From Zombos' Closet

Movie Review: 1408 (2007) Room for Terror

Zombos Says: Very Good

While I readily admit that some hotel rooms I've spent time in were murder, none of them ever tried to kill me. Unfortunately for writer Mike Enslin (John Cusack), room 1408 in the Dolphin Hotel punches his number with a vengeance. With an ominous song blaring from the one-hour clock-radio heralding doom, hot and cold running ghosts, and concierge service to die from, he's in quite a pickle; but, after all, he did insist on spending the night in it.

What is it about writers? Especially depressed ones that have lost a loved one and search for some truth behind that long dark curtain of the night? Enslin's on a quest to find just one ghost, one real moan, one real hint of life beyond the pall. He's so obsessed, he's lost track of his own life, and wife, while spending night after fruitless night searching for hope shining off a ghostly glimmer. I feel for him. I watch Ghost Hunters on the Sci-Fi Channel again and again, hoping for just that moment, that one shining, incontrovertible bit of proof there's more to death than meets the unseeing eye. If and when that moment comes, I hope it doesn't try to kill me, too.

That's the mystery of room 1408: what is the malevolent force residing in that room, driving people to mutilate and kill themselves? In true J-horror fashion, we never learn the answer, but the question is well-illustrated in psychological, not gory, terms, driving Enslin to fight both the room's and his own inner demons. And they keep coming on strong, giving him little respite nor a good night's sleep.

The postcard warning him to stay out of room 1408 is too enticing for him, so instead of heeding the warning, he heads to New York City to the Dolphin Hotel, to insist on spending the night in a room that's killed fifty-six other guests—with one drowned in his chicken soup. The hotel manager, Olin (Samuel L. Jackson), sums it up best: "It's an evil f**cking room."

Not even Olin's detailed scrapbook of news clippings and death photographs convinces Enslin to forgo 1408 and spend the night in the penthouse suite; but it does provide for a chilling, tension-building walk as Enslin peruses it, page by gruesome-death page, during his walk from the elevator to 1408. Once he enters the room, and nothing immediately jumps out of the closet, he relaxes a bit and pops open the bottle of high-priced liquor Olin tried to bribe him with; but that lets the spirits out, metaphorically speaking.

And once they're out, hell starts to follow as the room's evil entity makes its presence known by blaring "We've Only Just Begun" by the Carpenters, and fooling around with his turn-down service. When he can't get out of the room, now that he realizes it really wasn't a good idea to enter it in the first place, his hand-held recorder becomes more than a voice-recorder; it allows him to vent his fear, his anger, and his thoughts, giving us a front-row seat to watch his mental state go from cocky to scared sh*tless in no time flat.

As the room's temperature shifts from hot to arctic, and the paintings on the wall take on a Night Gallery-style life of their own, Enslin's fear turns to rage as he fights the good fight to leave the room on his terms, not splattered on the pavement below, or, like one previous guest, stitching up his own, self-inflicted throat slice from ear to ear.

Cusack handles the three-sixty mood swing with verve, and his disoriented performance brings us into the room alongside him. Horror is best when served alone, and he proves it by keeping us asking if and how he'll find the way out. Without lavish gore, director Mikael Håfström increases the shocks by first showing little, disquieting events that rattle Enslin's composure, then increases the assault on his nerves with CGI-enhanced calamities that build in intensity. Gabriel Yared's effective music is mixed in with harsh, discordant sounds and the pleasant-sounding, but tauntingly malign voice on the other end of the telephone, promising more unpleasant room service to come. All of this plays on our nerves, as well as Enslin's.

Never has room service been this bad, or this much fun. In a summer of horror that can too easily become mired in uninspired by-the-body-count nihilistic splatter, 1408 goes back to the old school for its scares.  And it works.

Tap Dancing to Hell and a Pot o'Gold Part 5 One Hell of a Mortgage House (1986)

Part 4 

Zombos Says: Very Good

"I tell you I smell popcorn," said Curly Joe. We had been walking for some time without any luck finding Zombos or Chef Machiavelli.

I sniffed the air again. My stomach grumbled. "I think you're right, and smothered in butter with lots of salt." My stomach grumbled louder.

Curly Joe started sniffing the wall. "Over here. It's comin’ from this crack in tha brick."

We leaned against the brick wall to get a better whiff. It gave way. We tumbled into a brightly lit room filled with ornate, comfortable furniture and the smell of freshly popped popcorn. Zombos was sitting in the corner with his feet resting in a large basin of water and Chef Machiavelli stood by an antique coal stove applying liberal amounts of salt to a big bowl of steaming popcorn. Puffing away at a church warden, a little, red-bearded, fellow watched us as we pulled ourselves up off the ground. He stood up from his overstuffed armchair.

"You!" said Curly Joe. "That's tha little creep I was arguin’ with."

"Oh, Sebastien's all right," said Zombos. "He was quite happy to get his tap dancing shoes back. They took me right to him, actually, and not soon enough, I can tell you."

"My wife, god-bless her, hates my tap-tap-tapping, so she hid my pride and joys. I've spent the year searching for them. They missed me, too," said Sebastien, picking up his shoes by the chair. They clicked together in agreement.

I stared at our diminutive host. "Forgive me for asking, but—"

"I know, I know, Sebastien's not an Irish name and I don't have an accent," he said. "I grew up in France. Long story. You've been watching too many Barry Fitzgerald movies, I take it."

Chef Machiavelli brought the popcorn over.

"This is wonderful. I've not had this much company in a long time. My wife hates visitors. I only married her because she looks and talks like Barbara Steele, my favorite horror movie actor," he sighed.

"So she's the one I heard callin’ ta me?" said Curly Joe.

"Yes, she's a bit of a flirt, but I still love her. Sorry I conked you one, but she gets me so jealous and angry when she's off and dallying around. But she's away to her mom's—nasty witch there, too—and I've got guests and popcorn and this new LED TV is hot to trot. "

"Do you get cable or satellite down here," I asked.

"Cable of course."

"Hey, you've got a lot of DVDs here," said Curly Joe, looking over the titles. "Haven't seen this one in ages." He held up House.

"Ah, you've found my real pot of gold you have. Yes, I can't get enough DVDs. Let's watch it, then," said Sebastien.

 

In Steve Miner's wickedly quirky House, William Katt (Greatest American Hero) plays Roger Cobb, a Valium pill-popping, flashback-plagued, Vietnam veteran and popular author who lost his son and separated from his wife (Kay Lenz). He's suffering from writer's block trying to finish his book, One Man's Story: A Personal Account of the Vietnam War. With his agent on his back, and unresolved conflicts simmering in his subconscious, he's guilt-ridden and close to a nervous breakdown. So what happened in Vietnam, making it difficult for him to write or get on with his life? The answer lurks in the house he inherits after his eccentric aunt hangs herself. The house is also where his son disappeared from the center of the swimming pool years before.

Unlike the current trendy taste for horror being darker, queasier, and ichor-drenched, Mac Ahlberg, who did the cinematography for Re-animator and From Beyond, uses a lighter hand here and bathes the house’s oddball rooms in cheery colors, giving them an apple pie atmosphere until the clock strikes midnight, when Cobb’s nightmares really do come out of the closet in the form of the War Demon: a fused amalgam of napalmed bodies.

Something not quite right about the house is hinted at early when the grocery delivery kid enters, hears odd noises coming from upstairs, and goes to investigate. We follow him through the house, seeing the quaint furnishings and old-fashioned rooms bathed in sunlight. Wait a minute. Those Night Gallery-esque paintings on the walls, painted by Cobb's Aunt, don't quite match the decor. She’s a bit of an oddball, apparently, judging by those paintings. She could also do a mean Grand Mama from the Addams Family for Halloween by the look of her, too.

With her departure comes Cobb's arrival to the place he last saw his son. The police never bought Cobb's bizarre explanation of how his son disappeared. Should we? Is Cobb suffering from delusions, or is there something abnormal about the house? If you’ve read William Hope Hodgson's House on the Borderland, you already know the answer. The first night his Aunt pays him a visit to warn him about how the house likes to play tricks on people. But is it really her or the house playing tricks? It's not merely haunted, it's possessed; and it stands on the crossroads to the mundane and supernatural worlds.

