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The Book of Eli (2010)
Grindhouse Meets Dogma

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Book of eli Zombos Says: 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.

book of eli A roadside encounter with a group of smelly thugs under an overpass is ended by swift and eloquent damage inflicted by his blade. You do not see any blood; it is all done in silhouette. But clearly, limbs, heads, and any available body part within slashing range are assaulted with ballet-like precision. Another encounter with a motorcycle gang, inside the local watering hole, is dealt with in a giddy 360 degree spin-view of thrusting, parrying, and dying. This time there is no darkness to hide the spilling blood or flying body parts. The ruckus brings Eli to Carnegie’s attention. Carnegie insists he hand over the book, Eli politely and resolutely declines. Carnegie tries to seduce Eli with some worldly pleasure provided by Solara (Mila Kunis), but he declines that offer also. Instead, he and Solara hold hands and pray.

The book Eli carries is very important. It is the only copy still around; all others were destroyed because people believe the book was the cause of the apocalypse. I wonder if there are other Eli’s in other countries, all walking westward and carrying books that also survived. The movie does not dwell on philosophical digressions, but it does provide an intriguing counter-balancing theme: in the hands of Carnegie, the book will be used for selfish and evil purpose; he fancies himself a new Mussolini. In the hands of Eli, the book is the cornerstone to salvation for mankind. In our world, substitute certain books for the one Eli carries and the same paradigm of outcomes exist.

Solara joins Eli and both are soon pursued by Carnegie and his henchmen. Why is it the brainy guy always manages to command the brawnier, gun-toting military types in apocalyptic movies? The showdown occurs at a little white house, standing in the middle of nowhere, inhabited by a chatty elderly couple. They invite Eli and Solara in for tea, but Eli notices Martha (Frances de la Tour) has the kind of shakes that do not come from eating too many cucumber sandwiches. They are leaving just as Carnegie and his armed force arrive. Not much is left standing, but there is a surprise moment that almost seems to end the movie right here. A streak of angry lightning marks the moment.

There have been other movies touching on the profound effect books have on society, such as Francois Truffaut’s Farenheit 451 and John Boorman’s Zardoz, but none have blown up more things or shed more blood. This contrast between the deadly serious and the seriously deadly keeps The Book of Eli an engrossing and surprising experience ripe for interpretation.

Roger Ebert, in his review, points out there are WTF moments of impossibility and incomprehensibility. True; but isn’t that what faith is all about? These moments provide The Book of Eli with an absurdity to rival grindhouse sensibility while still intensifying the fundamental emotion we feel. Believable or not, Washington’s Eli is unperturbed in the face of adversity and made nearly invincible by his faith. Traits many of us envy, apocalypse or not.

Movie Review: Idle Hands (1999)

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Idle handsMick: Wait a minute. If you chop off your right hand, how are you going to chop the other one off?
Anton: Oh no, man, the lefty’s a keeper. I mean, I guess it wasn’t idle enough.
Mick: Really?
Anton: Oh yeah, I mean, I hit the remote with it, light up with it, relieve a little tension. No, this is the answer.

Zombos Says: Very Good

Five dexterous digits with a penchant for murderous mayhem provide the Halloween scare-comedy hijinks in Idle Hands. Piling on cliches and nuances from movies like The Hand, Beetle Juice, Scream, and most teen-slacker-slasher romps, Anton has his hands (hand?) full trying to keep from killing everybody in arm’s length. He is the kind of kid who lives in the attic, spends all day lounging around and smoking pot, and does not worry when his parents go missing until after a few days go by; he is the perfect plaything for an ancient demon who takes the old adage–idle hands are the devil’s playthings–seriously, and enjoys possessing those in need of a helping hand: murderously helpful, yes, but still very motivating for Anton (Devon Sawa).

Idle hands Anton’s two friends, Mick (Seth Green) and Pnub (Elden Henson) are not very helpful when Anton discovers his dead parents. Mick and Pnub are distracted by a booty-bounce music video as he frantically points to the two bodies lying in front of the television. When they finally do notice, they are a bit slow in putting the pieces together when clues point to Anton as the murderer.

His hand takes over before they can tell anybody about it. Anton tries to bury the mess in the backyard, but his dead friends, deciding the distance to the “white light” was too far, and finding the celestial music “kinda uncool, like Enya,” not very enticing, decide to come back as his undead friends. They would easily fit into the Beetle Juice waiting room: Mick has a broken bottle stuck deep into his cranium, and Pnub’s head is hanging free and easy–but not in that really good way; and both are very zombie-gray and disheveled. They do not hold a grudge after being murdered–finding undeadness kind of cool–and lend a helping hand.

Anton decides his offending right hand must go and finds the biggest meat clever in the drawer after the bagel slicer fails to do the job. Gory sight gags splatter the humor as the now liberated hand takes a fancy to Anton’s new girlfriend Molly (Jessica Alba). While Mick and Pnub go for the antiseptic and ouch-less band-aids, Anton tosses the nasty fist into the microwave for broiling–remember the kitchen scene in Gremlins?–but Mick and Pnub, in dire need to heat up their burritos, let it loose again. Unperturbed, they sit down to enjoy their burritos. Mick improvises with duct tape when Pnub’s burrito oozes out of his severed neck.

While Anton and his undead, but cool, friends cope, a Druid priestess (Vivica Fox) from a long line of Druid priestesses, is racing to Anton’s town in her vintage Airstream touring coach to kick-ass the evil. When she arrives she, of course, heads to the bowling alley. Druid priestesses must stay in shape by bowling. While there she meets Randy (Jack Noseworthy), Anton’s friend. Randy’s name fits him like a glove. He immediately believes her story about the ancient demon possessing idle hands and tells her about Anton.

Everyone–and hand–meet up at the Halloween school dance for the showdown. The hand, after sharpening its fingers in a pencil-sharpener, is ready to take them all on as it gropes toward taking Molly to hell at midnight; that’s midnight Druid time so there’s not much time to spare. The desperate battle to save Molly, and stop the hand’s plan, moves from shop class, where hand puppets are a natural for malicious use by the hand, to automotive class, where Molly is bound to the hood of a car on a hoist that is edging closer to the ceiling by the second. In the midst of fighting for the hoist’s controls, the boys notice “Mighty Joe Bong,” a wickedly welded, muffler-styled cannabis smoker–the students in shop class learned their skills very well it appears–and light up for a toke to bolster their strength. In-between, the often used cliches of a people-fitting air vent escape and big whizzing fan-blades blocking the only way out provide the light-hearted suspense.

Christopher Hart lends his handy talents as the nasty demon-possessed hand. He is a natural; he played Thing in the Addams Family films. Talk about typecasting.

Dragged to Hell With KNB EFX

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Drag Me to Hell 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 13th, 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.

Drag Me to Hell DVD With his career coming full circle, Greg Nicotero and his company were the special makeup effects, corpse and special props designers on Sam Raimi’s new retro-horror film on Universal Studios Home Entertainment DVD and Blu-ray Hi Def, Drag Me to Hell. Of course, this is because Nicotero started with Raimi 22 years ago with Evil Dead 2 in which they created numerous makeup effects and creatures. In this exclusive look into his studio, we see how the different makeups, fake bodies and props from the film were designed and realized.

Nicotero, a Pittsburgh resident, has now been working in motion pictures for 25 years, starting as a makeup assistant on George A. Romero’s 1985 Pittsburgh-based film, Day of the Dead with Tom Savini. “I knew Greg Nicotero since he was 15,” said Savini. “He used to hang out on Creepshow. I used him on Day of the Dead and [Romero’s] Monkey Shines. He asked me to go to LA and form a company before KNB. He then introduced me to Howard Berger on Day of the Dead. I’m a Pittsburgh guy, so I’m not out there knowing who the up-and-comers are.”

With certainty, the mentorship that Savini provided to Nicotero and later Berger in the 1980s paid dividends for the duo, then in their 20s, as they learned both the creative and business aspects of running a makeup effects company. “Greg was a sketch artist and would handle my paperwork and my business stuff which is what he went to school for,” Savini added. “He dropped out of medical school to work for me. He had his hands in sculpting, but he wasn’t into doing the makeup back then. He learned by experience and now he’s a major player in the makeup world. He’s my best friend.”

