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30 Days of Night (2007)

/ Movies (Horror) / 3 Comments

Zombos Says: Good

I award the movie two and a half stars because it is well-made, well-photographed and plausibly acted, and is better than it needs to be…Otherwise, this would be a radio play. I have pretty much reached my quota for vampire movies, but I shouldn’t hold that against this one. If you haven’t seen too many, you might like it. If you are a horror fan, you will love it. (Roger Ebert, from his review of 30
Days of Night)

Dear Roger,

I must take umbrage to your potentially snarky comment regarding horror fans. Not all of us automatically gush in delight at the sight of crimson fountains of blood spewing from severed jugular veins, torn open by shark-toothed vampires ripping into screaming victims. To the contrary, many of us are quite demanding in our never-ending search for skillfully crafted storylines that merge terror and drama
competently, above and beyond the usual frights.

Right off the bat I can tell you weren’t paying close attention to the movie: it’s Barrow, Alaska, not Barlow. The only Barlow I know is in Ohio, and they certainly don’t have to worry about 30 days of night or ravenous vampires for that matter. On the other hand—

 “You are getting a little off topic,” said Zombos, peering over my shoulder.

“You’re right.” I stopped typing and collected my thoughts. “Maybe I should start over.”

“Good idea,” he agreed.

Dear Roger,

I take exception to your cavalier comment regarding horror fans liking 30 Days of Night just because it’s a horror film; especially after you begrudgingly gave it two and a half stars. Not all of us children-of-the-night critics pile on the hyperbole when a highly anticipated vampire film hits the big screen, even if it does contain an interesting premise. I can’t believe no one thought of it before Steve Niles
and Ben Templesmith grabbed it for their graphic novel.

Speaking of the graphic novel, originally conceived as a three-issue series containing very evocative illustrations that grab each panel and–

“Are you writing about the movie or the comic book series?” asked Zombos.

—But I digress. I agree that the story becomes the usual struggle for survival against murderous fiends, but what did you expect? It’s a horror movie, where victims usually struggle against nightmarish fiends, and try their best not to be eaten, bitten, hack-sawed,
disemboweled, tortured, and, generally speaking, grievously harmed in any way.

I’ll grant you the Sheriff doesn’t do too good a job of it—saving townspeople, that is—but at least he gives it his best shot. It’s nice, too, that his estranged wife can finally find something they both can share in, like staying alive.

The opening events, with the mysterious burning of all the mobile phones, and the butchering of all the huskies in town should have alerted Sheriff Eben (Josh Hartnett) that trouble was brewing. And when Renfield’s cousin (Ben Foster) shows up to chill us with
his icy words heralding approaching doom, I’d be hauling my ass out of town right quick. But then we wouldn’t have much of a horror film, would we?

Granted, when the vampires do arrive, they’re the usual Goth-looking, shark-toothed, black-eyed night-crawlers with just a hint of fashion. And like you said, they are “a miserable lot.” One thing you didn’t mention, however, is the odd way they spill copious pools of blood. It never ceases to amaze me when scriptwriters turn vampires into werewolves, having them rip out throats in geyser-like sprays of
arterial blood, wasting their food source in an orgy of sadistic destruction. More blood winds up in the snow than in the stomachs of these guys. Go figure. Sure, as you said, they shwoosh around a lot, teasingly just out of sight, but they aren’t zombies you know. Zombies dawdle; vampires shwoosh. It’s the nature of the beast.

I agree with you on that whole non-Hammer speaking thing; bad call here. If there’s anything worse than vampires ripping out your throat in large chunks, it’s having to listen to their really tedious pontifications before they do it. The dialog here is not a keeper, and the subtitles to translate their click-clack-clucking speech is irritating. For some odd reason, I kept imagining they came from Russia, though I can’t fathom why.

“I thought you were writing this review to refute Ebert’s two and a half stars, not agree with him,” commented Zombos. “Maybe you should focus on that?”

“Oh, right. Let me think this through again. You’re right. I’ll start over.”

Dear Roger,

I don’t think it fair to award only two and a half stars to 30 Days of Night. The acting is earnest and effective and the cinematography captures the setting sunset and onset of darkness beautifully, exemplifying the isolation of Barrow in the cold Alaskan winter. The action sequences are handled well and move the story at a brisk pace, holding the tension well as vampires descend on the town and systematically wreak havoc, breaking into homes in search of prey, and snatching people in fast shwooshes of action across the snow banks.

After awhile it does all seem to blur into the same old vampire stalking, victim-dying pattern, but while the story becomes the usual struggle for survival, the interplay between Sheriff Eben and his estranged wife (Melissa George), a law-enforcement type herself,
adds depth to the storyline, and more involvement from us: there’s nothing like a couple getting back together to bring out our concern for their safety.

Horror films could use more romance.

That interlude with the little vampire girl in the general store is worth noting. So what do you do with a blood-thirsty little vampire girl anyway? Cute kid? No, but still a kid. It’s nice to see some good old axe swinging, vampire head-chopping, here and there. The film could have used more of that. There’s nothing like romance and heads flying to spice things up.

I must admit I was a tad disappointed after Sheriff Eben’s inspiring speech about the townspeople being natives and using their experience with the cold and darkness to fight the interlopers. Not much in the way of that experience shone through, and everyone
pretty much froze their asses off in the dark instead. After that dangerous foray to the general store to get supplies and potential weapons, not much was done with that stuff after all that, either.

Speaking of that 30 days’ full moon lighting that permeates the streets and buildings of the supposedly darkness-enshrouded town, you do have a point. I found it odd, too. The film starts off with things going dark after the blood-thirsty cretins disable the generator, but interiors and streets suddenly become brightly lit, with light coming from somewhere. So much for that 30 days of darkness thing. More murkiness in the town would have shaken things up better.

 “Damn, I did it again, didn’t I?” I said.

Zombos nodded, rolling his eyes.

“Oh, hell.”

Dear Roger,

I agree with you: the film is a solid two and a half stars and horror fans should love it in spite of its few inconsistencies.

Yours Truly,

Zoc

PS. We still miss you.

Pumpkin Carvings to Die For

/ Halloween Candy / Leave a Comment

I dread carving up the jack-o-lantern every Halloween. After spending so much money for the biggest, baddest, pumpkin in the lot, my feeble carving skills wind up leaving my orange ball of stringy guts with a rinky-dink face comprised of an uneven smile, oddball eyes, and slanted teeth that convey no horror bite, nor whimsy, nor anything remotely appropriate for Halloween.

So when I see pumpkin carving skill as displayed at http://www.extremepumpkins.com, I envy, I covet, I stand, drooling from my trembling lips, in awe.

A-100-lb-pumpkin-is-large-enough-to-eat-a-man-2
The-chainsaw-pumpkin-guy-2
This-pumpkin-is-being-attacked-by-spiders-2

Interview: Midnight Syndicate’s Edward Douglas

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Director Edward Douglas kindly steps into the closet to talk about his upcoming film, The Dead Matter, which tells the story of a vampire relic with occult powers that falls into the hands of a grief-stricken young woman who will do anything to contact her dead brother.