The following morning he meets his pesky neighbor, Harold (George Wendt from TV’s Cheers). Harold recognizes him, chats about his books, and finds it difficult to stay. He brings over the brewskies, begins to worry about Cobb’s mental health, and calls Cobb’s wife out of concern. There’s one especially traumatizing event buried among the others plaguing Cobb, and it’s not his missing son. Working it out involves dressing in army fatigues and readying lights and cameras to confront the War Demon. And more grotesqueries put in appearances to bedevil Cobb, even sharp lawn and garden tools take aim in his direction, escalating his daymare encounters.

The foam and polyurethane nightmares created by James Cummins are similar to his comically designed monsters in The Boneyard, but here they’re an advantage: they meld an off-beat, playful, gruesomeness to match Cobb’s mood and the electric-koolaid-acid-trip tone of the movie. In one surreal encounter, Cobb tries to bury a headless, but still moving, purple Morlock-looking monster in his backyard, only to be interrupted by yet another neighbor taking an uninvited dip in his swimming pool. She ingratiates herself while he quietly steps on the monster's dismembered hand before it can grab her bare ankle. He finally gets rid of her and hacks up the monster, burying the pieces to the tune of Linda Ronstadt's You're No Good.

She shows up later that night with her son in tow, begging him to babysit. He declines the offer until he discovers the pesky purple monster’s hand is back and holding fast to the boy’s shirt. Is he hallucinating? She hurries to her date and he eventually manages to flush the 5-fingered-terror down the toilet.

Damned if I would sit on that bowl again. Ever.

Another misadventure begins when troll-like creatures snatch the boy up the chimney. Trying to get a handle on all these bizarre happenings, Cobb coerces Harold into joining him in a midnight romp with the War Demon. Harold, naturally, isn't much help, and Cobb gets sucked into the closet and back in time to when he was in Vietnam. It’s there we learn the reason for Cobb's flashbacks as he confronts Big Ben, played by six foot, nine-inch Richard Moll (TV's Night Court).

But what does Cobb's missing son have to do with all this?

It takes a journey through the bathroom medicine cabinet to find out. In a Lovecraftian-esque encounter with a stop-motion winged nightmare and other nasties, Cobb must fight for answers and to save himself from guilt and an EC Comics-looking dead Big Ben who is out for his blood.

Will Cobb find his son and stop the nightmare? Or will Big Ben finally get the payback he's been looking for all these years? Don't let the second and third story sequels fool you; they don’t continue the storyline started in House. It begins and ends here, although House II extends the weirdness. House is one of those 1980s B-Movies that still vibrantly remains a quirky excursion into horror-comedy. It has top-notch actors, fast pacing, and classic stop-motion and polyurethane monsters to sell its off-beat, dry humor terrors.

This is one house you should rent.

 

Movie Review: Night Watch (2004)

Zombos Says: Very Good

I'm happy to say Night Watch is not a clunker. Instead, it is a whirlwind of special effects, odd characters, and a story that definitely puts Russian horror on the genre map. While the filmed story is different from the book it is based on in some important respectes, the movie is still an entertainingly fast-paced and strong first entry in the Night Watch trilogy.

The director, Timor Bekmambetov, did the movie for Russian audiences, which explains the more melodramatic and flowery-mouth approach to mis-en-scene and dialog. But it's these Russian nuances, composed alongside the standard but well-executed horror trappings we all know and love—CGI and gore effects—that give this film's quirky, good versus evil, story a fun and very watchable spin for any discerning horror fan.

It opens with a battle between the forces of good and evil (like in Lord of the Rings and Thor)—here it’s the light and the dark squaring off—as they each fight for foothold on a narrow bridge. Both soon realize they are equally matched and neither can win. So a truce of sorts has them divvying mankind's fate into having Light rule by day, and Dark rule by night.

Jump ahead a few millenniums and we're in Moscow, where Anton (Konstantin Khabenskiy), our soon to be strong-willed but hapless hero, pays a visit to a witch, hoping to keep his girlfriend from having someone else's child. Bad move on his part as it brings him into direct contact with Night Watch, the forces of Light.

In short order the witch is subdued, suddenly and chaotically, for engaging in witchy kinds of things, and Anton, caught in the middle, discovers he's a seer and a Light Other—which means a good guy, sort of. The Dark Others are vampires and other nasty things that go bump in the night, and the Light Others are shape-shifters and magic wielders, who try to constrain the Dark Others from doing harm. It’s been this way for centuries: both sides fighting each other to maintain balance. For those of you who work in a corporate office, just substitute "managers" for Dark Others, and your workmates for Light Others, and you'll understand the whole concept perfectly.

From the opening salvo with Anton, the witch, and the Light’s shapeshifters, it's a wild ride. Anton's entry into the light and dark world will leave your head swirling, but stay with it and all will be revealed in time. Night Watch is a kinetic movie of visualizations first, done in fast cut actions, speeded-up and slowed-down, and herky-jerky scenes spliced with CGI. Short pauses for explanation flitter by before plunging you into yet another whirlwind of chaotic visualizations, which for a limited budget are skillfully done.

Much of the special effects are devoted to the Gloom: the twilight state where the natural and supernatural worlds converge. Director and co-writer Timur Bekmambetov heralds its onset by swirling mosquitoes, which he says remind him of vampires, but, unlike the novel, he does not focus on the Gloom much.

One fast and furious scene in an old Russian barbershop has Anton fighting a vampire who pops in and out of the Gloom to attack him, otherwise remaining invisible. The bloody and gorific fight is a special effects treat that ends with a snap, crackle, and pop.

Other memorable touches include a yellow maintenance truck (think Ectomobile from Ghostbusters), recognizable to Russian audiences as a very slow moving vehicle, but is made fun of in the movie by adding rocket jets to have it speeding madly through the Moscow streets.

And then there's the owl, a stuffed bird brought to life to help protect Anton, now that he's gone and killed a vampire. The Dark Forces will not forgive him for that. No sooner does the owl follow him home then it turns into Olga (Galina Tyunina), a sorceress, in a flurry of feathers and goo (looking like the Chinese fast-food MSG variation of goo). Being forced into owl shape was her punishment, but for what is not explained. Since the owl can stand for either good or evil in Russian folktales, we can't be sure what type of past Olga had, or which side she’s really on.

Did I forget to mention the Vortex of Damnation Curse? Aside from Anton's issues with vampires, there's this cursed woman who’s about to bring down the apocalypse (and she’s not even a zombie!) so the forces of Light and Dark can battle again. Considering they were at a standstill a millennium or two ago, I'm not sure why they want to bother.

Why this woman is cursed can almost be taken as a joke by American audiences. Why she's cursed, and why Anton is causing bad things to happen, is due to the bad decisions they made when they had more control over their lives. Since their destiny is intertwined with everyone else's, one bad decision becomes everyone's problem. The premise of Night Watch is simple: each person chooses to join the light or the darkness by the decisions they make; and those decisions affect everyone else. In American horror films, people are usually put into situations beyond their control, then they make bad decisions making things worse – often terminally. So instead of a taste of Hamlet in our horror, we prefer hamburger with lots of onions and bloody red ketchup. We don't savor the bun or its relation to the burger; we just want to eat it.

Night Watch savors the bun with its moral story, and adds a dash of Shakespearean ketchup to provide a unique and colorful tale combining fantasy, horror, and the choices made by all of us that will lead to either the Light or Dark path. The Russian sensibility of horror is summed up best by this dialog between two characters:

"Damn!"

"Careful what you say. Damn is more than just a word."

Movie Review: The Hills Have Eyes (2006)

Zombos Says: Very Good

“That was disturbing,” said Zombos as we were leaving the theater after seeing The Hills Have Eyes.

“Yes, the hard horror situations were—”

“No, no, I meant the annoying political barbs,” he interrupted.

“Oh,” I said, “you mean the father being a republican and getting them into the hellish predicament in the first place, and the milquetoast democratic son-in-law who rises to the occasion and unloads a truckload of whoop-ass on the radiation-mutated hill people after being pushed to the edge of sanity? I hardly noticed it.”

“The director is French?” Zombos asked.

“Alexandre Aja? Yes, I believe so.”

“Then that explains it,” he concluded.