Since they formed the studio in 1988, moving locations but remaining in the San Fernando Valley, KNB EFX Group has gotten many choice assignments, having been responsible for dozens of movie projects, including all of the films of Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, Wes Craven, and John Carpenter to name but a few. KNB has also joined the ranks of the A-list doing prestigious projects for the likes of Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, and winning an Oscar for their work on the first Narnia film.

Thus, it was not surprising that after 22 years, Raimi, 50 this month, contacted KNB to handle the numerous gruesome effects that Drag Me to Hell required, harkening back to the director’s pre-Spider-Man days with the Evil Dead trilogy. Naturally, Nicotero speaks fondly of KNB’s working relationship with Sam Raimi for the past 20 years. “It has been pretty amazing,” said the effects master, 46. “We started with Sam and [producer] Rob Tapert on Evil Dead 2 and once KNB was formed in 1988, we handled most of the makeup and suit effects for their films for well over the next decade with everything from Army of Darkness to [TV’s] Hercules and Xena, A Simple Plan and so on. We didn’t get the chance to work on the first two Spider-Man films, but Sam personally pulled us in on part 3, and I was delighted.”

Drag Me to Hell EFX Initially, Nicotero was concerned that KNB would not be involved in the designs for makeups, gags, props, and other work as it might have likely been handled by another conceptual artist, a common practice in contemporary filmmaking. “Sam is very accustomed to working with outside designs,” Nicotero explained, “so I, during my first meeting, showed him samples of the design work we did in-house and he really responded to what I had shown him. In this day and age, with so many conceptual artists that have background in creature effects, productions very often bring in the effects houses late in the game as opposed to having the supervisors having a hand in the conceptualizing and design.”

Raimi, however, is no stranger to working with effects teams and knew of KNB’s vast experience and hands-on approach, so getting KNB involved from the beginning was, according to Nicotero, “what the director wanted on this film; and he very much wanted input on what fans and audiences would respond to. Certainly our history made him very comfortable. I presented designs to him that were fleshed out here [at KNB], and we went from there. Shannon Shea was my right hand man on the show, and between John Wheaton, Garrett Immel, and Norman Cabrera, we brought some really fun ideas to the table.”

In Drag Me to Hell’s story, Alison Lohman plays the young Christine Brown, an ambitious bank clerk who is encouraged to be more aggressive by her competitive boss, played by David Paymer. Wanting a promotion, she denies a house loan extension to a mysterious Gypsy customer, Mrs. Ganush, perfectly played by Lorna Raver. For the character, KNB had to devise a shockingly grotesque haggard makeup for Raver, and they proceeded to create several versions of Raver’s character through the film. “We had worked out several stages via tests and Photoshop,” Nicotero said, “and of course her dentures played a significant part. Mainly, she goes from sympathetic old woman to ‘heinous horror hag’ in the car sequence, to back-from-the-dead possessed Ganush, as well as her demonic form. All [stages] had a variety of 3D transfers, prosthetics, contacts – Professional Vision Care always handles our work and has done so for years, supervised by Christina Ceret – and dentures. Garrett Immel, Camille Calvet Della-Santina and Mary Kay Witt applied her make-up. We also handled a stunt likeness makeup that Garrett sculpted that was fantastic, complete with lace wig and lenses.”

After denying and “shaming” Mrs. Ganush in the bank, Christine must thwart a physical attack in her car, after which Mrs. Ganush places a horrible curse on Christine. Subsequently, when evil forces pursue Christine, she tries to make amends with Mrs. Ganush by visiting her. Alas, it is too late, as Mrs. Ganush has died, which Christine discovers in a wake scene. For this appearance of the character, KNB had to create a realistic corpse in the likeness of Lorna Raver. “For the wake sequence, we created a dummy that had a jointed armature and a silicone skin, pretty straightforward,” said Nicotero. “All of the likeness were cast off of Lorna Raver, who couldn’t have been a better sport. So often, people don’t realize that our characters are brought to life by great performances, and she was terrific. When I saw her on set the first time, I believed she was this sad, tormented old woman having her house taken away. Then, Sam would yell cut!”

Another great moment in the wake scene is when Mrs. Ganush’s dead body falls onto Christine, leading to a nauseating effect where bodily fluid comes out of the corpse’s mouth onto Alison Lohman. Undoubtedly, one of the convincing aspects of Mrs. Ganush’s character in these scenes is her false teeth. “The script was very specific in terms of the action of all the dentures,” Nicotero said. “She pulls them out, leaves them on the table [in the bank], has them smashed during the car fight sequence, and then has to put the broken teeth back in, all of which required specialized teeth that fit her and then fit over ‘gum dentures’ that we made. Grady Holder has handled our denture work for the last 10 years and is fantastic at creating all of our eyes and dental work.”

When it has become clear that Christine is truly doomed, she falls apart in a later scene in the bank when she bleeds profusely from her nose, squirting blood all over her desk and onto Paymer. “That was one of the first gags we worked out,” Nicotero stated. “It was realized with a pretty straightforward pressure pump rig with tubing that was attached to a prosthetic that glued inside the nose. The plan always was to digitally erase the tube and let the blood spray be done practically, and that was what ended up in the movie.”

In keeping with that fusion of practical techniques, such as the ones in which KNB specializes, and digital effects, Nicotero notes that Raimi entrusted much of the on-set work to KNB due to his love of the craft, even though there was some degree of collaboration involved with the computer-generated imagery team. “Sam has become quite proficient with digital effects,” Nicotero said, “and [visual effects supervisor] Bruce Jones had a lot to handle in terms of the shadow gags, visual effects of hell opening up and so forth, so there were very few instances when he augmented effects we had done practically. Truthfully, that was what was so much fun: as savvy as Sam is with effects, he still loves puppet heads and traditional prosthetic and makeup effects. During the development of the dream sequence, where rotted Ganush vomits worms on Christine, he actually laughed out loud when we showed him the first test, and told me I should be arrested.”

Drag Me to Hell Other KNB work in Drag Me to Hell includes a demonic makeup designed and created for Adriana Barraza in a séance scene where her character Shaun San Dena tries to expunge the demon who has been haunting Christine. This makeup included prosthetics and haunting contact lenses by Professional Vision Care. One of the final great KNB moments returns when Christine digs up Mrs. Ganush’s corpse in the midst of a downpour in an attempt to reverse the curse, which involves a reappearance of the dead Ganush body, which was created to withstand drenching.

When reflecting on the special makeup effects in Drag Me to Hell and his work with Raimi, who co-wrote the script with brother Ivan Raimi, Nicotero exudes earned pride, now over two decades into the artist-director relationship. “I am tremendously proud of what KNB contributed,” he said. “An amazing team of artists, mechanics, puppeteers and makeup artists really helped Sam bring into the movie the fun that he has making these films. During script read-throughs, he would be reading something and then start chuckling to himself because some of the elements are so outrageous. The movie is pure fun, and Sam’s enthusiasm is there in every frame.

Zombieland (2009)

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Zombieland

Zombos Says: Excellent

Chef Machiavelli tossed the 4-iron to me. I restrained from yelling “four!” as I whacked the nasty, multi-legged, brown fur-ball scuttling toward me up and over the pool table. Times like this made me wish I had kept up my golf lessons. Not too shabby, though: I hooked the little bugger to the right. It hit the Yule marble fireplace mantel with a splat, leaving a gooey green stain. Glenor will certainly not like that. I turned my attention to the dozen or so other nasties climbing up Chef Machiavelli’s legs, but he signaled he didn’t need my help. What a trooper.

Lawn Gisland, family friend and rodeo star attraction for the Smith and Walloo Brothers Circus, was showing off by improvising a coil of clothes line into a lariat and lassoing the bigger bugs. At least I think they were bugs. What he missed with the lariat he stomped hard with his Nocona boot heels. If he said “little-doggy” one more time as he threw the lasso, or “tarnation” every time he stomped, I was going to whoop him good myself. There are just so many “little-doggies” and “tarnations” a city-slicker like me can take in a day, if you know what I mean.