What makes The Dead Matter a horror film that fans will want to see?

My favorite horror films are the ones that incorporate all the visuals and atmosphere with a strong script and story. That’s what we have with “The Dead Matter.” This movie has lots of twists and turns along with some unorthodox takes on traditional horror themes. Mix that with the FX guys at Precinct 13 doing their thing, 70’s horror buff DP, Alex Esber, crafting the look, and some great performances by our cast and you got something special.

The icing on the cake for me is that although there are very few original themes out there, we do manage several memorable moments that I think will stick with audiences for a while afterwards. Music is one of the most important elements for me so Gavin Goszka and I (Midnight Syndicate) will be working overtime to make sure the score is something really special as well.

I love horror films. Between Midnight Syndicate and Midnight Syndicate Films, it’s not only my job but my hobby as well. Although I always find something enjoyable in each film I watch, I’ve been disappointed as of late – often it just comes down to the script. Especially with the larger budgets, it just doesn’t feel like enough time and effort is being put into that area of the production. Co-writer Tony Demci and I spent a lot of time tweaking “The Dead Matter” script into the kind of horror movie we would like to see made. It’s a film that I think will resonate with a lot of horror film fans – a good time.

You did an earlier version of The Dead Matter in 1996. Did you approach this version differently? If so, tell us how and why you made those changes.

My goal from the beginning was to use the original version as a springboard for a remake with an actual budget. The upside to it taking this long is that we’ve had over ten years to think about what we liked and didn’t like the first time around. I’ve had ten more years of life experience, ten more years of watching even more horror films, reading and writing more stories, and co-producing all of the Midnight Syndicate horror music CDs. It’s all had a positive impact on how I approached the new version of the “The Dead Matter.” The production concept hasn’t changed drastically; it’s just executed a lot better in the script.

Having an actual budget allowed us to work with a talented cast and crew and achieve a look that wasn’t even fathomable for us in ’96 when we shot the film for $2000 on Super VHS tape. One of the biggest decisions was to shoot the new version on film. In the end I wanted to see “The Dead Matter” looking the way I remember movies looking while I was growing up. Even with all the post-FX available there’s just something about film. Alex and the lighting crew really delivered the classic look I was going for.

What challenges did you face during production, and how did you overcome them?

In our second week, Mansfield, Ohio (the city we were filming in) got hit with a storm so large that it flooded everything and rained us out for one of our nights of filming. When we woke up that next morning the entire lower part of the city was underwater (including part of our backup set). It even made the national news. It was the most rain the city had seen in over 20 years and one of the rainiest Augusts in Northeastern Ohio history (about a third of our film is exteriors so we had our backs to the wall). Producer, Gary Jones and UPM, Philip Garrett assembled an incredibly talented crew, though, that did what veterans do – make things happen in less than ideal situations. We pulled together, switched scheduling around, made up for the lost time, and got back on schedule that following week. It was challenging but we got all the scenes covered and I didn’t have to compromise the script at all.

As far as other challenges go, shooting on film always presents a fun and exciting array of potential disasters and challenges. I’ll leave it at that for now.

Now that you’re in post-production, what are your plans for distribution? When will we get to see The Dead Matter?

I think we’ll be ready to begin screening “The Dead Matter” next summer. Although I don’t have a fixed release date, one date that is set is August 1st. That’s when Midnight Syndicate’s soundtrack to “The Dead Matter” will be available in stores. The movie will be released afterwards.

Music is an important part of your life. You composed the scores for The Dead Matter, Sin-Jin Smyth, and The Rage. You also founded the band, Midnight Syndicate. What similarities and differences are there between composing music and directing a film?

In both directing and composing you are telling a story, only you are using different canvasses. The composer uses music and the director uses more visual elements. If you are handling both those elements I think you have the opportunity of achieving a special cohesiveness between the two.

There aren’t a lot of similarities. As a composer, it’s your job to try and get into the head of the director so that you can use your music to accentuate and elevate their story. You are only a part of the machine – and the focus of your work has to be what’s best for the movie and the director’s vision.

As a director you are running the machine – controlling, in varying degrees, all the facets of the production, including music. The end-product is in your head. The challenge is communicating what is in your head to all the different parts of the machine so that it can become reality on screen.

Why direct? Aren’t you busy enough?

One of my main goals has always been to direct motion pictures, starting with “The Dead Matter.” Whether its music or film it’s all about telling a story – horror and the supernatural has been the way most of my creative endeavors have drifted towards.

I combined my love of filmmaking and music with the first Midnight Syndicate concerts I produced in ’98. The concerts were a blending of a live band scoring original films that I made along with live actors and animation. It was a rewarding and learning experience but not the same as producing and scoring a full-length feature. Midnight Syndicate does keep me pretty busy, but what I’m doing with Midnight Syndicate Films directly relates to my work with the band, so I see this as all one big intertwined project.

What are your favorite horror and non-horror films? Why?

That’s always the toughest question. I guess I’d say among my all-time favorites that I can think of now are: “Aliens,” “Exorcist,” “Shining,” “Night of the Living Dead,” “The Old Dark House,” “Black Sabbath,” “Jaws,” “The Ring,” “Sixth Sense,” “Dracula (1979),” “Pet Sematary,” Coppola’s “Dracula,” “Evil Dead,” most of the Hammer catalog, “House of Usher,” and “Psycho.”

As far as non-horror films go, a lot of my theatrical training centered in comedy. I enjoy slapstick so I really love everything from the Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker team, from “Kentucky Fried Movie,” to the “Airplane”s and “Naked Gun”s. “Ghostbusters” is one of my all-time favorites too: great concept, great script, and Sigourney Weaver.

What’s the one thing you really love about the horror genre?

There are so many directions you can take the genre in. Whether it’s providing an audience with strong visual elements or leaving it up to their imaginations to fill in the blanks, it’s a genre that sparks something inside of all of us creatively to some extent, I think.

Now what’s the one thing you really hate about the horror genre?

More of a recent phenomenon, same thing I’m hearing a lot – all these remakes of the classics. For me it points up my problem with mainstream horror and that is there is little to no focus on the script. In my opinion, strong visuals are part of great horror filmmaking but not the only part. Unfortunately I’m not in a position to say anything. “The Dead Matter” is technically a remake. Additionally, I’m
helping fuel the “remake machine” since I’m a huge fan of Rob Zombie and can’t wait to see what he does with “Halloween.”

What movie and music projects are you working on now?

It’s “The Dead Matter” 24/7 right now. I’ll begin editing this November, by February I’ll be starting on the score.