“Actually, I think hubris plays a much greater role than politics. The father's cocksure attitude left him prone to making bad decisions. Oh, right, that does apply to most politicians, doesn't it?”

“Politics,” we agreed and continued walking.

“It reminded me of Wrong Turn,” I said.

“Yes,” said Zombos, “especially the decrepit, degenerate-owned gas station in the middle of nowhere; and that scene with all those victims' derelict cars dumped into that huge atomic blast crater. Chilling.”

“The extreme long-shot zoom-outs showing the other huge craters surrounding it are especially effective,” I added. "Great matte work there."

“What I do not understand is why mutated, inbred, and cannibalistic families in every horror movie are always depicted as more of a solid social unit than the normal, bickering tourist families they prey on,” Zombos pondered.

“Goals,” I replied. “Mutated, inbred, cannibalistic families have fewer goals.”

“I never thought of it that way.” Zombos rubbed his chin.

“Well, they certainly don't need to worry about jobs, taxes, school, retirement, or the dozens of things that keep normal people awake at night and bickering among themselves. Just finding food is one simple goal that keeps them all working as an insane, but strong, cohesive unit,” I said.

“They sure do eat a lot. The least they could do is cook their food. Revolting.”

“Gore-hounds wouldn't like that. ‘The redder the better' is their motto,” I replied.

Zombos stopped walking. “What always amazes me is the sheer dim-wittedness of family and teenagers that are always placed in harm's way in these movies. You would think after all this time, with all the sordid chaos in the world, they would be better prepared to handle difficult situations and have a little bit of a clue. I mean, here you are traveling in the desert, hundred-plus degree heat, no water, no civilization, and you take the scenic route? And one that a spooky and unbathed gas station attendant, who obviously does not have much of a social life, tells you to take? In an '88 Airbus with no air-conditioning?

“Well, at least the detective father carried a few guns with him,” I said. “They shouldn't have split up though. It's always convenient to have soon-to-be victims always split up in movies, but that plot expediency is wearing thin.”

“That is another point,” Zombos said. “These mutated, sadistically maniacal families never split up. They always carry out well-orchestrated group attacks on those dim-witted and oh-let-me-go-off-alone family members.”

Zombos was on a roll. I rarely see him this reflective.

“That was quite an horrific scene,” I added, “using the father as a decoy to lure the family out of the trailer, and then attacking that poor girl. Quite a statement about why you shouldn't wear an iPod to bed, don't you think?”

“Biting off the head of that little defenseless parakeet, too,” Zombos added, shaking his head. “For shame. I did find that Test Village 3-B to be a horrific setpiece also.”

“You mean when the son-in-law goes through the mining tunnel and finds the mock-up town filled with mannequins? Yes, the mise-en-scene is well executed. His confrontation with the mutated maniacal family members is fast-paced and exciting. His baseball bat against an axe? I think I rather have the axe.”

“The big-brained fellow singing the national anthem was a wicked touch.” Zombos clapped his hands together. “Oh, now I get it, baseball bat and national anthem. Subtle.”

Zombos started walking, then stopped again. “That scene with the children was more horrific than anything else in the movie,” he said.

“Yes,” I replied, “in the midst of all that carnage and insanity, to have a hideously deformed child innocently ask you to play with her and her equally disturbing playmate… it was a masterful, almost poetic touch. I dread to think what snacks she's been having. No Fig Newtons or Oreos in that place.”

“Definitely not,” Zombos agreed. “I wonder how much longer we can watch such movies.

“Why is that,” I asked.

“It seems every hard horror movie relies on the same basic characterizations and script devices to sustain an often repeated storyline; and let us not forget the gore factor: that needs to keep escalating to provide shock value to those ever more jaded gore-hounds out there. Most of the elements in this movie, given that the direction and scripting is above average, still use the same old hash. Can redundant art sustain itself?”

“I'd say that most horror-heads just want to be scared, or shocked. Take the sequelization-antic ending. It's a cheap cliché ending that destroys the movie's triumphant moment, just to imply it ain’t over so wait for the next movie.”

"Yes," Zombos agreed. "But I hope the sequel is worth it."

 

Movie Review: Vacancy 2007 Bad Room Service

Zombos Says: Very Good

 

Norman Bates' mom would have approved of the Pinewood Motel. Nestled off the Interstate—way off—it's the ideal place to get away from it all, and have it all put you away: permanently. The noisy late night room service and decrepit amenities are simply to die for, too.

Vacancy is a refreshingly gory-free excursion into terror with classy, mood-setting Bernard Herrmanesque music, a stylish opening credit sequence, and Hitchcockian tension-building suspense with ordinary people caught in extraordinary circumstances, and incompetent police not prepared for what actually goes on at the quiet motel.

Amy and David are the two ordinary people whose failing relationship is in need of some serious bonding. There's nothing like a bunch of psychos trying to kill you to work out the kinks in a rocky marriage and bring you closer together; at least if you can't live together, you might as well die together.

The barbs start flying when Amy wakes up to find they're lost on an empty, winding road; David's shortcut to nowhere. Empty except for that cute little raccoon in the middle of it—hey Dave, watch out! The car skids off the road and breaks something in the process, forcing them to stop at the creepy, desolate, gas-station-stuck-in-time that appears in many horror movies these days.

The attendant pops up, all smiles and giggles—at two in the morning—and gladly helps them out as he pops the hood, does something, then sends them on their merry way with confusing directions to get back on the Interstate and a lit sparkler. Now maybe I'm just naturally paranoid, but I would never trust any overly nice gas station attendant who refuses to be paid and insists on giving you a lit sparkler near flammable gas tanks at two in the morning.

No sooner do they get going when the car breaks down again, forcing them back to the gas station. The attendant is gone now, but say, there's that nice Bates, oops, sorry—Pinewood Motel over yonder. Better rent a room for the night and worry about the car in the morning after a good night's sleep, right?

The screaming and crying they hear when they enter the registration office should have clued them in right away, but David, intent on hitting that annoying bell on the desk, isn’t swayed. Mason, the motel manager, pops his head out to see who it is. He quips about boring nights when they mention the ominous sounds, and he goes back into the office to turn whatever he's watching off.

When you finally get a good look at Mason, you realize he's stuck in time, too. Seventies, I'd say. He's an oily type of creepy, and there’s something sinister behind those beady little eyes of his and that snake-like tilt of the head. He insists on giving them the guest suite that has hot and cold running cockroaches, stiff bed linen that could fold itself, and a wonderful mix of banged up video tapes filled with lots of screaming, pleading people being horribly killed by Michael Myers wannabes. This is some guest suite.

With nothing playing on the TV, David shuffles through those videos and pops one into the player. As Amy tells him to tune it down, he slowly recognizes the "set" in the tape looks awfully like their guest suite. Bingo! Vacancy now shifts into gear and the hairs stand on the back of your neck just as his do.

The fight to stay alive begins, and while Vacancy is not a blockbuster, it does have its share of shocks and nerve-wracking mayhem to make it all worthwhile. No wimpy victim-fodder here, either. Even as Amy and David panic and bicker and scramble to find a way out of their dire situation, they suck it up and work on staying alive. Horror film victims that actually don't want to be victims is another refreshing change of pace from the usual hurry up and slowly die fare inundating us these days, don't you think?

Ironically, as they struggle to find a way out of their terminal accommodations, they invariably find themselves scrambling back into them, again and again. They can't run and they really can't hide for long. Will they survive? And who can they trust? Who is involved in the deadly room service that goes on at the Pinewood Motel?

An interesting twist has David and Amy alternately take the lead in saving their necks, and director Nimrod Antal goes against horror movie type by playing with our expectations toward the end as the small body count goes higher.

Vacancy is an entertaining homicidal psycho-buddies along the "road less traveled by" scenario often used in horror. What helps it stand out are the performances by, Frank Whaley, Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale, that provide tense moments of terror, anguish and momentary triumph in a straigtforward and suspenseful mix of classic horror elements.

And I like rooting for the would-be victims: payback can be such an entertaining b*tch after all.

Movie Review: Alone with Her (2006)

Meet Doug. Full-time profession: stalker.