I took another swing while Chef Machiavelli bowled a 7-10 split on a handful of fur-balls. Surprisingly, they rolled very well. His usually immaculate white chef’s uniform was stained green, and bits of fuzzy hair and goo stuck on his shoulders, looking like weird epaulets. That and his crushed-in Chef’s hat made him look quite the worse for wear. I turned to Lawn to see if he needed my help. He was swinging a pool cue like a stick-ball bat sending toothy fur-balls flying in all directions. One clamped tight onto the end of it. Always the showman, he did a neat combination kick shot, squishing the bugger and pocketing the nine-ball at the same time, and then returned to batting away the rest of the competition. Within five minutes we had the situation under control and a hell of a mess to clean up. But that could wait.

The three of us collapsed onto the wrap-around leather sofa to catch our breadths.

It started when we began bowling in the mansion’s recreation room. Lawn needs a bowling ball that fits his massive left hand—and its missing middle finger—so the ones we normally have on display don’t fit. We did have one custom made for him, but since he so seldom wants to bowl we keep it with the other more customized—hence little used—bowling balls in the second play-accessories storage closet. So we walked into the closet looking for his bowling ball. It wasn’t my fault I dropped it—it’s heavy, really heavy—on his foot. Luckily his boots were hard leather, but he still jumped high, bumping a low shelf. On it were more golf balls than we would ever, ever, need, some very old gut-string tennis rackets we stopped using, fishing tackle we never use, three-hundred and forty-eight bright orange ping pong balls (I know because I counted them later when I picked every single one of them up), and all the Halloween candy Zimba’s been snatching and hiding from me and Zombos over the years. She insists on giving out toothbrushes and floss
packs instead of sugary-treats for the kids, which always leads to major problems for Zombos and me.

In back of the shelf was a hole the size of Lawn’s fist, and behind the hole were these hairy, candy-gorged fiends grown fat on years and years’ worth of Hershey bars, M&M’s, maple candy corn (my favorite), Reese’s Pieces, Milky Way Bars, and every other deep dark sinfully-rich, cavity-prone delight imaginable worth cramming into a trick or treat bag. The bugs followed the spilled candy onto the floor, then followed us out the door as fast as we could run. In one of those annoying turn of events that happen every now and then, Chef Machiavelli was bent over, serving his sugary sweet maple-toffee, dark apple cider, with melted caramel and toasted almonds, when we crashed into him, spilling it all over us and the floor. That overpowering sweet smell of sugary nirvana sent the buggers into a feeding frenzy.

“Say, hot-doggie!” said Lawn, scooping up a Twinkie from the candy assortment strewn across the floor. Zimba had banned those from the pantry, too. “All this sweetness has me hankerin’ for something sweet.” He unwrapped it.

“Are you crazy?” I said. Chef Machiavelli said something to the same effect in Italian, I think. The two of us looked at Lawn. “That’s probably been in
that closet for ages! It’s not fresh.” Chef Machiavelli nodded in agreement. Lawn ignored us and ate the Twinkie.

“Tarnation, it’s a darn-tootin’ Twinkie,” he said, downing the golden spongy cake in one bite. “Don’t get your boots caught in the stirrups, they last
forever.” He licked his fingers. “Everybody knows that.”

He did have a point.

We looked at the mess all around us.

“Well,” I summed up, “at least they weren’t zombies.” Lawn and Chef Machiavelli nodded in agreement.

“I’d miss Twinkies in a zombie apocalypse,” added Lawn.

“Me, too,” I said. Being eaten alive is bad enough, but no Twinkies? That’s really hell on earth for sure.

 

Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) won me over immediately. Traveling a landscape overrun with zombies—that have really let themselves go as he puts it—his main goal, the one that keeps him alive and psyched for survival, is finding the last fresh Twinkie. Hostess Sno Balls just don’t do it for him. He wants the golden, creme-filled, real deal. His quest provides one of the lighter themes in Zombieland, an apocalypse romp that brings together four survivors, each psyched for survival by formulating his and her own rules for success in a really down economy of the undead.

Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) has a laundry list of rules: there’s one designed to keep his stamina up (Rule 1: cardio to outrun zombies); another to be wary of bathrooms (Rule 3: they know you are vulnerable when on the potty); and one to make dead sure the undead are really dead (Rule 2: do a double-tap with bullets to the head every time). His rules have kept him alive after a contaminated burger kicks-off the rise of the undead. He tells us how the girl next door, the one he had a crush on, introduces him to the dire situation. Up until then he was holed-up in his apartment eating pizza, drinking Code Red Mountain Dew, and playing World of Warcraft non-stop. So rules for staying alive come naturally for him: he just needed to switch his mindset from trolls to zombies.

Tallahassee and Columbus are an unlikely pairing. When they meet, Columbus is trying to get back home, and Tallahassee is trying to find Twinkies. They have little in common; Tallahassee is more of a redneck survivalist, cool to the touch and more loose in dealing with the walking dead, while Columbus is more of a rational, follow the rules or be dead kind of person. Tallahassee also really hates zombies. Columbus is non-committal; he just wants to get home to his parents. Driving down the highway, they stop to watch a zombie crack the bones and scoop up the intestines of one unlucky motorist. Tallahassee makes a point of opening his car door as he drives past to knock over the zombie. Columbus would have gone around and avoided it.

The quest for the last Twinkie brings them to a supermarket where they meet Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), two sisters, the older one looking out for the younger one. They’re heading to Pacific Playland where there are no zombies but lots of fun rides. No one uses their real name. The only important thing is to not get attached, keep on moving, do not make friends. Familiarity and togetherness are for zombies, not survivors. The boys and girls go their separate ways.

They meet again on the highway and this time they stay together.

Stopping at the Kemo Sabe trading post, they first clear the place of zombies and then browse the merchandise. And then trash the place realizing it all doesn’t matter. Back on the road, Tallahassee can’t believe Little Rock doesn’t know who Willie Nelson is, and Columbus and Wichita are beginning to like each other, which goes against their own hard and fast rules.

Using a homes-of-the-movie-stars map they decide to hold up in a Beverly Hills mansion. The one they pick, with its well-known owner still in residence, provides the silliest fun you will ever have in a zombie movie. When Columbus and Wichita get too close for comfort, Wichita takes Little Rock and heads to zombie-free Pacific Playland. Or Zombie free until they turn on the rides and lights and sounds anyway. One of the rides provides momentary safety, but not for long.

Zombieland is a movie filled with clown and Charlie Chaplin zombies and big gun-toting survivors. It takes an NRA, redneck approach to a problem of apocalyptic proportions, and has fun doing it. After watching so many seriously undead in so many serious zombie movies, it’s refreshing to see an old-fashioned shoot ‘em up, where the bullets outnumber the zombies and the survivors are so likable I did not want any one of them to get bitten or
eaten because that would spoil the fun. Harrelson is a natural zombie-hunter and very believable when handling high-impact automatic weaponry. I certainly would want him by my side when the zombies come: I’d be desperately searching for Twinkies, too.

A light-hearted gory romp with its brief serious moments makes Zombieland a refreshing bullets and zombies showdown break from the usually more depressing fare. This and Sean of the Dead would make a solid double bill viewing session on Halloween night.

Jennifer’s Body (2009)

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Jennifer's bodyI 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.

Killer Klowns From Outer Space (1988)

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Killer Klowns From Outer Space

“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 ill.”

“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 Zombos. Again.

I found him stretched out cold on the floor. A black DVD case was clutched in his right hand. A post-it note read ‘You’ll love this one. Paul H.’

“Oh, lord,” I mumbled, “when will you ever learn?” Zombos always reacted badly to any of Paul’s you’ll love this one DVDs.

“Fetch some Scotch whiskey, if you please,” I told Glenor. “And make it snappy.”

She quickly returned with a poor choice.

“Have you no sense of decency, woman? Not the vatted malt! We need something stronger. Bring back the Royal Brackla. The man’s unconscious for god’s sakes. I mean really.”