Flight of the Living Dead:
Outbreak on a Plane (2007)

/ Movies (Bad) / 1 Comment

 

Zombos Says: Fair

Marauding voracious zombies, no first class, no in-flight movies, and no salted nuts. And it gets worse! New Line Home Entertainment lands Flight of the Living Dead:Outbreak On A Plane straight to DVD, so fasten your seat belts because it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

At a time when airlines have routinely kept passengers stranded in conga lines and airport terminals, creatively screwing-up the air travel experiences for so many travelers in so many nefarious ways, can flesh-eating zombies really be more frightening than having to get through a security checkpoint without completely disrobing, or finding your seat’s overhead luggage bin not already stuffed with A30, C13, and D2’s carry-ons? The writers, director Scott Thomas, Sidney Iwanter, and Mark Onspaugh, attempt the daunting task of answering that question, but don’t have the budget or the scripting verve to make it a resounding yes.

What they do have is a good cast which includes Erick Avari and Kevin J. O’connor from 1999’s The Mummy, and a clever sense
for using the 747 Jumbo Jet’s confining spaces as zombies overrun the cargo hold, the aisles, rip through the floor, and barge their way into the toilet. But the promise of a cheeky, retro-fitted storyline, and characters straight from the Airport disaster movies is not realized, although the opening credit sequence, with its bitchin’ song and animation, teases us with that expectation.

Yes, there’s a nun—sans guitar this time, thank God—a cop handcuffed to his wise-cracking, suave criminal charge, three perky
stewardesses, an aging pilot on his last flight, and fast moving bio-zombies. What’s not here is the needed scale to make the aisles of the 747 a harrowing battleground, or the depth of characterization and turmoil to put you on the edge of your seat, dreading every minute the plane is in the air. It’s a good popcorn and soda movie, but you will find the popcorn doesn’t stick in your throat and the soda doesn’t fizz into your nose like it does when watching more gripping horror fare. Missing, too, is the realism and normal discomfort of being on a plane: passengers on this flight easily stand in and walk the aisles during turbulent weather, and there’s no intrusive background jet engine noise; and for a 747, not many passengers booked this trip, although we keep getting new zombies from somewhere.

The strongest missing element is a more dynamic and iconic personality to rally the passengers against the voracious, economy class undead. While the properly cliché characters are adequate, not much is written into them. The famous golf pro, who carries and continuously polishes his beloved club, manages to knock a few growling heads off, here and there, but, like the martial artist in Snakes
on a Plane, his potential is never realized. The quiet nun, ignoring everything around her, unfairly meets her grisly end without redemption, just when she decides to get involved. The cop and the sky marshal whip out their guns, but don’t rally or rescue anyone in the process. Instead, it’s a free-for-all as passengers run and zombies chase in a paint-by-numbers flow of lively action.

Automatic weapons and incendiary devices provide wacky fun. The outbreak begins when an infected wife of one of the renegade
scientists on-board reanimates, much to the chagrin of the hazmat-suited guard nervously holding a semi-automatic weapon in the cargo hold. He opens fire, spraying bullets into the communications box and everything else but the agitated woman. She chomps down and the zombie romp begins.

With so many bullets flying around, it’s hilarious the cabin isn’t compromised. One errant bullet does manage to rip through the plane’s interior and into the side of a flight attendant in a deft scene of mayhem. An improvised munition to blow up the zombies in the cargo
hold doesn’t put a dent in the plane, either, but this intentionally ludicrous scene is done well.

At least I hope it was intentional.

Cut-aways to increasingly worried military and government officials on the ground give the backstory, but tend to slow the action happening on the plane, clipping the tension instead of increasing it. Exterior shots of the CGI plane in flight are also glaringly budget and should have been used more sparingly. Then there are the air ducts. I’m not familiar  with the 747’s air circulation system, but whenever I see air ducts big enough to elbow your way through them, the words “convenient plot device” spring to mind. The disbelieving sky marshal is quickly made a believer when he suddenly encounters one energetic zombie in one.

While the dialog is not crisp or witty, it does have its moments, and the fighter jet, scrambled to bring down the plane, complicates things for the few remaining passengers not gnawing on each other. Only one fighter jet is dispatched, though, so I suppose the Pentagon isn’t too worried about the infected plane landing (or crashing) in a populated area.

The best way to watch Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Plane, is with a bunch of fellow horrorheads, lots of popcorn and White Castle hamburgers, Cane Cola with lime, and Oreo cookies.

Toss in Snakes on a Plane, and Spookies, and you’ve got a night of it.

Face Your Fear: Nightmare Ghost Stories
In New York City

/ Haunt Attractions / Leave a Comment

Ghoststories “You’re kidding,” said Mr. Chin, shaking his head in astonishment.

“No. Really. He screams like a young girl going through a bad frat initiation,” I said.

“Wow, I never imagined…”

“Now what?” There was a commotion in back of us. We were standing in line, waiting to get into The Maze, a new addition to Psycho Clan’s Nightmare: Ghost Stories, New York City’s favorite haunted house attraction.

“Hey, looks like Lawn decked the ghost,” said Mr. Chin, chuckling.

A guy wearing a white sheet had been keeping things lively by sneaking up on people waiting in line to give them a quick fright. He was now on the floor, balled-up in a fetal position and moaning horribly, although this time I don’t think he was acting. Lawn Gisland, former movie cowboy and rodeo star, had slugged him hard.

“Lordy, sorry, so sorry, buddy,” said Lawn, leaning over the prostrate ghost. You oughtn’t have snuck up on me like that. It was pure instinct is all.” The ghost moaned louder, tightly clutching his white sheet as he rocked back and forth. Two guys wearing wireless headsets came running over and carried him away. They gave Lawn dirty looks.

Going through the new Nightmare: Ghost Stories haunted attraction, Face Your Fear, can be quite a test for your nerves, as Mr. Chin, Lawn, myself and Zombos soon found out. 

Mr. Chin insisted on doing The Maze first, but the many screams emanating from it didn’t endear me to that idea. Groping around in the dark without Riddick’s eyesight, through claustrophobic, tortuous passages filled with disoriented people desperately searching for the exit, and spookers hiding around every corner waiting to scare you is–oddly–not much fun for me.

I let the eager Mr. Chin go first, then pushed Zombos ahead of me. He scowled, but I’m only his valet, not his bloody bodyguard. Lawn followed Zombos. I took a deep breadth and plunged into the pitch blackness of terror. Within the first two minutes I realized my strategy of always following the right-side wall, and always turning right at corners, wasn’t working well.

“Mr. Chin?” I called out.

“Over here,” he said.

I groped in the direction of his voice. “Where’s Zombos and Lawn?”

Someone ahead of us screamed like a young girl during a fraternity hazing.

“Hey, you weren’t kidding,” said Mr. Chin. “Let’s not go that way.” We turned left instead, right into a dead end.

There were many dead ends, and spookers patiently crouching in them, eagerly taking advantage of our poor sense of direction. Jean-Paul Sartre must have been referring to his experience in a maze when he wrote “hell is other people,” though he probably meant to say “hell is being stuck in a maze that is so dark you can’t see your freakin’ hand in front of your face, and having lots of screaming, frightened people stuck in there with you bumping into one another.” After what seemed like an eternity, a light flashed in front of us.