In Alone with Her, a film by Eric Nicholas, we get to know just about everything there is to know about Doug. It isn't pretty, but we do get to realize that Doug is a loser; a loser in relationships, a loser in his approach to life, a loser that, simply put, has nothing better to do than to keep trying at creating artificial relationships with women to boost his superficial ego.

That's where Amy comes in. She's just coming off a failed relationship so she's vulnerable. Just the kind of woman Doug likes: someone he can fabricate a fantasy world of 'Doug the Magnificent' around. Maybe shes the one who will buy his fantasy world of perfection, maybe not, but in Alone with Her, we get to watch every sordid detail of Doug's relentless infatuation with Amy, and how he manipulates her to believe he's a nice guy; a guy that has lots in common with her. But that's only because he's bugged her home and her life, and he's there every single minute, watching and listening.

We first see Doug as he truly is: a camera stuck surreptitiously in a black bag. He doesn't go anywhere without it. He sees through it, feels through it, even hunts vulnerable and lonely woman through it. In fact, his whole point of view is always through the camera's lens, and Nicholas films most of the story that way. We watch Doug through a camera lens as he watches Amy through his camera lens.

He first glimpses Amy in the park as she's watching lovers get it on. She starts crying. One failed relationship worn on a sleeve to go, please, and that's the hook for Doug. He's a sucker for stuff like that. A brief trip to the electronic surveillance store and Doug's next stop is Amy's apartment. He rigs it with cameras and microphones to pick up every conversation, every bathroom break, and every personal nuance of Amy's lonely life.

Through his camera and intrusion into Amy's life, we're forced to see and hear Amy as he does. But there's no voyeuristic pleasure in this because Nicholas also forces us to see and hear Doug as he contrives 'chance' meetings with her at the local coffee or spends alone time with her in her bedroom—through a small monitor that he watches constantly. In one chilling moment, Doug puts his head down to sleep as Amy, on the monitor, puts her head down on her pillow to sleep; an indication that he has no life without play-acting himself into believing she matters to him. And when she pleasures herself with the handle of a hairbrush, he's there pleasuring himself, too, but through the monitor: the epitome of safe sex.

We begin to see the breakable side of Doug when Amy gets a phone call from Matt. Doug hates competition, and anything or anyone that would get in the way of his twisted, fabricated relationship with Amy. More and more, Doug ingratiates himself into Amy's life. She's an art student, so he plays that up and helps her with her website. She likes this music or that movie, and amazingly, he likes this music or that movie, too. "Funny how much we have in common," they say, but it's not funny at all.

But Doug's emotional instability can't stand Matt's attentions for Amy, so Doug swabs her bed linen with something nasty. One itchy night later, her skin is covered with red blotches, and she tells Matt to cool his heels while she recovers. At this point you also realize that he's an old pro at this sort of thing. The hairs on the back of your neck should be standing up by now.

Then there's Amy's friend Jen, who starts upsetting the delicate balance of Doug's plans when she becomes suspicious of him. Guys too good to be true usually aren't that good. During a get-together with Amy, Jen and Doug, he just can't deal with not having Amy all to himself and begins losing his superficial composure. He breaks down in the bathroom and fakes a phone call to get him out of the apartment.

Doug begins to resort to more interventions to bring him and Amy closer together. He gets her paintings sold, but we aren't quite sure who actually bought them. He rushes to her side when she steps on broken glass in the dark. He neatly takes care of Jen when she begins to confront him about his past.

Doug the social-nebbish, the electronic felon, the camera creep who needs to fabricate his whole life around a fictitious relationship, is really a monster in disguise. This monster-side of him begins to show itself more and more, and roars to life just when he has the chance at a real emotional connection with Amy instead of one of his contrived events.

Nicholas, who directed and wrote the story, moves his camera, and Doug's, in a straightforward manner. Occasionally resorting to monochrome tints as Doug's point of view surveillance shows Amy or Doug himself, Nicholas eschews the sensational and directs the unsettling events in the story with pragmatism. Colin Hanks plays Doug in a low-key, fatalistic way, presenting a depressingly realistic portrayal of this human monster who can't handle uncertainty or spontaneity in his life.

This low-budget thriller is low-key, but that makes it all the more realistic; and truly horrifying because of it.

Movie Review: See No Evil (2006) The Eyes Have It

Zombos Says: Good 

I finally made it to a theater to see See No Evil. Unfortunately, this theater was almost as dirty and decrepit as the old Blackwell Hotel in the film. It smelled, and not with that wonderful smell of buttered popcorn. It was a challenge finding a seat that did not look like it was used in one of Hostel's guest rooms. I hate sitting on stains of unknown origin (hey, what a catchy script title! Stains of Unknown Origin). So much for that special movie-going experience. I was determined to not let my surroundings influence my viewing of the film too much.

It seems 'dirty' and 'decrepit' in horror movies are becoming dirtier and more decrepit. When the police enter Jacob Goodnight's (Glenn Jacobs) home it is the typical horror movie home for psycho, axe-wielder types: smoky, dark, and with bloody streaks across the walls. A girl's screams forces them to move in without backup. They might as well have carried their own body bags to save time. The scene is brutal, gory, and ends badly for them.

A few years later we meet a group of so-old-it's-new-again-styled delinquents from the County Detention Center; Sal Mineo and James Dean would have been proud. Each tough-to-be-cool kid is introduced with a text description pop-up onscreen describing his or her crime against society, like this was a video game and we were going to choose a character to play. I'll take the computer hacker delinquent for 500 life-points. I like computers and computer hacker types usually last the longest in body count films like this.

As each body bag delinquent steps on the bus, along with the police officer who had firsthand experience (really, no pun intended here if you see the film) with Goodnight, I imagined them in order of elimination. I am getting rather good at this sort of thing, but I must admit the director Gregory Dark, and writer Dan Madigan, did manage to add a few twists to fool me. The bus stops at the old Blackwell Hotel, which is appropriately horror-movie-dirty-and-decrepit, so much so, I wondered why a handful of young delinquents are brought in for cleaning up what is obviously a professional hazmat team's cleanup job.

The hotel's rooms and hallways are gloomy and saturated in grimy browns, blacks, and assorted soiled colors. Roaches impudently crawl all around and rats defiantly wiggle their tails underfoot. There is garbage and stains of unknown origin everywhere; on the floors, the walls, the furniture, the bedding. The delinquents make themselves right at home, defiantly romping on those icky bedding and crawling mattresses as if they were fresh linen, and indiscriminately sitting on everything. I shifted uneasily in my seat, wondering what I was sitting on.

The naked-girl-in-shower-scene sets up the terror. The smackdown begins with Goodnight whipping out his old axe and hook. Glenn Jacobs' performance experience in the WWF pays off well here. There is a nifty effect used when he's close to attack; flies buzz around his head. Why they do that is eventually revealed. It reminded me of Candyman with his bees.

All through the mayhem, black and white flashbacks show us Goodnight's unhappy upbringing indicating how his sordid fondness for eye-plucking and eye-pickling became a hobby. I dare you to watch and not involuntarily close your own eyes during these scenes. The slaughter to action pace is hectic and over the top with gory detail. Terminal insult and injury occurs when one unlucky girl pleads with Goodnight to let her go when she's dangling from a high window. He does. The long fall through a skylight hurts, but it is the hungry homeless dog she petted earlier that bites the hand, and just about everything else.

The dwindling survivors wind up in the typical horror-movie-den-of-slaughter, otherwise known as Goodnight's apartment, where dead bodies, parts of bodies, and lots of eyes in jars and ichor cry out for maid service. There are more flashbacks as he tries to communicate with his caged victim: his psychotically religious mother kept him in a cage so his communication skills are lacking. The room bells are tied to various beds throughout the hotel, tinkling when anyone gets an inkling, if you catch my drift. He leaves his trapped victim when the tinkling sends him off to find the culprits, and a crashing scene involving a two-way mirror, his ominous silhouette, and lots of broken glass sends everyone running again. The hunt is on and the survivors fight back. A plot twist I didn't see coming leads to just deserts.

While the film may be a derivative romp in a deserted hotel with a bunch of smart-ass delinquents and a psychotic—get your fingers out of my eyes!—brick wall of a killer, it does have its horrific moments. The acting, including Glenn Jacobs' turn as the murder machine, is good, and all in all, the film is worth seeing at a cleaner theater or on DVD. Just keep the Handi-Wipes close by.