She turned around.

“Wait! Here, let me have that.” She handed me the shot glass, spilling a little of the liquor, then hurried on her way. I gulped it down. Not bad, actually.

She returned with the Royal Brackla. I poured some into the shot glass and took a gulp. Perfect. It was going to be a long night.

I then poured another glassful and lifted Zombos’ head to pour a bit of the liquid through his lips. He awoke with a cough and a request for more. Good
man.

“It was horrible,” he said, in-between sips. ”

“Well, I can only hope you’ve learned your lesson.” I said. “Now if you will excuse me, I have a review to write. Glenor, see to it he’s comfortable. And
after he’s comfortable, stoke up the fireplace, make a nice cheery fire, and toss that DVD from Paul Hollstenwall into it before anyone else in this
household is tempted to trod where no sane movie fan should.

I returned to my writing the review for Killer Klowns From Outer Space.

 

I am not quite sure what the Chiodo Brothers were thinking when they pitched this idea for a movie, but it does have its charms (for horror fans, anyway). How can you not like a story about aliens that look and dress like grotesque clowns and use Krazy Straws to sip the body fluids of hapless victims they’ve sucked up with a giant vacuum? Just about everyone in the small town of Crescent Cove is turned into a jumbo-sized cotton candy treat with a nice gooey center before you can finish saying “popcorn’s ready.” And I mean the friendly type of popcorn, not the type that eats you they pop up in this movie.

Considering the low budget for the movie, the art direction and production design are fairly imaginative. If only the acting were a bit more top-notch. Anyway, with veteran character actors like Royal Dano and John Vernon, the other so-so actors were buffered a little.

The movie starts with the town’s younger set smooching on Lovers Lane. Ruining their idyllic moment, the Stooge-like Terenzi Brothers (no self-reflection by the Chiodo Brothers I hope) show up in their noisy and tacky ice cream truck, with its huge clown head on the roof, to sell popsicles. The bumbling but industrious duo is rebuffed by the annoyed teens who had different treats in mind. None of these purported teens look young enough to be teens, either, a characteristic horror movies have in common with porno movies (not that I’d know first hand, of course).

Before Mike (Grant Cramer) and Debbie (Suzanne Snyder) can get back to their snuggling, a bright object shoots across the sky and crashes not too far away. In true ’50s horror movie fashion (like in the Blob), they are off to investigate. Given a choice between heavy petting or chasing down mysterious objects crashing in the deserted woods, horror movie “teens” always go for the crashing object.

While they head to the scene of impact, Farmer Green Gene (not Captain Kangaroo’s bud, but Royal Dano), and his dog Pooh (I know your groaning, but I’m not making this up!), also see the crash and head out to investigate. Gene and his dog find a circus tent in the woods, only it’s really the alien spaceship. A funny gag has Royal Dano walking along the colorful side of the tent in tandem with a klown’s shadow tagging along. The circus fun and excitement atmosphere turns to terror for Gene and his dog when they are captured and cotton-candyized.

Mike and Debbie are next to discover the circus tent spaceship and decide to enter it. You’d think your average person would probably find a circus tent plopped down in the middle of an isolated woodland setting crazily suspicious, but then we wouldn’t have much of a horror movie would we if they just did the smart thing and ran away? Being smart in a horror movie doesn’t mix well to produce terror, right? Although it would be a refreshing change of pace.

One interesting flub to watch for has Debbie’s arm briefly disappearing behind the matte painting of the tent spaceship as they get close to it.

Another effective matte shot, which is also a nod to Forbidden Planet, is seen when Mike and Debbie enter a room reminiscent of the Krell’s huge power cell chamber. As they explore the ship and realize it is not part of Cirque du Soleil, the clever use of colorful carnival and clown-like objects—like red rubber balls used for door buttons—extends the limited production budget with style.

Soon they’re running for their lives with two klowns and one sniffing balloon dog hunting them. They escape, but the whole kit and caboodle of killer klowns, armed with a wacky assortment of lethal weapons, heads to town in search of late night snacks.

Mike and Debbie try to convince incredulous police officers Hanson (John Allen Nelson) and Mooney (THE master of the stare down, John Vernon) a bunch of klownish aliens are wreaking havoc in town. A series of bizarre, Looney Tunes-inspired, scenes includes a lethal Punch and Judy, pizza delivery a la killer klowns, clumsy klowns knocking over shelves in a pharmacy, and an ugly mini-klown knocking a biker’s head off with gusto.

Three scenes stand out for true creative goofiness, pushing this movie into more absurdist horrorhead territory.

The first has a nasty-looking killer klown enticing a young girl away from her mom as both sit in the local burger joint. Behind his back he holds a very large, brightly colored mallet. His intentions are clear to us, but not to the innocent, fun-seeking youngster. While this plays on how the appearance of a
clown can automatically trigger expectations of enjoyment, especially for most children, the scene takes this expectation into darker directions, making it comical, ominous, and frightening at the same time, especially if you’re a parent planning a birthday party.

The second scene involves a bus stop, a few tired adults waiting for the late-night bus, and another killer klown who shows up to entertain them with hand-shadows thrown on the side of a building. This stop-motion realized scene (I miss stop motion) is humorous, surreal, and again plays off pleasant expectations subverted into unpleasant terror when the hand shadows make a grab for everyone.

The third scene has one intestinally-gutted and dead-eyed Officer Mooney playing ventriloquist dummy to one particularly tall and mischievous killer klown. Officer Hanson, treated to this bizarre vent act after finding huge klown footprints all over his jail, cracks a brief smile—until he realizes the lethal intent of the big bozo. The squishy-suction sound in this scene is very disgusting. I’ll let you guess what the vent dummy’s strings were made of.

Now, if you were a killer klown, where would you hide? In the amusement park, of course!

So off go our heroes to rescue Debbie, who was captured and trapped inside a really big beach ball. And if you have a bunch of killer klowns with pies in
their hands, who do you think should get hit with them? Why, mouse-dancing Soupy Sales of course! Unfortunately, the small budget did not allow Soupy Sales to be flown in for the shoot. Bummer. (Google Soupy Sales if you don’t know who I mean.)

The zany Terenzi Brothers show up in their ice cream truck and join Mike and Officer Hanson. The Terenzi’s get separated from the others and wind up with a pair of big-ballooned female klowns. As the brothers klown-around with their new dates, Mike and Officer Hanson enter the cotton-candy room where Debbie is imprisoned. They rescue her, but are discovered and a chase ensues through the many weird compartments of the spaceship. After making their way through a doorway with a near limitless amount of doors to open they are trapped and surrounded by the killer klowns.

In the nick of time, the Terenzi Brothers burst in with their ice cream truck—did I mention it has a big clown’s head on it’s roof?—and use the truck’s
loudspeaker to tell the klowns to bug off. The klowns, mesmerized by this bodiless comrade seemingly speaking to them, do back off, but a giant klown
descends from above and goes after the ice cream truck. I have no idea why a giant klown would hang around the spaceship’s ceiling, but just go with it.

The Terenzi’s refuse to get out of the truck because “it’s rented” as the giant klown picks it up and tosses it. The scene is shot using miniatures and forced perspective (an oldie but goodie technique used extensively in Lord of the Rings).

Will Mike and Debbie and Officer Hanson escape? Will the Terenzi’s live to finally sell their popsicles? Will more pies be thrown? I urge you to see this movie to find out. Killer Klowns From Outer Space is an enjoyably goofy movie, and one that would do well with an effects-loaded remake or sequel.

Quick, how many times did I write Mike and Debbie? I just want to make sure you were paying attention.

The Mad Magician (1954)

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Zombos Says: Good

When Price’s performances failed as touching works of naturalistic brilliance, they usually succeeded as thrilling romps of stylish theatricality. As a result, almost any Price performance is worth watching–for one reason or another. (Mark Clark in Smirk, Sneer and Scream: Great Acting in Horror Cinema)

Crypt of Horror’s DVD offering of 1954’s Columbia Pictures’ 3-D The Mad Magician is quite the trick indeed. It fooled me into thinking I was going to have a wonderful evening of murder done with panache, prefixed by that delightful glare of homicidal haughtiness, so patently and masterfully executed by Vincent Price in many of his films. Instead, the DVD’s murderously shoddy performance got in the way; enough to make me as mad as Gallico the Great.