“Look,” said Mr. Chin. Ahead of us, a brawny, long-haired guy quietly pointed to the exit. Dressed in a bloody apron, and bearing a remarkable resemblance to Leatherface, we were reluctant to take him up on his offer. He was pretty insistent, however, so I pushed Mr. Chin ahead of me and we ran past him. Freedom never tasted so good. We braced ourselves for the main attraction, Face Your Fear.

Lawn and Zombos were already waiting on the line to get in, under the flickering chandelier covered in cobwebs. Lawn was smiling from ear to ear, and Zombos looked as white as the sheet that poor ghost had worn. They were reading the Assumption of Risk disclaimer tacked to the wall. A really really large poster with very very small print.

“I reckon that ‘physical injury from frightening performers, or from sudden reactions to them may occur’ blurb is a might true,” said Lawn with a laugh. Zombos stood mute, but his fists were clenched into tight balls. “Maybe I should go first,” said Lawn, taking pity on Zombos.

Of course, any experienced haunt attraction devotee knows you never go in second, or last for that matter. There’s safety in numbers, especially the middle odd ones when in a group of determined, but skittish horrorheads.

Once the doors opened, and we were inside, the true fear that comes from the expected unexpected began. Haunted attractions rely on simple but devilish effects that take advantage of darkness or gloomy light, unnerving and disorienting sounds, and spookers, both visible and dressed in blackout clothes, primed and ready to lead you into and out of each foreboding room of fright, with all designed to scare the hell out of you, and maybe gross you out a bit along the way for added measure.

Suddenly, a pair of headlights caught Zombos in their beams, and a car crashed just a foot or so away from him. He was too startled to scream this time. Like I said, the second person always gets it but good. From there it was a feverish, twitchy-tour, from freak-me-out room to you-go-first room, each filled with a mind-numbing tableau of terror. At one point we had to climb over a bed to get to a door on the other side. Mr. Chin took the initiative after I–and even Lawn–balked at ruffling the bedsheets for fear of what lay underneath.

Then there were strobe lights. Really disorienting strobe lights, flashing out time-slices in that bizarre, mixed-up, non-linear way of theirs. In the room of mummies, we found ourselves desperately trying to avoid their touch as they changed position to the beat of the strobing light, blocking our exit. Or did they even move? Perhaps the alternating darkness and brightness made it seem they were moving. The tableau reminded me of the blind nurses’ devilish mannequin dance in Silent Hill. I wanted out from this temporal aliasing so bad I could taste it.

I finally managed to get past the blinking mummies…and into the twirling laser-light tunnel, spinning around and around and around, taking what little wits I had left and spinning them around, too. The coup de grâce was stepping ankle deep into something grainy and squishy, down a tenebrous hallway, just before we were set free.

“Lord love a duck, would you look at my shoes,” I said. Whatever it was we walked through was still in my shoes.

“That was the most harrowing experience of horror I’ve had,” said Zombos, clutching his heart.

“Tarnation! What a ride,” said Lawn, dusting off his boots.

“Damn, let’s do that again!” said Mr. Chin. We looked at him in horror.

Then we did it again.

    Documentary Review: Vampira The Movie (2006)

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    Zombos Says: Good

    The year is 1954. It’s midnight on a KABC-TV Saturday night. A striking, impossibly wasp-waisted woman in a torn black dress glides down a long, dry ice misty, cobwebbed corridor toward the camera, past unlit candelabras. She stops. Suddenly she screams, then looks at the camera with a devilish gleam in her eyes and says “Screaming relaxes me so.”

    Vampira’s short-lived television show–where, in-between showing gems like White Zombie and forgettable B-fare, she would mix a foaming cocktail to “absolutely kill you,” or search for her always lost pet spider, Rollo–opened the door for the many male and female horror hosts that followed, and set the tongue-in-cheek, ghoul-cool standard for hosting still seen today. With her phallic-looking nails, plunging v-neck exposed bosom, and sardonic wit, she presented quite the picture of the succubus every straight guy would love to meet in a darkened room.

    Kevin Sean Michaels, in his documentary, Vampira: The Movie, introduces us to Maila Nurmi, Vampira’s more normal alter ego. In her eighties now, this succubus may have faded with time, but her wit remains as Nurmi talks about the creation of her influential character, still celebrated by horrorheads everywhere.

    The most striking revelation, at least for me, is that she didn’t start out the way she ended up. While many of us tend to do that, we, generally, have an inkling as to where we want to end up and aim accordingly. For Nurmi, all she wanted was to be an evangelist. How she missed that path–thank you God from us horror fans–is an interesting mix of plan and chance. Her plan was to make enough money so she could pitch a tent and start preaching. The chance came when she appeared at a costume ball, gets spotted by a producer looking for a good reason people would lose sleep for, and is hired to host a bunch of shlock horror movies that any sane person wouldn’t watch in the daytime, let alone midnight on a Saturday night.

    Using her love for comics, cartoonist Charles Addams, and bondage photographer and artist John Willie, Nurmi set about to create a “glamor ghoul.” She mixed the sensual power of Terry and the Pirates’ Dragon Lady, the ghoulish, bizarre charm of the Addams Family, and the fetishistic allure of Willie’s tightly-bound leather ladies in ecstasy (or distress) to create the first Goth chick on the television screen.

    In-between the testimonials and remembrances from notable horror personalities like Forrest J. Ackerman, Zacherley, Sid Haig, Lloyd Kaufman, Jerry Only of the Misfits, and many others, Nurmi recalls her sudden fame and subsequent Hollywood blacklisting,, and her associations with Marlon Brando and James Dean. While Vampira may have been a sexy, liberated ghoul, Nurmi shied away from acting because she disliked its competitive nature, and professed to be not as sexually-emancipated as her more seductive twin.

    Cassandra Peterson discusses the lawsuit regarding her Elvira, Mistress of the Dark character, whom Nurmi felt looked too much like Vampira, and a good portion of the documentary focuses on Vampira’s appearance in Plan 9 From Outer Space, in which Nurmi gives her initial impression of Edward D. Wood Jr. as a “low-born idiot.” Unfortunately, little remains of Vampira’s KABC-TV show, so Wood’s legendary train wreck of a movie is her most-remembered appearance. After reading the script and complaining about her dialog, she and Wood agreed to make her character in the film silent.

    The documentary is a welcome and long overdue tribute to an influential figure in the annals of cinematic horror, but it does have its minor faults. Background music is used when silence would have been golden, and too much time is spent on Plan 9 From Outer Space and Wood. The special features play more like “we’ve got to find something to add” instead of more note-worthy content, though, from the director’s commentary it appears there’s just not much material available. Nurmi led a hermit-like existence after James Dean’s death, and it is quite an accomplishment to get her talking at all. But one pines for more clips from her show, and more personal recollections from those closest to her. But hearing and seeing Maila Nurmi, even after all this time, is to die for. Thanks to her devoted fans that helped make this documentary, we don’t have to go that far.