Movie Review: The Descent (2005)

Zombos Says: Excellent

"Dude," said Mr. Blackbird. His illuminated plumage blinded me. It pulsated in kaleidoscopic colors that shot out rays of reds, greens and blues.

"What," I said. My vision was hazy and my voice sounded dull, like I was talking under water.

"Dude," he repeated, and said something else, but I couldn't make it out.

It sounded like tweeting. What a funny blackbird. With red human lips it kept repeating something, but it sounded like tweet, tweet, tweet. His pinky finger—wow, crazy, the bird's got a little white hand at the tip of his wing—had a little gold ring. What was that he was repeating? Door of indigo and blues across the street, across my way. What was that? You want me to knock a rap in ones, threes and twos, with these knuckles of mine. On that door of indigo and blues?

"DUDE! Wake up!"

I shot awake. "What happened?" I looked up at Pete, my movie-mate. He was bending down looking at me. The last thing I remember was sitting in the theater watching The Descent.

I had asked him to tag along because I hate cave films. I hate caves. I hate tight places that remotely look like caves, and the whole damn idea about squeezing your ass through narrow cracks in rock walls that I couldn't even fit my wee-willy through is stupid and insane.

"Man, what the hell happened to you?" he said. "You started screaming and jumped out of your seat. You ran to the concession stand screaming "don't eat the Milk Duds, it's people! Milk Duds is people!" You scared the crap out of me. Crazy bastard." Pete looked at his watch. "Great, man. Just 'effin great. Just when it was gettin' good, too. Look, the next show is in a half-hour. With you or without you, I'm seeing the 'effin movie."

With his help I managed to sit through the entire film. It wasn't easy. I kept closing my eyes, but what I did see was white knuckle-busting horror that took it's time to build, then whumps you over the head until you can't take it anymore. Sam McCurdy's cinematography is spot-on, and walks a fine line between darkness and light, as electric and flare lights feebly illuminate the glistening cave walls. He tosses in reds and greens, too, to create an alien landscape that heightens the terror and claustrophobic atmosphere.

In 2004’s Creep, Christopher Smith trapped a woman in the London Underground so she could discover, and struggle to escape from, a crazed monstrosity in Creep. In 2005, Neil Marshall trapped six women in a cave so they could discover a lot of crazed monstrosities they needed to escape from.

Neil Marshall's direction and writing tricks you at first. You don't think it's a horror film. Hell, the damn thing starts off like an Ingmar Bergman movie. I kept wondering when Max von Sydow would show up and play chess with dusty Death himself.

It opens on a happy note, suddenly takes that away from you, and never lets up until the end. The music is also more elaborate than your typical horror film, and it wisely stays out of the way in the most important parts. And those parts are killer.

Six highly-testosteroned women love to take chances. Their alpha-leader, Juno, pushes the envelope for them. She's relentless: a go-getter and athlete to the extreme. Interestingly, Marshall has ironically given her the name of the Roman goddess who is the protector of women and marriage. She fails on both counts, and it's this failure that provides the impetus for the group's fracture.

So off they go on another adventure, only this time she thinks they should really tackle something big. She doesn't bother to let the other five know that they're going to an unexplored cave, and not the one with that all-important guidebook now left in the SUV. Bingo! The cardinal rule of a good horror film is to have potential victims always muck it up by doing downright dangerously stupid things. That includes exploring an unfamiliar cave, not telling anyone about it, and not bringing Twinkies along.

There's a J-Horror pacing to the film. Marshall takes his time, dwells on their tenuous relationships, their camaraderie, their different personalities, then shakes them all up once they hit the cave and everything goes wrong. Just how strong are they really? And how much do they really know about each other? This is what's tested in the cave. The cannibalistic, sub-human troglodytes crawling around the cave's walls are only part of the horror. Yes, a really big part of it, but the reality of being trapped in a cave, where it's pitch black, damn tight, with no guide book—and you didn't pack any Twinkies—well my friend, that's horror done to a masterful level. Turn it up a notch with shaky, can't-rely-on-you relationships, and that makes matters much worse.

Don't let me spoil it for you, but the cave scenes are, like their team spirit, all smoke and mirrors, too. That's right; miniatures, model sets, and blue and green screens are so skillfully used, you'll be huffing and puffing and gasping for breath without realizing it. You'll start to feel the theater walls closing in on you when the women start crawling through too-narrow passageways on their bellies. That's where I lost it the first time. Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place. And when they dangle over a chasm that drops down all the way to China, in the pitch blackness by their fingertips, I'll bet even money you'll be kicking the back of someone's chair and squirming in your theater seat for the tension to end.

But the tension keeps building until they stumble into the cannibalistic crawlers’ equivalent of a McDonald's. That's when we find out if they really do know each other or even themselves for that matter. The bloody attack sends them scrambling into different directions in panic.

The struggle for survival is fast and furious, and filled with shocks. In true horror movie fashion, the only well-knit social group turns out to be those disgusting—vegetables? what's-that?—cave crawlers. The make-up job is horrific and detailed, and the annoying habit they have of slobbering mucousy gobs out of their mouths will—you better hold the buttered popcorn for another movie, that's all I'm saying. The ticking sound the crawlers use like sonar to find their prey is also unnerving.

In the heat of battle, Juno proves to be the first one to fight back. She's also the first one to commit another blunder that proves having a lump in your throat is better than a sharp pickax sticking out of it. Her inevitable confrontation with Sarah, amid all this chaos and death, doesn't improve the situation, either. Why do characters in horror movies always wait until the worst times to picking a fight with each other when the monsters are getting closer?

The filming for The Descent took place in the United Kingdom, with the cave interior scenes filmed on sets built at Pinewood Studios. There are two endings, the UK version or the U.S. Depending on whether you like your horror movies ending on a woo-yay or hell-no, take your pick. Hint: U.S. movie goers apparently like happy endings.

The DVD from Lionsgate Films has lots of extras. There are two audio commentaries, Marshall with the crew and Marshall with the cast, that provide more insight into the making of the film.
Another solo interview with Marshall has him discussing the long and short versions for the ending. He prefers the more downbeat, longer (UK) ending, and goes on to explain why the shorter version is a bit confusing, as it was an editing choice, not an original plot choice. Test-marketing shot up a few more points with the more upbeat shorter ending, so that's what American audiences saw in the theater.

More extras include a stills gallery, deleted and extended scenes, blooper reel, cast and crew biographies, and a behind the scenes documentary.

The Descent is a scary and shocking horror film that shouldn't be missed.

Movie Review: Matango (1963) Attack of the Mushroom People

Zombos Says: Very Good 

Have an insatiable appetite for radiation-laced mushrooms and 1960s Japanese horror-fantasy? Why not invite everyone over for a Matango Mushroom Party! It's fun and nutritious! Just get out the Fondue pot, light up some Tiki torches, and follow the instructions below for a groovy party your friends will never forget.

INGREDIENTS:

1 lightly greased DVD-player

1 fresh copy of Matango: Attack of the Mushroom People

1 Fondue pot

3 cups Velveeta cheese

2 cups Tenshi cheese, cut into small cubes

Enough Shiitaki mushrooms to feed 10 to 15 horrorheads

Enough beer, wine and Saki to inebriate 10 to 15 horrorheads

 

DIRECTIONS:

While the cheese is melting in the Fondue pot, put on Matango: Attack of the Mushroom People. Make sure everyone has their beverage of choice and is comfortably seated. Get the Shiitaki mushrooms ready while they enjoy this cinematic delight. Whenever any of the characters onscreen munch on a mushroom, have everybody yell "Matango!" and dip their mushrooms into the melted cheese. Yummy. You'll have more fun than mimes at a karaoke party!

Inspired by William Hope Hodgson’s short story, A Voice in the Night, a crew of seven soon-to-be castaways are enjoying a nice sunny day aboard a wealthy man's yacht. There's the professor, the professor's demure girlfriend, an alluring actress in a big hat, a mystery writer, a disgruntled skipper, some tough guy who never takes off his sunglasses—must be a gangster—and Gilligan

Just kidding about Gilligan.