The DVD case cover blurb “Homicidal Maniac weilds Buzz Saw horror against beautiful young women!” is quite foreboding to begin with. It’s not bad enough horror fans must constantly battle a public and familial image of being either illiterate ignoramuses or pimply, basement-dwelling, punk-rocking misfits lusting after beautiful young women (Goth babes especially), but misspelling a simple word like “wield” instead of the more complex word like “homicidal” doesn’t help our case at all now does it? And which homicidal maniac wielding a buzz saw against beautiful young women are we referring to? There’s certainly no one in this 1954 period movie that fits that description.

Following on the heels of Warner Brothers’ successful 3-D House of Wax in 1953, Price once again dons a vengeful smock, this time playing an inventor of magic tricks and stage illusions who dreams of performing his creations in front of the footlights. On the night of his successful debut performance, performing as Gallico the Great, he’s stopped by his unscrupulous employer who holds an ironclad contract not even Lucifer himself could get out of.

Just as Gallico was stopped from performing his magic, I was stopped, repeatedly, by Crypt of Horror’s DVD-R cheapie disc duplication process as it brazenly jumped scenes and unexpectedly paused, taunting me to the brink of homicidal ideation. I was ready to lose my head, but Gallico the Great beat me to it.

Turning slightly daffy, he gives his soon-to-be-former gloating employer, Ormond, a really close look at his buzz saw illusion in action. That horrific scene, with Price’s demonic glaring and vibrant voice spewing invectives, and the whirring blade swinging closer to finally slice off Ormond’s head–conveniently done out of sight to avoid those messy 1954 censorship issues–is still frightfully effective. But there’s no blood! Not one drip nor spray nor streak. If remade today there would be buckets of blood flying in all directions, along with bits and pieces of tracheal innards. Yet due to Price’s theatrics, and the tightly framed action, it’s still a highlight in an otherwise disappointing directorial effort by The Lodger director, John Brahm.

Not being a mentalist, Gallico the Great Klutz promptly loses his severed head when he places it in a leather bag that matches the one his comely stage assistant (Mary Murphy) is carrying. Off she goes to dinner–I wonder what she was carrying before she switched bags because she doesn’t seem to mind the extra weight–and Gallico frantically runs after her to get it back. Not being an assistant to a mentalist either, when he catches up with her he finds she’s gone and forgotten the bloody thing in a hansom cab. But not to worry: the cabby played good samaritan and turned it in to the local constabulary. This ghoulishly humorous interlude, made memorable by Price’s naturally subtle comedic instincts, ends well for him, though his odd behavior running down the bag piques the interest of his assistant’s detective boyfriend (Patrick O’Neal).

Inexplicably, Gallico pretends to be Ormond, and donning a mask and changing his voice, he rents a room from the local nosy mystery writer. No sooner can you say “sinister Sam Spade snookers six slithering snakes,” Ormond’s wife and Gallico’s ex-wife are invited in for tea by the meddling mystery writer who recognizes her new boarder from a newspaper photo. Ormond’s wife (Eva Gabor) surprises Gallico thinking he’s Ormond. Not having the buzz saw handy, he has to rely on good old-fashioned strangulation to let her know how much he doesn’t like her anymore.

So far, she’s the only beautiful young woman he kills, and he didn’t even use a buzz saw. His next victim is definitely not a beautiful young woman: he gets even with the conniving Rinaldi (Kronos’ John Emery), a rival magician. The climactic scene with the cremation illusion jumped past the point of my patience after repeatedly going through Crypt’s Disc of Horror torture test, but it’s a sizzling climax when seen in its entirety.

The illusions in the film, including the buzz saw, the cremation, and the water fountains, are based on noted stage illusions made famous by such magicians as Horace Goldin and Harry Blackstone Sr.–though Ricciardi threw in the innards and blood for the buzz saw, and the Great Rameses performed a version of the cremation illusion. One illusion in the film done with mirrors reveals the secret. Perhaps done in 3-D it wasn’t noticeable.

The bug-eyed music is distinctly 1950s terror in flavor, and adds to the overall mood of the film, especially in tandem with Price’s sinister stare. Introducing the movie is Lon Midnight and his equally odd friends. Lon’s cheesy horror hosting shenanigans, which didn’t suffer from the dubious duping process, were in keeping with the movie’s theme and are fun to watch.

Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964)

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Zombos Says: Classic

Glenor Glenda was upside down. Rather, her face was upside down. Or maybe I was upside down. I couldn’t tell much through the foggy haze. Suddenly her face changed to Saw‘s Billy the Puppet’s upside down face, leering at me with those cold, unblinking eyes. I shut my eyes wishing him to go away. I mean her to go away. I mean I don’t know what I mean.

“Good lord, now what?” I heard Zombos say.

“He passed out!” she  said. “I think he was watching Two Thousand Maniacs! when he fainted.”

“Here, then, give me the smelling salts. And stop bending over him like that. Give him some air.”

I opened my eyes. Zombos’ face was upside down now, leering at me with its stern, accusatory eyes. I wished him to go away, too.

“You ninny,” he said, holding the smelling salts under my nose. “I do not know why you insist on putting yourself through these exercises in self-punishment. If you do not want to see Saw IV, then just do not see it.”

He helped me to my feet, though I was still a bit wobbly.

“I thought if I prepared myself by watching one of the earliest gore movies it would help desensitize me. I have a responsibility to our readers,” I explained.

“Oh, I think the five of them really do not want to see Saw IV, either,” joked Zombos. At least I hope he was joking. “How far did you get into Herschell Gordon Lewis’ movie?”

“Up to the axe scene. When she got her thumb cut off I started getting woozy. The axe scene did me in after that.” I sipped the glass of Glen Caren Glenor handed to me. There’s nothing like a vatted malt whiskey to bring back the color in your cheeks; bright red color, like the color of freshly spilled blood.

 

And there’s lots of bright 1960s-colored blood in Two Thousand Maniacs!, the second movie in the Godfather of Gore’s blood trilogy that ushered in the splatter-horror genre to an eager drive-in movie audience. Dipping once too often into the nudie-cutie and exploitation well, Lewis and his partner David Friedman searched for their next commercial gusher. They found it in colorized gore, delivered with manic glee, cheap setups, and lingering eyefuls.

Perhaps it’s the gleefully sadistic way in which the Brigadoon-like southern townspeople of Pleasant Valley go about torturing and killing the slow-to-grasp-the-situation northerners, or maybe it’s the hokey acting and poor direction slamming against the energetically strummed banjo songs, sung by the strolling bluegrass trio as the entire town celebrates its revenge-fueled centennial. Whatever the reasons, the movie is still a wild southern fried terror ride that revels in its nastiness while cheekily grinning from ear to ear. The gore is mild compared to today’s more graphic, mechanically-oriented, dismembering and mashing appliances, but a simple knife, or axe, or sharp nail-lined barrel always provides a homey touch of stark horror whimsy to any victimization.

Every hundred years the town of Pleasant Valley comes to life, looking for a little cold comfort by revenging its destruction on those damn Yankees that decimated it during the civil war. Since revenge mostly involves innocent people in horror movies—dumb, innocent people—and sometimes those who instigated the problem in the first place, the townsfolk detour a few northern-born passersby off the highway and into the town as centennial guests of honor.

A carload of two bickering couples—bickering couples are a staple in horror movies, too—are the first to be invited to the barbecue. The couple with extra-kinky shenanigans in mind—my, this one is full of staples, isn’t it?—are the first to succumb to the town’s madness. They each go off looking for a tryst with a local yokel, but find terror instead.

By the pricking of her thumb, she loses a digit with more to come.