    As Vampira would say at the close of her show, “Bad dreams, darling.”

    Resident Evil, Extinction (2007)

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    Resident Evil Extinction poster image of Mila Jovovich with guns and mean look.Zombos Says: Fair

    I knew I had to steel myself against another blistering disappointment in horror movie entertainment. I headed to the concession stand and bought my usual reviewer-comfort food: small Cherry Coke, check; box of Junior Mints, check. I then sat in the last row, far from the screen, symbolically distancing myself from this third installment in a series that has, so far, failed to capture the eeriness and gut-wrenching involvement of the video game it sprang from. I was half-way through my box of Junior Mints, around the time when Alice–lithesome Milla Jovovich–was holding herself in her arms–her clone self, that is–that I realized kicking zombie butt can be fun to watch, even if the dialog, characters, and set-pieces are uninspired to the point of lameness. Let’s face it: the franchise keeps going only because Milla Jovovich is the prettiest and sexiest zombie butt-kicker on the screen today.

    Dressed in short-shorts, boots and garters, and two really big, sharp Kukri knives that Jim Bowie would have been proud to own, she presents quite the picture of the fashionably-dressed zombie slayer about town, or desert in this case. Unfortunately the T-Virus has spread well-beyond Racoon City, and now the entire planet is screwed big time, as well as the dwindling bunch of ragtag survivors traveling in a convoy that also would have made Mad Max proud, too.

    It all begins promisingly with the nefarious Umbrella Corporation still trying to convert the millions of zombies it helped create into domesticated companions, and trying to perfect their Alice–zombie butt-kicker extraordinaire–clone army (in case their domestication plans fail, I suppose). The original Alice is on the run, trying to avoid the Umbrella Corporation’s equally nefarious and ubiquitous spy-satellites that still run while the rest of the planet doesn’t: damn, those Duracell batteries are good.

    After a brief warm-up with a Rob Zombie-styled redneck white trash family and their dead but eager dogs, Alice comes across a notebook that points to the promised, zombie-free land of Alaska. And you thought Alaska was only good for crab and salmon, didn’t you? Of course, with 30 Days of Night soon to hit theaters, that would have made quite a tie-in, don’t you think? Zombies and vampires going at it, and Alice kicking, hacking and slashing all the way. Yummy.

    Back to reality. As Alice continues her trek across the now sandy reaches of a decimated Nevada, she hooks up with her old MySpace bunch of Racoon City survivors, whose  caravan is in desperate need of food and fuel. Here’s where the film gets mired in the usual hackneyed theatrics; that  let’s-check-out-the-“deserted hotel,” all two of us, and make sure to get bitten by a zombie while you’re distracted, so you can ignore the impending danger–no one will notice you turning green and attracting flies–and turn into a dead flesh-muncher at a really critical time to screw things up kind of usual.

    What’s not so usual is Alice’s newfound X-Men-like telekinetic ability which sure comes in handy when she remembers to use it, and, hey, what’s with those cloudy-eyed birds that have been eating nothing but zombie carrion–oh, sh*t! Run!

    Just when you think director Russell (Zen in the Art of Killing Vampires) Mulcahy and writer Paul (Castlevania) Anderson are blindly going through the zombie-shuffle, that Hitchcockian interlude with predatory zombie birds is a hair-raising thrill a minute, especially when Alice shows up to save the day.

    But things go back to status quo when Alice and the survivors pull up in a desolate Las Vegas, only to get caught unawares by dozens of ravenous zombies dressed as Mr. Goodwrench by the Umbrella Corporation. While I sat wondering how they got all those uncontrollable zombies dressed in overalls, Alice battled them and the corporation’s attempt at mind control.

    Her friends didn’t fare too well while she struggled with that one, but it does send her, very pissed, back to kick Umbrella Corp’s butt, and square off against the evil scientist who tried to capture her. He, of course, is now mutated into the usual BIG and UGLY, possibly dead, creature with evil intentions. Oh, and she runs into her clones. Lots of them. In fact, that’s the best part of the film: the ending. I hope it sets up the fourth installment. If it does, it’ll be a knockout.

    All in all, spending some time with Milla Jovovich is always enjoyable. While the make-up on the zombies is cursory,  and the action sequences needed more kick (as Gingold points out, the Las Vegas locale isn’t used well at all), this installment in the franchise is more enjoyable than the lacklustre Resident Evil: Apocalypse. So I didn’t really need to fall back on my Junior Mints and Cherry Coke much.

    Disclaimer: We apologize for this reviewer’s apparent lack of professional interest in any of the other actors, like Oded Fehr (who does a wonderful scene with a lit cigarette, a fuse, and groping zombies), in this film. While we agree that Milla Jovovich is an eyeful, it is important to recognize the talents of those supporting victims and zombies that made her look so good. Had we taken our eyes off of Jovovich, we’d be able to name them ourselves. We did notice Ashanti. She looked lovely, too.

    Graphic Book Review: Zombie Tales Vol. 1

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    Zombos Says: Very Good

    No other horror subgenre elicits more fodder for cinema than those nihilistic automatons of sheer irrational fright and disgust. Whether born of thumping voodoo drums, cosmic radiation, or the crisp tinkling of test tubes, the walking dead have brought metaphorical life to many cinematic, philosophical, theological, and fictional works. No other unreal monster instills such chills and thrills as a shambling or sprinting—and badly decomposing—undead aunt, uncle, or significant other that has eyes and teeth only for you. From social commentary to gore, zombies are the cat’s meow when it comes to biting allusive storytelling and visceral visuals combined.

    Boom! Studios’ Zombie Tales Volume One takes full advantage of this ironic oasis of socially  relevant dead people by collecting, into a nicely-sized book, stories that run the gamut of zombiedom motifs, including loss of identity, religious dilemma, and gruesome humor. It’s a rare treat to find a collection that provides stimulating horror entertainment across every story. The Walking Dead trades come to mind as one of the few that can do that. Zombie Tales Volume One accomplishes the same feat, and while each story is not above average, many are, and all are competently good.

    My favorite would have to be Daddy Smells Different. That foreboding title aside, one of the challenges in doing a short graphic story is to provide enough build-up, within the limited span of panels, to enable an effective ending; one that will leave you thinking—and feeling—a little off the well-trodden trail of typicality. Writer and artist, John Rogers and Andy Kuhn, create a 1950’s-style tale of terror with their snappy narrative, told in the first person by a little boy who goes through a more challenging change than puberty. It’s poignant, a little sad, and provides a kicker ending that leaves you uncomfortable. Both artwork and narrative work horrifyingly well together and capture a bit of that old EC Horror Comics magic.