Before the bikini-clad, ukulele-strumming actress can launch into her next song, with more lyrics like "lalala" dubbed over and over again with “lalala,” a storm (thank god for us and the other listeners) suddenly whips up. As the sea starts getting rough, their tiny ship is tossed and the skipper yells for everyone to come on deck and lend a hand. Everyone, that is, except the two women aboard. Apparently 1960s women were pretty helpless when it came to helping out during crisis situations at sea.

The writer gets tangled up in the rigging and things go from bad to really bad. The not so brave and sure skipper yells for everyone to go back down below deck since they're fairly poor deckhands.

Apparently 1960s men were pretty helpless, too.

Lack of courage and seamanship from the not so fearless crew lands them on the shores of a mysterious island covered in dense, swirling fog. Uppermost in everyone's mind is the need for food, so they start foraging. They continue to move deeper into the island to find water and come across another, much larger, ship run aground.

Obviously a romance novelist, the writer stays with the girls while the others board the mysterious ship to investigate. A greenish, reddish fungus is everywhere, and the sure-footed skipper slips on the slimy stairs landing on his poop-deck.

"It's weird," says one of them. 

Yes, it is.

They soon discover it's an atomic energy research vessel. There are Geiger counters and mutated specimens in jars, so they assume the missing crew was doing radiation research of some kind. They find a big crate labeled "Matango," pry it open, and find a giant mushroom inside. The crew is nowhere to be seen.

I’d like to see what Iron Chef would do with that fungi!

Bored with waiting, the girls board the ship. Naturally, they're the first ones to notice all the mirrors in the staterooms are missing. In the captain's quarters, a red, powdery, fungus is piled deep across the entire room. Before anyone can sneeze, the professor covers his mouth and nose and grabs the logbook. More searching yields few canned goods.

The once cheery group of seafaring friends is now surly and hungry. They need food badly so they start assigning hunting and gathering tasks. The wealthy guy slacks off while the others go about their business. The writer builds a signal fire and starts daydreaming a nightclub flashback, a nifty gimmick to get more scantily-clad singing girls into the movie and pad the running time.

Pop Quiz! Name one other Japanese radiation-themed movie with a lengthy nightclub dance scene. (See answer at the end of this review.)

Two others go hunting with a rifle and come across the broken mirrors, piled neatly, in the forest, creeping them out. As they watch, a bird does a sudden one-eighty and flies away.

"Even the birds don't want to hang around here," quips one of them.

Walking a little farther, they come across mushrooms. The logbook was pretty explicit about not eating any mushrooms on the island, so they just look longingly at them. A shadowy figure ahead of them causes momentary panic, but they gather their wits and head back to the research ship empty-handed.

After cleaning down a stateroom or two with the carbolic acid they found on the ship, they bed down for the night. Outside, the incessant rain dampens more than just their spirits. The action kicks in when one of them sneaks off to horde some of the canned food, only to run into a very knobby-looking, potato-headed individual. As the hoarder runs, falls, and screams (I thought only women did that in horror movies), the others race to see—gasp!—Mr. Potato Head.

Discretion being the better part of valor, they all run the other way and lock themselves in their sleeping quarters. Finally a woman screams as we get another glimpse of Starchy, the spud-looking guy (although he’s supposed to really be Mr. Mushroom guy.) Come morning they all think it was just a hallucination brought on by their hunger and dire predicament. The continued bleakness of the fog, the rain, and the lack of food starts to bring tempers to flash point, and their once friendly relationships deteriorate into everyone for him or herself. The writer drinks some courage and heads off with a rifle to find Mr. Potato Head. He doesn't find him, but he does find lots of tasty, juicy mushrooms. Will he eat them?

Yes!

Matango! Don't forget to dip.

When he returns, they have to lock him up because he wants to shoot everybody. Making matters worse, the skipper takes off in the repaired S.S. Minnow (my rough translation of the boat’s name) with the remaining canned goods. As the others continue to fight among themselves, the actress lets the writer out of confinement. Once again, he goes for the gun and they have to wrestle it away from him. Having no other recourse, they banish writer and actress from the tribe and send them into the jungle.

More rain, more fog, more bleakness, and more mushrooms, growing larger by the minute due to the hot, wet climate. The wealthy guy just about had it when the alluring actress shows up as pretty as ever. "I haven't been hungry since I left," she coyly says. He eagerly follows her to the mushrooms. He sees the writer is already chowing down, and starting to turn lumpy, but he gives in to his hunger and starts munching.

Matango! And dip, everyone!

"Oh, by the way," she tells him, "you'll become a mushroom, too." But he doesn't care because, as he eats the mushroom, a wave of euphoria comes over him, leading to even more flashbacks of scantily-clad women dancing in a nightclub.

Only two are left now, the professor and Maryann—sorry, I mean to say the professor’s girlfriend. He sees the boat the skipper sailed off in bobbing up and down offshore. He swims to it and finds a message written by the skipper: "I died at sea." Wondering if the skipper wrote that before or after he kicked the chum-bucket, the professor heads back to the research vessel. More potato heads show up, and as he tears off one fungus-filled arm in his desperate struggle against them, they carry off his girlfriend to the magical mystery mushroom forest. He races to save her, but it's too late; she’s already munching on a mushroom.

Matango! Dip and munch!

She smiles at him. He tries to drag her away from the really big mushrooms with arms and legs surrounding them, but to no avail. Eventually, he flees alone, back to the boat, and away from that hellish island. While there may be layers of metaphor and allegory lacing this story, I haven't a clue as to what those might be. On the other hand, the weird color-spectrum of lighting, the mysterious and moody sets and ever-present fungus, and the surreal surrender to a mushroomy fate (rice pastry is used for the edible ones), all blend into an effectively off-beat and unsettling entry in the horror-fantasy genre that's pure Lovecraftian in tone and mood.

So start heating up that Fondue pot now and grab a copy of Matango! You and your friends will be glad you did.

 

*Pop Quiz Answer: The H-Man (1958). 

 

Young Kids and Horror Movies Don't Mix

When I recently attended a very late showing of Dead Silence, I was amazed, appalled, and annoyed that a couple had brought in their baby. A baby. I wasn't annoyed that the baby cried now and then, I was annoyed that they thought it's okay to bring a baby to a horror movie.

It's not. Even if a baby isn't fully conscious of the action on screen, he or she can still hear it. And many horror movies, especially R-rated ones, are very loud and filled with unsettling music and noise that's simply not healthy for a baby or young child to experience.

Dumb and dumber doesn't even cover the mindlessness of parents taking babies and very young children to horror movies, let alone R-rated ones.

When I read this Arizona Daily Star article on the subject, I couldn't help but think how scared that 4-year old boy was, and probably will be for a long time. It's judgment-impaired parents like these that give horror movies a bad reputation.

Movie Review: Dead Silence (2007) She Can Hear You Scream

Zombos Says: Good

The integration of J-Horror's ghost-styling with American Gothic picks up steam in Dead Silence. With a vengeful spirit ready to rip your tongue out if you scream, a cast of 101 nattily-dressed vent dummies, a decrepit theater, a cursed town with a dark secret, and classically-creepy, Dark Shadows kind of art direction filled with stone gargoyles, swirling fog, rainy nights, and rustling curtains, director and co-writer James Wan almost pulls it off. Almost.

Little things are missing; like some good old common sense motivations in-between all the game-styled imagery, and better performances from Donnie Wahlberg as Detective Jim Lipton and Ryan Kwanten as Jamie Ashen. Wahlberg plays Lipton as the standard wise-ass, I've-got-my-eyes-on-you detective, and Kwanten should have staid home and let his wife go for the Chinese food.

Opening with a retro-styled Universal Studios logo, and a scratchy opening credits montage dramatically scored by Jonathan Goldsmith, the film hits all the right artistic notes. Sound, from the memorable music to the distortion and fadeout of all sound just before a supernatural event, is used to wonderful effect here. Like a William Castle gimmick, it heralds the arrival of Mary Shaw or Billy, her insufferable best-boy dummy. I half-expected to see a flashing "cover your mouth now" message at the bottom of the screen.

Then there's the little ditty about Mary Shaw that's repeated onscreen, reminiscent of Curt Siodmak's 1941 The Wolf Man pseudo folk saying. It doesn't quite have the roll-off-the-tongue rhyme of Siodmak's, but it's not too shabby.