In a violent scene that holds intensity with its sudden brutality, the hot-to-trot blond gets her thumb maliciously cut off by the town’s dashing, rope-belted, blue jeans hunk. With blood spilling all over the place, she’s hustled into the “doctor’s” office, where quick surgery with an axe really makes a mess of things. Lewis’ direction throughout this unpleasant business is over the top. The contradiction between the laughing good-ol’ boys hovering over the bleeding, shocked, and dismembered woman is held in the camera’s eye long enough to register a disturbing absurdity and disgust, delivering a grindhouse-styled wallop to the senses even a Saw-jaded fan could appreciate.

Her husband doesn’t fare all that well, either. After waking from a drunken stupor, he finds himself with a hangover and tied to four horses pointed in different directions. Lewis tones down the shock by cutting away when the horses prance off, only showing a bloody limb dragged over the ground afterwards. For a moment, his camera dwells on the unhappy looks of the spectators, realizing the horror of what they’ve just done; but only for a moment.

The festivities continue.

Lewis’ pièce de résistance is a barrel rolling contest with a nail-barrel. Forced into a gaily-colored barrel, the male half of our second unfortunate couple is perturbed when the mayor starts pounding large sharp nails into it, leaving the prickly points exposed inside the barrel. A short kick down a long hill leaves one more brightly-colored victim dressed in blood-red as the townspeople cheer.

The third couple fares better. A hitchhiking teacher and the woman who picked him up catch on pretty quickly that not all’s fun and games in Pleasant Valley. When communication to the outside world is cut off, the teacher realizes it’s time to hightail it out of there. The only obstacle to overcome is finding the car key and getting past Billy the kid.

Billy (Vincent Santo), whose favorite pastime is tying mini-nooses to strangle cats with, knows where the car key is, but he drives a hard bargain to fess up. Watching Billy, I couldn’t shake the creepy feeling he looked awfully like Billy the Puppet. Just paint two large red targets on his cheeks, darken his hair, stick him on a tricycle, and you’d swear he looks just like him. Or maybe it’s just me.

Lewis’ budget ($65K in 1960s dollars) for Two Thousand Maniacs! was higher than his more explicit gore-fests in the trilogy, Blood Feast and Color Me Blood Red, allowing him to devote more time to the story and the setups for each gore-effect. Ironically, this may have hurt his directorial style more than helped, but Maniacs! holds up well primarily because of its rough edges.

 

“Feeling better,” asked Zombos.

With his help, and three glasses of Glen Caren, I had watched Two Thousand Maniacs! in its entirety.

‘Much better,” I said.

“Good, then perhaps we should move you up to The Wizard of Gore. Lewis really piles on the bloody gore as a maniac magician’s illusions leave his volunteers in pieces. Good lord, not again. Glenor! Quick! Bring the smelling salts!”

Hiruko the Goblin (1991)
Ahead of the Rest

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Hirukothegoblin
Zombos Says: Very Good

“I am not going and that is final,” snapped Zombos. He folded his arms with finality.

“Me, neither,” said Lawn Gisland. “Tarnation! That’s one ornery, psycho-crazy movie, and not to my liking.” He folded his arms with finality.

“But no one else wants to review it,” I protested. “You know I’m too squeamish to watch blood-oozing gore like that alone. I get sick at the sight of bloody body chunks flying helter-skelter across the screen. I fainted during the last one.” I was desperate. No one wanted to come with me to see Saw IV.

“You’re the high-falutin horror reviewer,” said Lawn, “you go and have all the fun.”

What would Roger Ebert do? Would he ignore a movie just because he was squeamish? Sure, why not? I decided to review Hiruko the Goblin instead. Spidery goblins ripping off heads is so much easier to watch than that creepy Billy the puppet wheeling around on his squeaky tricycle anyway, taunting people as malicious devices of death pull them apart.

You don’t need a Wikipedia entry for this movie like the lengthy one that explains the convolutions of the Saw series, either. Hiruko the Goblin (Yôkai hantâ: Hiruko) is a simple, heartwarming story about a boy, his longing for a girl’s head, and an eccentric archaeologist with enough demon-hunting gadgets to put the Ghost Busters to shame. A foreboding school during summer recess, built over a gate to hell, adds some spice to this manga-frenetic actioner from co-writer and director Shinya Tsukamoto (he did the bizarre and inexplicable Tetsuo, the Iron Man; I dare you to explain that one).

This time he tones down his surrealistic art-house style in favor of grotesque, slapstick humor as the archaeologist, Hieda (Kenji Sawada), and the boy, Masao (Masaki Kudou) fight against Hiruko, a nasty, six-legged goblin with siblings to match, in and around the deserted school. Copious amounts of blood spout here and there, but Tsukamoto plays it for absurdity and icky frights.

At the heart of it is perky Reiko (Megumi Ueno) and Masao’s crush on her. Reiko becomes an early victim, along with Hieda’s friend and fellow archaeologist, Mr. Yabe, Masao’s father, when they stumble into Hiruko’s cave. Masao’s buddies soon lose their heads over Reiko, too, as she–her lovely head, anyway–and the beastie scamper through the empty hallways of the school, singing a hypnotizing melody to lure them to their doom. When Hieda shows up with his homemade goblin detection and eradication-stuffed suitcase of gadgets, he’s just in time to rescue Masao. In a calamitous, high-speed bicycle chase through the school, Reiko’s head chases after them, sticking out her disgustingly long tongue, but they escape, screaming all the way.

Borrowing visual tidbits from such movies as John Carpenter’s The Thing, and Roger Corman’s The Little Shop of Horrors, Tsukamoto follows the bumbling pair as they search for Hiruko’s home, hoping to seal him in permanently. Like Audrey, the man-eating plant whose victims’ faces appeared as blooming flowers, Masao receives a searing image of a face on his back each time Hiruko claims another head. The mystery of that, and his part in sealing the gate to hell, is soon revealed.

The skittish school janitor joins in the fight, and all three go against Hiruko, who sprouts wings and flies away after Hieda whips out a can of bug spray. Realizing where the entrance to Hiruko’s cave is–the tool shed at the rear garden–Hieda and Masao enter the stone room and open the gate to the goblin’s home. Of course, at this point, considering their purpose was to keep the gate closed, you may wonder why they opened it. Why, to get to the other side, of course! And the other side is a cavern filled with hundreds of Hiruko’s pesky siblings, each looking to get ahead. When the bug spray runs out, it’s a free for all as Hieda and Masao fight off the demons while trying to seal the gate they shouldn’t have opened to begin with.

Hiruko the Goblin is a fun, farcical horror romp from a director not known for his lighter side. The less than stellar use of stop-motion animation and jerky animatronics for the goblins only adds to the over the top style, which approaches Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead II in its bloody, gory slapstick mayhem.

For fans of Tsukamoto’s Tetsuo, the Iron Man, this movie may be a disappointment; but for the rest of us horror heads it’s a cheeky-weird monster movie that’s entertaining and effectively creeps inducing.

Snakes On a Plane (2006)

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Zombos Says: Good

“When I say snakes, you say plane,” yelled a giddy fellow in the front of the theater.

“Snakes!”

“Plane!” everybody yelled back.

As we waited for the 11:59am showing of Snakes on a Plane, the audience was euphoric. Again and again, he yelled “Snakes!” and we – I mean they – yelled back “Plane!”

Another roar went up when the lights dimmed and the trailer for Black Snake Moan, which also stars Samuel L. Jackson, brought a rousing cheer. So what is it about Snakes on a Plane and the in-your-face mother-f**ker acting style of Samuel Jackson that has this audience so hyped?

The film opens innocuously enough with an easy-listening pop song playing as a lone biker – Jones is his name – zips through the lush forests of Hawaii, enjoying the scenery. Oh, wait a minute, someone’s dangling from a rope. Bungee-jumping perhaps? No; definitely not. This guy is hurting and bleeding. He tells the biker to get away, just as Eddie Kim, the psycho who’s going to take a bat to this guy’s skull, pulls up. For the biker, it turns out to be the wrong place at the wrong time. Being an average, sporty kind of Joe, his luck isn’t very good either.

