Fisher as the shotgun toting house mother, Mrs. Crenshaw, puts up a classy mean fight, bringing legitimacy and sophistication to the action.

Bacchanalian partying, hot tub simmering, and excessive drinking round out the sorority girls' studies. Bossed by Jessica (Leah Pipes, when the prank they play on Megan's (Audrina Patridge) cheating boyfriend, Garrett (Matt O'Leary) results in death, they hide the body down an old mine shaft. Arguments for going to the police and for not going to the police are heatedly exchanged, leaving the sisters in disagreement and the body still hidden; until eight months later, at graduation time, when their ringing cell phones tease them with a picture of the lug wrench. Does someone else know or is it Garrett succumbing to remorse?

Ellie (Rumer Willis), the bookish one--she wears glasses--starts to crack under the strain, while Claire (Jamie Chung) gets hot and not so bothered with her boyfriend in the hot tub. Meanwhile, the keep-it-warm-between-my-legs Chugs, (Margo Harshman) goes in search of prescription-strength fun only her shrink can provide, but finds a nasty mouthful instead. Chugs is my favorite. I was sorry to see her go so soon. The death by bottle is not pretty or humorous and so smoothly executed it kicks off the slashing with promise. Hendler draws more suspense out of the subsequent killings, dwelling over each dispatch with a fine eye to gruesome--but not gory--detail. I do not want to spoil the hot tub and bubbles everywhere walk and stalk for you, but I will leave you to imagine how a misused flare gun can brightly light up the bubbles and a sister at the same time. Another moment to savor is when Claire's hot to trot boyfriend Mickey (Maxx Hennard) has a fatal bottoms-up interlude with a dumbwaiter.

Who the killer turns out to be is not much of a brain-twister: Hendler telegraphs the identity throughout by emphasizing a certain handy feature available on most cell phones these days. But the fun is getting to that point, even with the preposterous time it takes for the fire engines to finally show up and the somewhat jittery camera eye. 

Halloween Sighted 2009: Target Laboratory Shocker Door Knocker

Target has begun to stock Halloween gruesomeness onto their store shelves. I fell in love with this Laboratory Shocker Door Knocker immediately. It's shockingly detailed--nice touch with the dangling electrical wires--and fun to use. Just press down on the handle and it lights up.

Oh, and blood-curdling screams will be heard in-between jolts of zizzing electricity, adding to the merriment. A must for haunted attraction fans.

You can find it online at the Target.com website as well as the store. Click the image to see it close up. Just don't drool.

Meet the Horror Bloggers: Unspeakable 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, Chad Helder of Unspeakable Horror tells us how his unintentions paved the royal road to his horror writing career in poetry, fiction, and comic books.  

The horror genre gained my fascination in the turbulent years of Junior High School. The first most important thing I remember was reading Poe in Ms. Shoemaker's English class. I stayed after class one day to ask her if writing horror stories made Poe more mentally unstable, and she told me that writing horror stories probably helped him release his demons and made him more stable. I liked that answer, and I wrote a couple of horror stories in Junior High, a story about a phantom hockey player and a story about an insane person with fog in his mind.

Comic Book Review: North 40 1 2 3 In the Mouth of Conover County

Zombos Says: Excellent

The residents of Conover County are in the grip of an eldritch, surreal, horror like the one John Trent faced in John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness. Changing everyone into demons, devils, or potential deliverers from the green sticky spawn of the stars, the-sleeper-awakened, Cthulhu, writer Aaron Williams and illustrator Fiona Staples leaven their apocalyptic despair with dry humor and back end o' the Bible bad monsters.

Now Entering Conover County, North 40, Issue 1 -- The water here must make people retarded...

One very bored Goth girl, Dyan, and her eager to please, slow-to-glow, acolyte, Robert, wile away the time by reading from a restricted--but cool looking--book at the local library. Robert remarks "D&D geeks make things like this all the time out of old dictionaries and epoxy resin." Paging through it, they inadvertently read that spell; you know, the one that opens the gate-never-to-be-opened that lies between our backyard and theirs.

And theirs is some backyard.

Events happen quickly in the hayseed town of Lufton. People start changing in one of three ways: loathsomely, powerfully, or not at all. Sheriff Morgan falls into the not-at-all category, but he must deal with the people who fall into the other two. For them, the transformation can lead to bad personality traits becoming really bad for everyone else.

Helping the Sheriff is Luanne, who is powered up with a World of Warcraft kind of far sight, so she can tell him what's happening around town and direct him accordingly, and Wyatt, who can fly and becomes impervious to harm. Stirring up trouble is David--make that a giant-sized trouble--and his backroads kin, and the townsfolk who have metamorphosed into nasty hungry creatures or undead ones.