All these elements combine to make a visually enjoyable, if not quite sensible story. It all begins with a rainy night and a large package delivered to Lisa and Jamie. When Jamie opens it, they find a really creepy dummy inside. Right, then. Jamie's soon off to get some take-out even after both of them recall that whole Mary Shaw legend thingy that was used to frighten little kids in their home town of Ravens Fair.

Queue the thunder and lightning now, please. Lisa tosses a cover over Billy the dummy, but soon the dead silence comes and he's tossing a cover over her — and, oops, she screams, so out comes her tongue in nicely done J-Horror fashion. When Jamie returns with the food, he suddenly remembers all about that Mary Shaw legend. Great timing there, Jamie.

With Detective Lipton not buying Jamie's story about the legend, Jamie heads back to Ravens Fair to look for answers. Of course, instead of tossing that hideous reminder of his wife's death in the trunk, he props the little guy up in the front passenger seat so Billy can enjoy the view. You just know that little creep's eyes are going to move, too.

When Jamie hits Main Street, Ravens Fair is obviously a town on the skids and a place Lovecraft would call home. Jamie's apple-red car stands out against the blue-tinted color that permeates the town — and the entire film — as he heads to his family's estate. Barnabas Collins should have it so good. His family home is a Gothic mansion, flanked by gargoyles, fog, and inclement weather.

The meeting with his dad is brief and not very warm, and he declines to stay. He heads to the local Motor Inn, props Billy on a chair by the window, and nods off to sleep. Swear to god. You know what's going to happen, right? Queue the dead silence as Mary Shaw's corpse-like countenance (rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it?) is glaring at him from behind a curtain.

He gathers his wits about him when the sound returns, and at the funeral for his wife, he meets the undertaker and his slightly daft wife Marion, who likes to hide from Mary Shaw in the crawlspace under the funeral parlor. She tells him to bury Billy pronto. Again. Apparently Mary Shaw had all of her dolls buried along with her. He drives to the cemetery, at night of course, and finds Billy's tombstone. A little dead silence doesn't stop him from burying Billy, but the little bugger refuses to stay buried.

Back at the Motor Inn, Lipton confronts Jamie and confiscates Billy, but in an incredible example of bad policing, Lipton, who took the room next to Jamie, leaves his door unlocked and Jamie takes Billy back and drives over to Henry, the undertaker, for a chat.

In a stylish flashback, we learn the story of how Mary Shaw performed at the old Guignol Theater on Lost Lake, got into a spat with an annoying kid at one of her performances, and was soon killed by angry townsfolk after the boy went missing. Judith Roberts as Mary Shaw is a classic monster in the making, and her Guignol Theater haunt is effectively imagined with lots of decay, cobwebs, and dark, secret places.

Henry's information sends Jamie to the abandoned theater on Lost Lake. While he's there, he discovers Mary Shaw's rooms, and more about the boy that dissed Mary Shaw's performance. Returning to his father's home for answers, a phone call from Henry sends Jamie back to the Guignol Theater with Lipton in hot pursuit. Or was it Henry?

Both men confront each other, and Mary Shaw, in the well-paced thunder and lightning climax at the top of the old Guignol Theater. Will Mary Shaw tongue-lash the both of them, or will she finally get her comeuppance? And whose hand is up whose back as Jamie comes to a horrifying realization about his part in all this?

Filled with classic imagery and moody set-design that is the hallmark of Universal Studios horror, Dead Silence is an effectively creepy and entertaining romp with a new and memorable monster. Hopefully, they'll put a little more commonsense storytelling in-between those imaginative scenes for the sequel and think of a more sensible ending, too.

But I'll hold my tongue until then.

Night of the Living Dead (1968) When the Monsters Are Us

See the movie pressbook and insurance policy.

Zombos Says: Classic

"What is it about zombies?" asked Zombos. He put aside his cup.

"I'm not sure I follow you," I said. Shadows from the long day drifted lazily on the floor of the solarium. I had been trimming the corpse plants and orchids while he sipped his late afternoon coffee. Philosophical musing can be a dangerous thing, especially when rattling around in a head like his with nothing to cushion its impact against the inside of his thick skull. The vision of a ball-bearing cracking the side of a glass sprang uppermost in my mind. I'd rather be a poor servant to a poor master then have to listen to Zombos' philosophical ruminations, rare though they are.

"Who would have thought," he continued, "that zombies, those rotting corpses prone to consuming mass quantities of, well, mostly living people, would provide such a large pile of compost to fertilize thought and discussion."

"Take individualism or community in George Romero's movies, for instance," said Zombos. I accidentally snipped the rare marifasa lumina lupina in half. I wisely put down my shears as Zombos continued. A cold chill ran down my back as clouds blocked the sun and the complacent shadows on the solarium floor scattered to oblivion.

"Individualism does contribute to higher body counts in horror movies," I said.

"Let me think. The zombies consume people, the people are themselves consumed by fear, which makes them ad hoc a social contract that, due to their individualism, they ineptly engineer. In the end, unable to become a living community that can defend itself against the more socially-bonded—but dead—growing community of zombies, the hasty and shaky social contract crumbles, leaving the dwindling living community to revert back to their ineffective individualistic states of actions, which backfire and they all end up being eaten in no time. I say, Zoc, good call on that one. It does appear that community is the better way to go when surrounded by zombie hordes."

"Good evening," said Uncle Fadrus, joining us. I poured a cup of coffee for him, relieved he would now take over the philosophical dialog with Zombos. I turned my attention back to trimming the plants.

"Thank you, Zoc. What happened to that beautiful marifasa orchid? You didn't let Zombos trim it, did you?" He laughed. "Zimba is going to show me your wonderful Long Island shopping malls today."

"Speaking of malls," said Zombos, "that reminds me of the consumerism innuendo Romero plays with in Dawn of the Dead."

"Yes, that's quite an image, isn't it? The dead dying to get in, though they don't know why, and the living just dying to shop." Fadrus was also an ardent horror movie fan. “I suppose if I were doomed by a zombie apocalypse I’d want to be holed up in large shopping mall. Go down shopping, that’s for me. Better a mall in Texas, however, as I’d like to have sufficient ammo and guns, too. May as well make a good fight of it. Have you thought about the paradox inherent in all this zombie business?”

"What paradox?" asked Zombos.

"Death, my friend. The grim blackness of no return. The great question mark of life. The paradox is why we embrace death's imagery so avidly where zombies are concerned. Posit this: which is worse, death being the end of all things for you, or death leading to an endless, consumerist, mindless need, never satisfied? Made worse by partial memories of your living life gnawing at you while you rot away forever."

Zombos rubbed his chin. "Heidegger's angst, eh?"

"A little, perhaps.”

"I think I understand,” said Zombos. “You mean the value of personality when it no longer exists, or partially exists in another form that is more alien than familiar. Like a person suffering from Alzheimer's disease or mental disease. What of the soul, then? Is it there, where does it go? How does it survive the physical and mental battering of life? That uncertainty can be overwhelming."

The long day turned grayer. Zimba's voice called to her uncle, and soon they were off to the malls. Zombos sat quietly in his chair, looking into the dusk, hoping to see well beyond it. I poured another cup of coffee for him, and continued to trim the orchids as long as the fading light permitted.

 

The year 1968 was filled with tumultuous change. Political and social unrest divided the country, and the violent change brought about by assassinations, riots, and a war that provided no avenue for victory would alter American culture and thinking in ways both better and worse in the years to come. The horror movies at the box office included The Conqueror Worm with Vincent Price, Rosemary's Baby with Mia Farrow, Dracula Has Risen From the Grave with Christopher Lee, and Night of the Living Dead with zombies.

Lots of them.

In 1968 I was twelve years old. At the time, I didn't realize how important that movie was and still is, or how it would change forever the pantheon of fictional monsters to create a sub-genre that would provide the fodder for legions of undead, flesh-eating ghouls to roam across the landscape in countless movies. Zombies have been parodied, satirized, gory-ized, psychoanalyzed, sexed up, sexed down, and alternately made mindless and mindful ever since, but it all popped from those rotting heads in 1968.