Crazy boy Kim and his thugs catch a glimpse of him and the chase is on. He escapes, barely, and we next see him in his apartment, watching a news report about the killing he witnessed. Jones hears a buzz coming from the door, and as he peeks through the peephole, he sees those same nasty looking thugs he ran away from nonchalantly drilling his door lock out. He starts running again, but this time it’s into the arms of FBI agent Nelville Flynn, who  tracked him down by lifting the fingerprints off the can of Red Bull energy drink he left at the scene of the crime. And here I thought that stuff was supposed to give you wings; Jones could have used a pair right about now.

snakes on a planeFBI agent Flynn unloads a can of whoop ass on the thugs, and before you can say snakes on a plane, we’re at the airport. It’s at this point I realize this film is cheesy good. Melt in your mouth damn good. The script is simple, direct, and filled with simple and direct dialog, which is sometimes witty, sometimes trite, but always fun. From the yellowish-brown tinting of the film, to the 1970’s style of direction and characterization, this is a vitamin B-12 kind of B-movie.

And then there are the characters. As the plane is delayed, we meet the passengers waiting to board the ill-fated flight. There’s the over-sexed young couple—you know they’re going to get it but good; Mercedes, a young woman carrying her little dog named Mary Kate; two boys riding alone; a really obnoxious businessman—you just know he’s going to get it especially good; the fat lady boozing it up—ha, ha, let’s watch her get it good, too—and the really nervous guy whose afraid to fly, along with his wife. There’s also a mom and her baby, but no singing nuns, so that was a relief. Mom, baby, snakes? Yup, you know what’s coming.

Agent Flynn and his partner, along with Jones, and a large crate of poisonous snakes in all sizes hopped-up on pheromones to boot, are soon in the air. Seems crazy Kim wants to make sure Jones doesn’t testify, even if it means bringing the entire plane down and killing everyone in it.

It’s when the over-sexed young couple head to the bathroom that the horror movie kicks into high action gear. Lord, tell me they didn’t just light a reefer in the bathroom? That’s the foreshadowing for a really gruesome death in horror movies. And so it begins.

snakes on a planeThe audience counted down the seconds on the explosive timer as the digits dropped to zero. The crate breaks open and soon the little and big nasties are crawling everywhere and wreaking havoc.

Using wicked real and VFX closeups, we see the snakes in all their slithering and fangy glory as they bite passengers left and right, leaving bloody welts, swelling body-parts, and blackened dead bodies in their path.

And there’s also snake-o-vision! You too can see the horrified faces of the scrambling passengers through a snakes’ eyes, just before the fangs sink deep and the venom spits out. Brought to you in fuzzy greenish color.

The snakes knock out the avionics on the plane, and with the plane flying into a storm, things are quickly moving from bad to worse. Thank the lord the writers of this film didn’t watch Airport, otherwise they would have taken out the pilots, too. Damn, I spoke to soon.

Just about every airplane disaster movie cliché comes into play as the passengers fight to survive. And yes, there’s a snake in microwave interlude also. What’s so amazing is that it all works fairly well, and the story keeps moving. You’ll be on the edge of your seat, and waiting breathlessly for Jackson to say those words only he can deliver. When the time came, the audience said it with him.

“Enough is enough. I had it with the mother-f**king snakes on this mother-f**king plane!”

Agent Flynn and the passengers do a rousing version of the A-Team and fight to take back the cockpit from the venomous horde, and its up to the guy who logged 2000 hours of flight time—playing a flight-simulator game—to save the day.

Snakes on a Plane is a terrific popcorn and soda summer movie, and Samuel L. Jackson is the only actor possible to make it work so well. I dare you to tell him otherwise.

The DVD comes with a good assortment of extras. Pure Venom: The Making of Snakes on a Plane gets the cast and crew involved discussing the technical and logistical aspects of filming. CafeFX’s featurette on the visual effects work involved in creating the computer-generated snakes is short and sweet. Snakes on a Blog covers the Internet hype surrounding the movie months before it was released, and Meet the Snakes, with snake handler Jules Sylvester, made me glad I’m not a snake handler. There’s also interactive content available on the DVD if you have InterActual Player 2.0, but don’t rush out and buy the player if you don’t have it.

Freaks (1932)
Still Freaky After All These Years

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Freaks movie scene with Baklova descending wagon steps, fearful of Johnn Eck and Angelo Rossito looking at her.
Courtesy of Dr. Macro High Quality Movie Scans

Zombos Says: Classic

A peal of thunder echoed outside, followed by a flash of lightning. Rivulets of water started sliding down the narrow windowpanes of the library; a perfect setting in which to view one of cinema’s more outré movies, Freaks. Zombos passed the bottle of claret over to Uncle LaVey, the blackest of the black sheep in Zimba’s family tree, and I inserted the DVD into the player. Dressed in his black shirt and pants, and with his black widow’s peaked hairline and black goatee, he presented quite the look of the Satanist about town.

As we watched the movie I could not help but wonder what Tod Browning and MGM were thinking when they made this movie? Browning definitely wanted to shock and unsettle his audience, and MGM wanted a horror movie that would rival his earlier Dracula success; but what both eventually achieved was an exploitation styled B-movie with flashes of brilliance and disgust that has entertained, insulted, and outraged audiences since 1932. The story of little Hans (Harry Earles) and his futile infatuation with the considerably taller Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova), set against the backdrop of the sideshow and its singular denizens, still manages to make one ill at ease upon viewing.

No other movie has embraced the participation of real-life freaks like Browning’s film does here: Prince Randian, the Living Torso; Pete Robinson, the Living Skeleton; Olga Roderick, the Bearded Lady; Martha Morris, the Armless Wonder; Joseph/Josephine, the Half-Man, Half-Woman; the Pinheads; the Hilton Sisters; Johnny Eck, The Half-Boy; Angelo Rossitto (Master in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome) and the others were well off the bell curve average. While Browning was heading down a less traveled cinematic road with movies like The Unholy Three and The Unknown, his need for showing the unconventional hit its zenith in Freaks.

Taking Tod Robbins’ story Spurs, Browning (who had already used Robbins’ novel The Unholy Three with critical and financial success), weaves a tale of murder and revenge that’s more unsettling and ends more horrifically than its source material. Adding a sexual overtone that undoubtedly offended his ‘normal’ audiences when it first hit theaters, and portraying his actors as regular people with incredible physical characteristics, then unleashing them as demonic angels of vengeance when mistreated, Browning makes you squirm and sweat watching it all unfold.

“Gooble, gobble!” LaVey chanted as the infamous wedding feast scene began. “Zombos, this scene always reminds me of your wedding,” he joked. Zombos was not amused.

Come to think of it, it reminded me of his wedding party, too. How odd.

The wedding scene is the highlight of the movie. It is here Cleopatra humiliates Hans and his friends, thereby sealing her doom. Falling back on his more comfortable silent movie direction skills, Browning even introduces the scene with an intertitle card announcing “The Wedding Feast.” While he may be comfortable, we aren’t as unsettling close-ups of the circus friends enjoying the festivities are juxtaposed with Hans’ growing realization he’s made a mistake. The drunk Cleopatra openly shows her affection for Hercules, the sideshow’s strongman. As Hans sits, humiliated, the oblivious revelers begin chanting “gooble, gobble, gooble, gobble, we accept her, we accept her one of us.” While the chant continues, Angelo Rossitto jumps on the table and passes around a large goblet overflowing with wine so everyone can take a sip from it. Cleopatra looks in horror as the cup comes closer and closer, eventually recoiling in terror as the cup is held up to her. She takes it and yells “No…dirty…slimy freaks!” and tosses the wine into Rossitto’s startled face.

In his book, The Monster Show, David Skal notes the wedding feast was heavily censored, and one particularly interesting element that would have intensified and justified Cleopatra’s horror at drinking from the communal goblet was removed; as the cup is being passed around, some freaks dribble into it. I leave it to you whether this possibly more nauseating visual should have been included.

Foreshadowing the horror to come, Browning uses more close-ups of Rossitto’s scowling face furtively peering into Hans’ wagon, watching Cleopatra slowly poisoning him, and again as he peers into Hercules’ wagon to see her and the muscle man conspiring against Hans. What follows is one of horror cinema’s more memorable series of scenes as Hans’ friends carry out their revenge.