The witch, Marguritte DeVris, instructs her apprentice Amanda--a halfie--from the shadows. She empowers Amanda with a symbol of authority, a scythe, and the always-useful-in-chaos-magic sigils to battle the darkness.

Staples disarming artwork is both humorous and serious when needed--her character's faces are full of life--as Conover's predicament worsens, and Williams dialog and narrative are concisely measured for each character and situation, and especially for Sheriff Morgan, who remains unrattled by the chaos around him and surprisingly (suspiciously?) resourceful at handling its more challenging moments.

An' the Word Was Law, North 40, Issue 2 -- Somethin' went wrong with the world in Conover County last night, and folks was just startin' to see how deep this well was...

In issue two, Amanda arrives in Conover County to join the fight for salvation, Wyatt tries to come to grips with his couch-potato dad who has turned into a potato on the couch, sprouts and all, and the local high school dance is still on in spite of the dangers. Teenagers. Sheriff Morgan also has his hands full with the redneck, misbehavin' Atterhulls and David, who can toss around big cars like Matchbox die-casts.

The opening gruesome splashpage sets the tone, and while I am not sure whether Staples and Williams did the panel layouts together or it is just Staples' arrangement, each page moves the story smoothly along with an economic, yet stylistically expressive, visual storytelling. The colorization for daylit scenes is comprised of rustic tones, reinforcing the small town countryfide quality of Lufton.

A Time to Mourn, an' a Time to Dance, North 40, Issue 3 -- Conover County's past is steeped in hate n' blood. The lines was drawn over a hundred years ago, an' nobody's erased 'em since...

Night. A giant robot. Zombies crash the high school dance. The Atterhulls get help from Granny, who can now see with her new eyes (a very clever way to also give her far sight), and Dyan--filled with the spirit of vengeance--becomes a key player in the fight to save Lufton, but for the wrong side. Williams and Staples ante up with issue three; there is more dialog, more tension on every page as the situation worsens. Old rivalries heat up and Sheriff Morgan needs Wyatt to focus more on helping him rather than spraying his dad with a water bottle. Staples draws the variously afflicted teenagers--some are glowing ghosts, some are stalk-eyed, some are just plain undead, humorously terrifying.

North 40 flips the black flavors of American Gothic's relationships and characters, salt's them with the simplicity of The Walking Dead's direness, and then runs amok with monsters, mayhem, and a Stephen King's worth of darkness stretching across the landscape. And with all of this powered by Lovecraft's leviathan from the stars, the reading experience is exhilarating.

Meet the Horror Bloggers: Temple of the Matmos

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, Robyn (aka The Great Tyrant and Diabolik72) of the Temple of the Matmos reveals there is no hot babe minding the temple. Damn.

If I had to pinpoint a moment where it ‘all started’ it would have to be Xmas 1984 (I think) when I was given Denis Gifford’s Pictorial History of Horror Movies as a gift from my Uncle Steve. Pouring over it for the next few days, I decided that I absolutely had to see every goddamn movie in there. I saw An American Werewolf in London around the same time and from there got into the Universal and Hammer movies. The next big leap was discovering Fangoria, when my father brought me a copy home from a shop he’d been signing at (he was and still is a comic artist) and through this I discovered Romero, Argento, Fulci and the likes. I’ve been pretty much obsessed ever since.

LOTT D: Pick a Post Sensation 13

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!

Drunken Severed Head bids a fond farewell to the King of Pop in Goodby, Michael:

Like millions of others, I still have warm memories of seeing the video for the song "Thriller" for the first time. The song replaced "Monster Mash" for the post-Boomer generations as THE anthem of Halloween, my favorite holiday.

Classic Horror kicks off the action with Ten Sadistic Ways to Die in a Horror Movie:

They said, "Hey, guys, we have somebody getting yanked apart by two semi trucks in our movie. What about listing off some other brutal and/or sadistic deaths?" These aren't necessarily the ten most brutal or sadistic deaths in a horror movie, just the ones we thought were notable.

Attentiondeficitdisorderly Too Flat reviews Tarantino's bloody masterpiece Inglourious Basterds:

...In that sense Inglourious Basterds may be the punkest movie I've seen in I can't even think how long. Maybe ever. It's about nothing less than the power of art to destroy evil. It's about how important it is to love film more than the likes of Hitler hate life. It's about how movie violence, art violence, art designed as a FUCK YOU, can help you deal with the violence that so terrified Chamberlain's cohorts and to which Hitler and his cohorts were so indifferent.

I Love Horror didn't love Captivity, and gives us the top ten things they would have preferred doing:

Including...Spend three hours pressed between the well-lubricated buttocks of two 600-pound Jamaican women while listening to reggae as sung by the Chipmunks.