    I, Zombie:Remains of the Day, a three-part story written by Andrew Cosby and illustrated by three capable artists in their different styles, is a sublime dip into the bizarro world of zombie humor. Another tale told in the first person narrative style, it depicts the trials and tribulations of one poor dead-head whose hunger goes deeper than just sweetmeats. Here, loss of identity becomes more replacement by a different one; one you definitely could say is a life-style change, or maybe “dead-style” would be more accurate. With a little tongue in cheek dialog, and decomposing anatomy, the story provides a happy ending only possible in your zombie imagination. One amusing scene has zombie bunnies poised for mayhem. It reminded me of a similar, albeit much more serious scene in Kim Paffenroth’s Dying to Live novel.

    Another three-part story by writer Keith Giffen, and artist Ron Lim, is a darkly-humorous, more philosophical exploration of a zombie mind slowly becoming dissolute; a once-living personality slowly dissolving into nothingness. Parallels can be drawn to the reality of alzheimer’s disease as the real horror of becoming a zombie is explored in Dead Meat: the loss of one’s self, one’s uniqueness.

    Religious dogma is the underpinning for The Miracle of Bethany, written by Michael Alan Nelson and drawn by Lee Moder. I recall one reviewer mentioning this story could be construed as blasphemous in its use of Lazarus as Zombie O, but fiction can never be blasphemous; only reality can. It’s a story that looks at how a miracle can become a curse if the spirit—and flesh—is weak. We all stand naked in the Garden of Eden after all.

    Religion also plays into Zarah’s decision-to-be-made For Pete’s Sake. Writer Johanna Stokes and artist JK Woodward explore that decision—how long do you hold out hope for the one you love in the face of despair—before you can move on with your dramatically altered life? Here, the zombie apocalypse has created a new culture of “them and us”, with people moving from building to building across foot-bridges built from roof-top to roof-top, while the ravenous, ungodly zombies walk streets below. Life goes on, as best it can. I can think of some ungodly places on earth now that closely parallel the unreal world Zarah finds herself in. What would your decision be?

    While there are other rewarding stories in this engrossing anthology, the last one will leave you with a bitter taste in your mouth as another, once happy, little boy fights to find his way back home in A Game Called Zombie. This one hearkens back to The Twilight Zone, but there is no Rod Serling here to neatly tie things up. Instead, little Travis must contend with zombies that no one else can see; worse yet, they can see him. Is he hallucinating from the onset of schizophrenia? Where did his dad go? Whatever you do, don’t open your eyes. What was chasing you is now standing in front of you.

    Comic Book Review:
    Papercutz Tales From the Crypt 2

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    Tftc2 Zombos Says: Good

    “What the hell?” It was three a.m. in the morning. I woke up from a fitful sleep because someone was banging on my bedroom window. I threw the bedsheets aside and reluctantly got out of bed.

    “Finally! Boy, you sleep like the dead,” rasped the Crypt-Keeper as I opened the window. “Hey, watch it down there!” He was standing on the top rung of a too short ladder. Three stories below, the Old Witch and the Vault-Keeper were trying to hold the ladder steady. “Bungling dolts! And they wonder why I always get top billing.”

    “Look, if this is about that review I did for issue one—” I started saying.

    “Tsk, tsk, a bloated corpse under the bridge, Zoc, bloated corpse under the bridge. Though the boys at Papercutz were not happy. Not happy at all. Lucky for you I convinced them to put down their torches and go home.

    “Then who’s that?” I pointed to a man standing at the foot of the ladder, holding a flaming torch high in one hand and flipping me the bird with the other.

    “Oh, he’s just one of the artists. They get so temperamental, you know. Look, Zoc, baby, you’ve simply got to check out our second issue. We’ve—” The Crypt-Keeper swayed to the left, then swayed back. “Will you idiots hold the ladder steady!” he yelled. “And you with the
    torch, why don’t you put it down and help them? Don’t just stand there! I’m working here!”

    The man dropped the blazing torch and quickly grabbed hold of the ladder.

    “For hell’s sake, where was I?” asked the Crypt-Keeper.

    “You were selling me on reading issue two of Papercutz’ Tales From the Crypt.”

    “Oh, right. Look, Zoc, I’m not getting any younger. This is my last chance at a comeback. Would it kill you to just take a look?” He handed a copy of issue two to me.

    “Well, alright, but couldn’t this have waited until—say, what’s burning?”

    We looked at each other, then down below. The ladder was on fire.

    “Jimminy crickets!” yelled the Crypt-Keeper. He lost his footing and fell. Lucky for him, he fell on top of the artist, the Old Witch, and the Vault-Keeper, so that helped cushion his long fall.

    “Well then,” I mumbled as I closed the window. I sat on the edge of my bed, now wide awake, and started reading Papercutz’ Tales From the Crypt No. 2.

    Right off the bat I’ll say it’s a giant mausoleum step up from issue one. I wondered if that wonderfully ghoulish ghoul on the cover was indeed a giant—you don’t see many giant ghouls attacking apartment buildings—but no, just artistic license, though it does tie into the lead story.

    Instead of three short stories like issue one, there are two longer stories. Both offer up just deserts endings, but the first hearkens back to a 1960’s-styled social theme, while the second is a more daring take on a contemporary social reality that perplexes the sane minds among us. And there’s a frightfully funny letters page, The Crypt-Keeper’s Corner, that’s very entertaining.

    In The Tenant, writer Neil Kleid and artist Steve Mannion whip up an old-fashioned tale that has the long-gone tenants of cheapskate landlord James Winchell’s slummy property at 666 Colt Street griping for better service. And their bitching is enough to raise the dead.

    The flow of panels is good, and the witty story fits the art style of heavy black lines well. With more pages to flesh out the mood and pacing, it serves up a little taste of the original Crypt-Keeper’s sense of irony without being too morbid or gross. The encounter with one dead resident in the basement is a highlight and handled with lots of energy.

    One aspect of a comic book story often overlooked is the lettering job. Mark Lerer’s work effectively conveys the emotions and tone of James Winchell’s comeuppance along with the illustrations. Now if they could get the Crypt-Keeper’s loony introductions into his same lettering style, that would be super.

    Even the Crypt-Keeper’s puns are better this time around, and more care is taken with his zany antics. The Crypt-Keeper’s Corner letters page is hilarious, and brings back a strong element that made the original comic so enjoyable to read. In this issue, the gasps of disbelief regarding issue one, sent in by fans of the original EC Tales From the Crypt, are priceless, along with the Crypt-Keeper’s responses.

    In the second story, The Garden, writer Fred Van Lente and artist Mr. Exes combine to jolt a dumb sap who bought into the ‘deaths for paradise’ insanity, which motivates many suicide bombers, into an unexpected reality. The story has a surprising depth, and Mr. Exes’ art, a heady mix with touches of Max Fleischer kinesiology, Gil Kane, an acid trip, and manga blended madly together, jolts us as well as Richard, the guy who thought he was in paradise, when he discovers what he really got himself into. There’s a tad more gruesome in this one, too.

    Mr. Exes artistic style grated on some readers of the first issue, myself included, but I must admit that given the right kind of story his panels carry a lively charge that moves beyond conventional boundaries. Just pick up Abra Cadaver: The Afterlife Adventures of Harry Houdini No. 1 and you will see what I mean.