I wasn't prepared for the sudden turn in cinematic horror from "rubber monsters, cardboard gravestones or hands groping in the shadows" as Alan Jones describes it in his book, The Rough Guide to Horror Movies. Up until then, I had watched in cozy comfort as man-made monsters, vampires, and various aquatic wild-life tried to wreak havoc in an ordered universe; only to be stopped in the end by the triumph of scientific reason, religious belief, and when all else failed, a pointy piece of wood, or the trusty military might of the army, navy, or air force.

But director George Romero and writer John Russo changed all that. No longer could the monster be contained, controlled, or avoided by day. The ordered universe was no longer neat and tidy, and it refused to be subject to man's laws or scientific codexes or heroic deeds.

And the monsters were us!

We were mindlessly devouring each other and infecting each other in gruesome ways in a suddenly nihilistic universe governed by godless quantum shifts.

I first watched Night of the Living Dead at an evening showing at the Benson Theater in Brooklyn. Afterward, the long walk home was fraught with shadows of zombies lurching from every doorway and side street. For the next two weeks I took baths at night with the door locked. I became one of those kids Roger Ebert wrote about when he watched the movie for the first time, in a theater packed with kids. I don't think we really knew what hit us. No ghouls before this had eaten people, leaving a bloody mess behind that could stand up and start walking. This was little girl ghouls killing and eating their parents. Worst of all, even the hero got killed. Real terror was felt in movie theaters across America. We weren't prepared for this. Frankenstein was undead, but at least he didn't go around eating people. Dracula was undead, but he just sucked the life blood out of you without chewing a body part or two. These ghouls were next-door-neighbor ghouls, they were unrelenting monsters beyond all hope of redemption. And religious icons, voodoo rituals, wolfbane, military might, and scientific knowledge were powerless against them.

You bet we were terrified.

Much has been written on the racial and cultural overtones—or supposed overtones—in the movie, even though Romero and  Russo may not have been fully cognizant of them at the time. In Pretend We're Dead: Capitalist Monsters in American Pop Culture, Annalee Newitz builds a solid case for drawing parallels between Night of the Living Dead and DW Griffith's 1915 film, Birth of a Nation :“Night is in many ways an updated version of Birth, except this time around the upwardly mobile black man is the film's hero, rather than its locus of evil and terror... Ben is a black man with power in a white-dominated society; he is also, like Silas, ultimately destroyed for it.”

Take away the racial overtones and capitalistic corporate undertones that permeate the film (how many cubical zombies surround you?) and what you’re still left with is palpable horror. The horror of the unknown suddenly reaching out for you, unreasoning horror that knows no surcease for sorrow, no pitying the fool, and no god to succor you. It’s horror twisting your daily routine into a hopeless knot, leaving you with no sun-will-come-out-tomorrow to look forward to because Little Orphan Annie would be a zombie, too.

The movie starts with Johnny and Barbra, brother and sister, driving to a bleak and deserted cemetery to lay a wreath on their father's grave. The eerie, cobbled together music, bits and pieces of existing music were used, warns you this will not be a familiar horror movie. When Johnny's "they’re coming to get you Barbra" joke backfires, the action quickly escalates from the cemetery to the bleak, isolated house in the woods. Black and white, grainy texture, and the closeness of the scenes exacerbate the “realness” and seriousness of the walking corpses congregating at the small house.

But it’s not only a practical refuge; it represents the American dream of home and security and the happiness you’re supposed to get from attaining it. Romero films the house in noir style with ominous shadows lurking in every corner and stark contrasts accentuating the dire situation. This house is not a safe haven. It’s a potential death trap, slowly surrounded by lumbering corpses looking for their next meal. At least with vampires you have to invite them in before they can attack.

Barbra meets Ben at the house. Ben is the only African American in the film, and he has to contend with an all-white zombie jamboree outside, and more distraught white people hiding out in the basement of the house. He happens to be the only rational, cool under fire individual in the group, too. He forages around to find whatever he can to board up the place, all the while dealing with an increasingly catatonic Barbra, and a really annoying white guy named Harry, whose wife and daughter are holed up in the basement, along with a young couple. Harry's daughter was bitten by one of the undead, so you know where that is going to lead; but back in 1968, we didn't know. It’s when Barbra climbs the stairs and discovers the home-owner, or what's left of her, that I and every other kid realized this was not going to be a fun ride. There would be no safe thrills and chills here. No Ed Wood undead Tor Johnsons or Vampiras shambling about. The situation grew grimmer by the minute and there was no Van Helsing in site, no Castle gimmick to chuck popcorn at.

Harry's one great idea is to stay locked in the basement. Ben wants to fortify the house, and have avenues of escape if necessary. Outside, the zombies gather in greater numbers, waiting, while the two men bicker and fight for control of an uncontrollable situation.

Throughout this ordeal, key icons of control and salvation come into play: the radio, the television, and the gun. More than once "we'll be all right until someone comes to rescue us," is spoken. In today's post-Katrina world, we know differently; but back in 1968 we didn't know.

Romero closes in on the Zenith radio as the news (horror host Bill “Chilly Billy” Cardille plays a field reporter) describes the growing civil disaster as a mass murder spree by persons unknown, and the bodies of victims are found to have been partially eaten.

I really wanted to go for popcorn then, but I was too afraid to leave my theater seat.  I wonder how many kids pissed their pants that day?

A television set is soon discovered, and everyone eagerly gathers round to listen and watch as newscasters discuss what the hell is happening with concerned scientists, the puzzled military, and local good-old boy militias. A humorous, and still timely scene has the news reporter hounding a scientist and military commander leaving a high-level Washington meeting, only to have the scientist warn about the seriousness of the situation, while the military person  downplays it with a "we don't really know yet" attitude. Boy, how often have we heard that even today?

The television provides an anchor of technology in a world gone mad, and they cling to it for succor; as the mother observes, as long as there's "some kind of communication, authorities will send help." Pretty soon the situation escalates to the point where the newscaster reverses his first recommendation to stay put, and tells listeners to head to a safe location near them as soon as possible. The National Guard protected locations are flashed at the bottom of the television screen as Ben devises a plan to take the truck and gas up from a pump just a few feet away. There's just the problem with those two dozen or so zombies standing in the way to be taken care of. Tom and Judy, the young couple, argue over why Tom has to be the one to help Ben. Tom puts it rather well when he says "it's not like a wind passing through. We've got to do something and fast." He hops in the truck to drive it to the gas pump, while Ben wards off the undead with a flaming table leg used as a torch. Judy decides at the last minute to join them, but things go from bad to worse when the truck catches fire. Tom and Judy wind up barbecued in the ensuing fireball as Ben hustles back to the house, only to be locked out by Harry. He breaks the door down to get back inside, and shoots Harry for almost getting him killed.

Now comes the Tom and Judy a la carte scene, and it is here that horror films were forever changed. In a graphically gory scene by 1968 standards, the zombies reach into the truck and grab a hand-full of roasted human remains, then chow down in stark, nauseating close-ups. I was glad I didn't go for that popcorn now. With the taste of human flesh in their mouths, the zombies head for the house and start breaking in. Mom retreats to the cellar, where she is promptly killed by her daughter with a trowel, in a brutal scene that was quite shocking for me and the other kids to witness. The fact that she was snacking on her dead dad before she kills her mom was also another taboo broken. Barbra, in yet another taboo-breaking scene, is pulled through the door to her doom by her now undead brother, the one person she apparently relied on for her protection and security.

And Ben, who did not want to retreat to the basement, now has no other option and locks himself in the basement.

He has to shoot mom and dad as they become hungry undead themselves. Society and its precepts fall apart as the zombies fill the house, looking for their next living victim. When morning comes, Ben is still alive, but in an ironic twist of faith, his rescuers, the all-white militia patrolling the woods to kill zombies, kill him with a bullet to the head in the mistaken belief that he is a zombie. So no one survives; not even the upwardly mobile and educated Ben.

That was a real downer.

I left the theater that evening shaken, and no longer secure in the commonplace. George Romero had brought ghastly horror home, both figuratively and literally, and the course of future horror films would follow the same path, to the dismay of parents and censors in the decades since then, and probably for the decades to come. Night of the Living Dead stands as a classic horror film because it deals with social and cultural themes as they existed in 1968, and more importantly, as they still exist today, but didn’t realize it at the time.