As Tetrollini’s Traveling Circus prepares to get under way during a dark and stormy night (well, it was), we see Johnny Eck scampering beneath the wagons. As lightning and thunder play in the background, the camera follows him making his way to the huddled group of freaks patiently waiting, away from prying eyes, for their moment of reckoning.

With the traveling circus underway in the downpour, we cut to Hans’ wagon, rolling along in the muddy road. His diminutive friends, gathered by his bedside, quietly watch as Cleopatra once again prepares her poisonous medication. Only this time, Hans confronts her, asking for the bottle of poison. She looks down at Hans, then in horror at his friends who quietly pull out their knives to casually clean them. Cleopatra is understandably alarmed and the spoon of poison drops from her numb fingers.

Now cut to mighty Hercules who is also having a bad night. A knife flashes through the dark and slides into his side, bringing him down to the muddy road, down to their level, where he is relentlessly pursued by a swarm of freaks crawling through the mud and rain, brandishing weapons. The scene is nightmarish. I wonder how much audiences in Browning’s day squirmed in their seats watching it. The ending that was intended, but not used, has Hercules survive, but speaking with a much higher voice. You can draw your own conclusions.

Now back to Cleopatra: her wagon overturns and she briefly escapes the little demons by running into the nearby woods. We see her screaming one last time as they close in on her.

The original ending had a tree struck by lightning fall on her, crushing her legs, and the freaks swarming over her prostrate form to exact their hideous revenge. As shown in the final movie, after her scream we immediately move ahead in time to a sideshow where she appears horribly disfigured as one of the freak attractions. Dressed in a humiliating bird costume and unable to speak, she can only utter unintelligible sounds. The once proud and beautifully statuesque Cleopatra is now a hideous mute freak with a shattered mind and body.

As the movie ended, Zimba returned to snatch Uncle LaVey away. Zombos and I breathed a sigh of relief. Returning to our claret, we pondered the vagaries of moviemaking, and how a daring director got a major studio to produce one of the oddest classics of horror cinema. Forgotten for a very long time and almost lost to us, it was given new life and much needed recognition in the 1960s by photographer Diane Arbus’ successful efforts to bring it to the attention of the cinema art-house crowds.

So we can always remember that “But for an accident at birth, you might be as they are.”

Cemetery Man (1994)
Zombies, Sex, and Guns

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Zombos Says: Very Good

“What’s all that yelling about?” Zombos asked , putting his book down. We were in the study on a beautifully foggy morning.

“It sounds like Pretorious,” I said.

“Well, see what the blasted fool is yelling about now. If it’s not ducks, it’s something else.”

I went down to the front door, opened it, and found the groundskeeper waiting for me. He tossed a small package into my hands.

“What’s this, Pretorious?” I asked.

“Your damn fool something-or-other. Postman barely slowed down before he threw it over the fence. Hit me on the head, it did.” The groundskeeper adjusted his large straw hat. “Now maybe I can trim those corpse plants around the back in peace. Damn things grow like weeds.”

As he walked off, I tore open the package. There it was; my screener of Anchor Bay Entertainment’s release of Cemetery Man.

The first thing I do before watching a new DVD is to look for a commentary or documentary, even if the film is new to me. I watch that first. I know, even Zombos thinks it rather odd, but I prefer to know as much as possible about a new film before I see it, and more about a film I’ve already seen, with the hope that I will learn about those little artistic touches that otherwise go unnoticed.

The liner notes for a DVD can also provide a wealth of valuable information regarding the provenance of a film. (Oh lord, I am watching too many Antiques Roadshow episodes!) Michael Felsher’s liner notes for Anchor Bay’s release of Cemetery Man are exemplary, and I learned much about this quirky, odd mix of humor, horror, sexual desire, necrophilia,  gore and surrealism by director Michele Soavi and writer Gianni Romoli (from Tiziano Sclavi’s novel, Dellamorte Dellamore).

Rupert Everett plays Francesco Dellamorte, the forlorn, laconic caretaker of the Buffalora Cemetery, aided by a Curly-esque, dim-bulb—but frenetic—sort of individual called Gnaghi. One slight annoyance, or nightly chore—if you will—is that they have to keep the newly buried dead underground. For reasons never mentioned, the dead keep wanting to stay undead.

Mr. Soavi, as noted in the IMDb trivia for the film, explains that these “returners” are brought back to life by the mandragola roots that permeate the grounds of the cemetery. But that really doesn’t tell us why, does it? Life is often like that: things happen, but we never really know why. We just go with the flow.

So Francesco and Gnaghi are kept rather busy returning the dead to where they belong. To assist with this endeavor, Francesco keeps a revolver which he uses liberally to shoot the dead, well… dead again. To complicate matters, Francesco refuses to let the town authorities know what is happening in the cemetery for fear he may lose his job, along with having to fill out all that bureaucratic paperwork regarding reanimated dead people.

One aspect of all this bizarre supernatural activity that provides a bit of tension is that we never know, as Francesco and Gnaghi never know, which returners are going to take a few bites out of them, and which returners are just anxious to get back to their daily living routine, but really shouldn’t, considering personal hygiene and all.

Francesco’s nightlife, busy with shooting and reburying dead people, is more interesting than anything else he does during the day, and that is a sad commentary on his existentialistic existence. For a man whose favorite pastime is reading the phone book, and who observes one day that “At a certain point in life you realize you know more dead people then living,” things are not going all that well. But how can he get out of his doldrums?

It’s at this point that the voluptuous She enters his life—The Woman, as played by Anna Falchi. He meets her during her husband’s funeral. He’s captivated by her beauty. How she could be married to such an old man surprises him, but she tells him that it was the sex. Her dead husband was indefatigable in bed. This is an Italian film, after all.

Francesco does what he can to get closer to her, but it’s when he shows her his ossuary—interesting double-entendre here—that she begins to fall passionately in love. It’s here the use of billowing cloth throughout the film first becomes apparen as they embrace and kiss through it. Combined with the cinematography of long perspectives and close-ups, its appearance lends an impressionistic touch to the odd events surrounding Francesco.

The ossuary itself is a wonderfully eerie and claustrophobic chamber filled with skulls, bones, earth and huge mandragola roots, all intertwined and suffused in a brownish-gold light. In the documentary, it’s explained the set was constructed in layers, then put together to create the finished look of so many seemingly separate elements. It’s quite a work of horrific art indeed.

As daylight fades and night comes, blue ghost lights dance around Francesco and his lover. Soon, they’re making love over her dead husband’s grave. Her husband, of course, is not pleased and attacks them, killing his wife before Francesco can stop him. This being Buffalora Cemetery, however, she soon returns in her billowing death shroud to make passionate love once again to Francesco. A little decomposition doesn’t get in the way of his ardor, but her biting a rather large chunk out of his neck does. He makes sure she will not return a second time.

Adding insult to injury, a busload of scouts, the mayor’s fun-loving daughter, and some fun-loving but careless motorcyclists get mashed up on the roadway in a nasty accident and fill up the cemetery, providing both Francesco and Gnaghi with much work to keep the mangled returners more sedentary. Gnaghi, who does have some personality issues, takes a fancy to the mayor’s daughter’s head, and he soon has it out of the grave and into his apartment. She also takes a fancy to Gnaghi, and soon the two are singing and chatting up a storm like bosom-less buddies.

The film shifts from absurdity to downright surrealism as Francesco begins to see the woman he loves in other women. Oh, and the meeting he has with Death I suppose I should mention also.

Death is rather miffed that he keeps sending the dead back to the grave, so Death tells him it would be better if he just killed the living instead. Sure, why not? He does have that big gun.

Francesco’s existentialist angst spirals out of control and he finally seeks escape from it all. Packing a few belongings and Gnaghi into the family car, he heads out of town, through a long tunnel, and into the outside world. Or does he? Has he found a resolution to his problems by trying to escape them?

I dare you to watch this film only once.