    “What are you reading at this ungodly hour?” asked Zombos, coming into my room.

    “Here, you will enjoy it.” I handed him the issue. He took it and sat down in the settee by the window.

    “Oh, so that’s why the Crypt-Keeper, the Old Witch, the Vault-Keeper, and some idiot trying to put out a fire on a burning ladder woke me up. I thought I was dreaming. Let’s wake up Chef Machiavelli and have him bring up a pot of hot coffee.”

    “Capital idea,” I said and rang his bedroom. It was the common lot this morning for everybody.

    Hostel (2005)

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    Zombos Says: Very Good

    Thank you. It’s very exciting for me to be here, especially since I know that there are some people from Slovakia who probably want to kill me for making this movie. In America, Hostel is a very terrifying horror film for many people, but I truly believe it could become one of the great comedy classics here in Eastern Europe. I’m sure you have questions, and about why I made Slovakia look like all of a sudden it’s from the 1950s, and what it might do to the tourist industry in Slovakia, and I look forward to answering all your questions and hopefully I will not get tortured to death. (Eli Roth, ‘Smash hit horror Hostel causes stir among citizens of sleepy Slovakia’)

    Whistling. I hate whistling in a horror movie. It’s such a pleasant activity, a normal activity; one that reflects a satisfied, joyful—even exuberant state of mind in the whistler. That’s why it’s so frightening and effective in the opening scene of Hostel. To hear that simple tune casually whistled by one of the “janitors” as he nonchalantly cleans the guest suites, routinely rinsing away the red splatter and body chunks down a drain, will freeze your blood. Just another day at work: just another day in hell; especially for the tourists. And you thought the plane trip was torture.This chilling contrast between the innocuous whistling and the gory evidence of disturbing activity is frightening, setting the gruesome tone for the film. Callous indifference is the theme here with people unconcerned that intense suffering and death are their job. They make money from it so it’s okay; providing human cattle to be slaughtered by bored Über-rich seeking ever more intense emotional experiences, dehumanizing themselves in their avid consumerism.

    What redeems this film from being a gratuitous exercise in explicit gore and sadistic violence is Paxton, the survivor. He starts out as another hedonistic consumer, but gains a precious sense of his soul while losing two fingers along the way. He is forced to care: he cares enough to take time while escaping to pick up his severed fingers; he also cares enough to rush back into the charnel house, after narrowly escaping the caress of a chainsaw, to save a girl he hardly knows.

    His decision sets up one of the more intense and nauseating scenes in a film filled with them. When he finds her, she is missing half of her face, and one eye dangles precariously from its now burned-out socket. That dangling eye does present a problem. Okay, what do you do? At this point I had my hands over my eyes, but through my fingers I could see the flash of scissors as Paxton decides what he must do. You know what’s coming, but Roth extends the tense moment into an excruciating eternity.

    Roth tickles our fear-bone: the fear comes from being helpless while someone can commit any form of injury on you, and fear also comes from the knowledge that the amoral townsfolk in this creepy village gladly share in this consumerism-from-hell scenario. Even the children are sadistic monsters, roaming the town and demanding tribute; willing to harm or kill for a bag of candy. Being a foreigner in Hostel is a death sentence. The chilling words spoken to Paxton by one of the rich clients sums up the moral decay best: “Be careful: you could spend all your money in there.”

    But after a film like Hostel, where do you go? How much torture and depravity can an audience take in a horror film? I’m sure Roth will try and find out.

    Rob Zombie’s Halloween (2007)

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    Zombos Says: Fair

    Half-way into the movie I started to wonder why I wasn’t feeling the love. Where was the lingering taste of candy corn on my lips, the smell of burning pumpkin innards, charred by candle flame, in my nose? Certainly there was no suspense, or even anticipation of it, from the unstoppable bogeyman as I watched Rob Zombie’s re-imagining of John Carpenter’s 1978 retelling of The Hook urban legend, Halloween. Of course, Zombie didn’t have actors like Jamie Lee Curtis or Donald Pleasence to bolster his story, but since he spent much of the film focused on the unkempt Daeg Faerch as the young Michael Myers, perhaps that’s a moot point. Or maybe not?

    Making Myers more psychotic serial killer than ghost-like supernatural force to reckon with may be the cinematic equivalent of getting toothpaste and dental floss in your trick or treat bag instead of mouth-watering chocolates and sugary sweets. With Zombie’s penchant for dysfunctional, white-trash families, and potty-mouthed, libidinous characters you really really don’t care about, and lingering stares at his all too familiar blood-splattered tableaus, the hairs-rising-on-the-back-of-your-neck quality of the original story has been carved out and replaced with the pedestrian graphic violence prevalent in today’s horror repertoire.

    Subtlety is not one of Zombie’s stronger directorial abilities. He prefers to show everything, raw and bloody, and provide a rationale for why Michael Myers slices and dices like crazy. With a stripper for a mom, a Bowery bum for a father, a very loose unsisterly sister, and school chums that despise him with a passion, Michael will either become a born-again Christian, or a serial killer. While some may argue both cases can be the subject for a horror film, Zombie chooses the latter, and promptly drains the Jack-O-Lantern life out of the franchise.

    The adversarial quality of Carpenter’s film, exemplified by Jamie Lee Curtis struggling to survive the normally festive Halloween night, and Donald Pleasence earnestly warning of the bogeyman, sustained the tension and suspense of Michael’s return to Haddonfield. Zombie erases this adversarial plotline by perfunctorily moving from sex-romping victim to sex-romping victim in well-orchestrated, but uninvolving mayhem as Michael goes after his now grown up baby sister. There is no anticipation of violence here, and therefore no suspense or real scares from the unexpected. Michael kills anything in sight so knowing what he’s going to do next is a no-brainer. He’s going to kill everyone in sight. Ho-hum.

    Malcolm McDowell’s Dr. Loomis is more social worker than psychiatrist, and doesn’t have the vulnerability that made Donald Pleasence’s more fearful Loomis more interesting. When McDowell tells Michael—after the body count has been steadily rising—that “I’ve failed you,” I thought to myself “Ya think?” Zombie’s Dr. Loomis laments why Michael is so screwed up he can’t be helped; Carpenter’s Dr. Loomis realizes Michael is just plain evil, he’s dangerous, and needs to be locked away forever. Which one do you think would sustain more tension in the storyline?

    The trend toward making serial killers humongous in stature also works against subtlety here. Tyler Mane’s Michael Myers is visually imposing, but evil is most devilish when it comes in  average height. And how the hell did little Mikey grow so big anyway? Mask-making is hardly a resistance-exercise, and that’s all he did in his little cell; make paper-maché masks of all kinds to hide his face.

    Zombie does toss in a few nods to the original film, and makes good use of the original soundtrack. There’s also a nod to his former band, White Zombie, as  Murder Legendre briefly pops up on a television screen. Zombie continues this theme as classic horror movies appear on television screens here and there. Numerous cameos include Micky Dolenz and Sid Haig.

    Zombie knows his craft, but relies on trash-violence and unsavory characters to tell his story every time, demeaning the level of
    artistry Carpenter showed in the original. Giving Michael Myers a sordid background, filled with animal cruelty and vicious murder, removes the mystery behind the mask, making this just another slasher film whose action  could have taken place at any time during the
    year. But this movie’s monster is supposed to be the Halloween bogeyman, damn it.

    Re-imaginings like these make us realize what makes a classic so classic. That, at least, is a good thing.

    Carved (2007)
    Scissors Are For Cutting

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    Hanako-san and the Toilet

    Hanako-san’s ghost haunts the restrooms of many schools in Japan. She appears if her name is called, but you really don’t want to do that; especially on a dare, late at night, when her darker, revenge-filled spirit is at full strength. She died from a broken heart, from constant bullying by her peers, and waits patiently for the time when her tormentors will have to go. School children in Japan were so frightened by this urban legend, many could not go alone to the toilet; where Hanako-san patiently waits. It is said that if you listen closely, you can hear her whispered curses echoing softly off the tiles…

    Zombos Says: Good

    Japanese urban legends are engrossing, aren’t they? While similar in many respects to American ones, they tease reason loose from the mundane, and play on our fears of unrelenting  supernatural evil and contagion, spiraling out of control in a way that uniquely plays off the community and tradition-based culture of Japan. In America, the witch, Bloody Mary, simply rips your face off if you’re suckered into saying her name thirteen times out loud, while looking in a candle-lit mirror in the dead of night. In Japan, she’d be the ghost of some mistreated woman who rips your face off, then pops up unexpectedly to rip all of your friends’ faces off, then possesses someone close, just when you think it’s over, to continue ripping faces off anyone coming into contact with you.

    And she would most likely hold a large pair of blood-dripping scissors to squeeze every last drop of terror out of you as she silently floats across the floor in a greenish haze, anxious to snip snip snip your flesh.

    Director and co-writer Kôji Shiraishi’s, A Slit-Mouthed Woman (released as Carved in the USA by Tartan Video), uses the Kuchisake-onna urban legend as its source. In Japanese mythology, Kuchisake-onna is the evil spirit of a woman mutilated by her samurai husband, who cuts her mouth open from ear to ear as retribution for her infidelity, or pride, depending on which version of the legend you prefer.

    In Carved, Kuchisake-onna is transformed into the evil spirit of a sickly mother who physically abused and killed her children. Her obake returns to prey on the frightened children in the small town of Midoriyama, wielding a rusty pair of bloody scissors and wearing a white hospital mask and trench-coat. The white mask, a common sight in Japan, covers the gash that runs from ear to ear, a nod to the original legend, but not quite explained here. The traditional “Am I pretty?” question, which presages violent death for her victims, is also out of place. Instead, Shiraishi and co-writer, Naoyuki Yokota, while keeping the well-known aspects of the legend, alter it by adding abusive mothers as the underlying instigation and perpetuation of the horror that steals children away late in the afternoon to murder and mutilate them.

    Many Asian horror films center on an unrelenting evil force that grows from the murder of an innocent person. While vengeance is often the catalyst, that force soon envelops or contaminates anyone in close proximity, whether good or bad, as it spreads outward. In Carved, the evil grows from a person who’s bad to begin with—a refreshing change from the usual Japanese approach, though it’s a typical American Horror staple: we like our monsters monstrous from the start you know, and our victims less than pure so they sort of deserve what they get.

    The unsavory story begins with three kids talking about the slit-mouthed woman as they walk home after class. Indeed, I wish I had a quarter for every time “slit-mouthed woman” was said by someone in the film. Half-way through I stopped counting. An earthquake shakes the town, and releases the spirit of Kuchisake-onna. Before you could gasp “slit-mouthed woman!” she snatches away kid number one. The next day, Mika, the abused-at-home and bullied-at-school kid thinks she’s next. Depressed kids often think like that, even in Japan.

    Ms. Yamashita, her teacher, walks the students home, and when it comes time to drop Mika off, they start talking. Mika shows the bruises her mom left on her arms, but Yamashita, a reformed abuser herself, yells at Mika for wishing ill on her mom. As Mika runs away—that’s right—she’s nabbed by the slit-mouthed woman while Yamashita cowers in fear.

    Maybe they should have sent Mr. Matsuzaki to take the kids home instead. Strangely, he’s not really scared of the slit-mouthed woman (have you started counting how may times I’ve written “slit-mouthed woman” yet?). But he does keep hearing her voice in his mind, just before she grabs a kid and disappears. The police, not believing Yamashita’s supernatural depiction of the kidnapping, think it’s someone dressed up as—oh, you know who—so Yamashita and Matsuzaki team up to search for the missing children. When he hears “Am I pretty” again, they jump into his car and race to the home of the slit-mouthed woman’s next victim. They show up in the nick of time to watch the slit-mouthed woman grab the poor kid from behind. When she whips out her scissors to do a little trimming on his mouth, Matsuzaki plays WWE SmackDown with her while Yamashita cowers again. Surprisingly, he plunges the scissors into the slit-mouthed woman instead and “kills” her. But not for long.

    Up to this point, the pacing is slow and remains that way. Tension doesn’t build in this film, and the emotional setpoints that should kick our feelings into gear around certain scenes don’t budge one iota. Yet, the storyline remains strangely involving, and a few scenes, while lacking emotional charge from the missing tension-building, will still make you squirm in discomfort.

    I squirmed when three bound children are brutalized, leaving one stabbed to death, another horribly mutilated and scarred for life, in both body and soul, and the third having to witness it and wonder when she’s next. While the atrocities are mostly implied, the impression is still harrowing. We don’t often see children harmed in horror films, and I hope this doesn’t mark a trend in that direction. But within this film, it stands out as truly shocking and horrible, and fits into the context of the story.

    The inevitable showdown takes place on Childbeck Hill, at the deserted home of Mr. Matsuzaki. It appears he left one particular skeleton in his closet, and those bones are still rattling rather loudly. A flashback gives us his story and why he may be the only one who can stop the slit-mouthed woman. In a totally American-styled ending, the evil continues to play rock, paper, scissors-in-your-mouth for the potential sequel. While I’ve often quipped “would you like fries with that” in regard to American Horror, I never thought I’d be saying it when discussing J-Horror. Times change, I suppose, and the franchising sequelization-antics so prevalent in America’s horror industry appear to have spread their evil contagion, too.

    The image of the slit-mouthed woman is nicely stylized for marketability also. I can see those McFarlane toys now. Horrorheads will love them; especially the realistic removable hospital mask, real fabric trench-coat, and realistic-action scissors. Now if they can toss in a voice-chip that says “Am I pretty?” “Smile!” and “Kiss my ass, Freddy” that would be perfect. Add a few mutilated children cowering in fear and you’d have an awesome playset.