I'm in! I've been
accepted as member of the Large Association of Movie Blogs. One small step for
zombies, one giant leap for credibility? Nah, but excellent nonetheless!
Wednesday 18 December 2013
Slither - review
2006 (Canada / USA)
Contains mild spoilers.
Alien Parasites.
They're nothing new to the zombie myth and I've reviewed my fair share of films
that saw little grubby predators weasel their way into the living and dead to
take control. I'll admit though to always feeling a little wary when it comes to
little green, err, things infiltrating and mimicking the native population,
while all the while working towards the ultimate goal of global dominion. I
mean, where the parasites take control of cadavers it's easy to shout zombie;
they're reanimated dead and they look the part. What about when the hosts are
still alive with their pre-parasitical personality suppressed or even joined
with? What if the parasite has introduced a new uncontrollable desire or drive
like sex (procreation) or hunger (survival); does an insatiable all-consuming
addiction constitute enough of a loss of self, will, ego, being to semantically at least proffer the
idea of zombie?
Director James
Gunn's horror / comedy / alien parasites land on earth and look to take over
zombie flick Slither both tasks me to ask this question while at the same time
lets me off the hook completely. Three quarters of the way through the film
after watching the very foreign parasite take its first victim, the town big
shot Grantford Grant (the brilliant Michael Rooker), successfully find a mate
and procreate with Brendalynne Gutierrez (Brenda James) and finally look to
step things up spewing thousands of slug like throat guzzling parasitical
spermatozoon on the world, Slither did the decent thing and allowed the hosts to
die first. The resulting dead controlled by the will of the shared single
conscious alien super disease are as close to the modern
zombie as one is likely to get; their old selves, other than perhaps access
from the new host to memories, are gone; they stumble about like something from
a Romero film and they like to feast on flesh.
Slither lists itself
as a horror comedy but I always felt the tension, gore and scares outweighed
any desire for outright laughter. Ok, alien parasitical take over stories are
out there and the film is chock full of audaciously brilliant set pieces that could
certainly be seen as uncomfortably funny but there's no throw-away gags or
cheap easy farce. The film takes its subject matter seriously but isn't afraid
to be playful in a non detrimental way to the core story and atmosphere and it
works brilliantly. Nathan Fillon as town sheriff Bill Pardy is the dry wit and
hero of the film and arguably does have the lions share of one line quips but
again they're never out of place or jarring; in many ways he's the Indiana
Jones or Han Solo lightening the mood now and again but never at any expense.
The film has a
comfortable cohesiveness, a singular vision, and flows with an effortlessness
that signifies a cast and crew who were not only professionally invested but
were actively enjoying the ride. All the sequences work, there's no dead dialogue or scenes and all the themes
played with work; Gunn has cut and shot the film to perfection. Pacing is on
point and the climax is satisfying and not drawn out and even though the
central idea of the film is ludicrous it somehow manages to avoid any thoughts that it might be; it's a clever trick and shows it knows what it's doing.
As to the earlier
question of whether the increasingly 'alien' but alive Grantford Grant is a
zombie I'm happy to leave it up in the air. He's definitely had his self
repressed but there's definitely a bit of the old person still there. It's all
deliberately vague and disturbing, hinting at a precariously easy malleableness
to a definition of self we consider so resolute and absolute. Also, if I start
at this juncture including alien possessed films where do I stop? Species and
The Thing are obvious starters, but I'd soon move on to any and all films that
had someone temporarily possessed by someone / thing else and I'm not sure I'm
ready to throw Wrath of Khan with Chekov and Terrell succumbing to Khan's
indigenous eels into the mix just yet.Slither is a triumphant alien parasite spectacular with first rate acting, a tight on point story that never languishes and lavish over the top special effects that manage to avoid ever degrading to farce. I'll admit to enjoying this far more than I expected and I was surprised I'd no memories of ever watching it before which is odd as it's the sort of thing I would have actively sought out. An alien parasite film, with tenderness, scares, laughter and zombies, this is definitely an extra-terrestrial recommendation, 8/10.
Steven@WTD.
Monday 16 December 2013
World of the Dead: The Zombie Diaries 2 - review
2011 (UK)
Contains spoilers.
Now I'm not exactly
sure as to the reason I felt the need for a couple of weeks zombie cinematic
vacation but I'm sure putting myself through yet another undeniably mundane and
mediocre, however well intentioned end of the world spectacular had something to
do with it. The Zombie Diaries wasn't a bad film; it had an earnestness and a
gritty realism that elevated it's rather poor production and pedestrian pacing
to be something I felt wasn't as bad as it could easily
have been. It was still a very average film however, and to learn that it felt
deserving of a sequel with an equally low budget was surprising to say
the least. Learning that it was also set in the same 'world' with the same look and feel and the same first person narrative left me perplexed but intrigued as for all its faults the first showed undeniable promise. Without giving away the punch line it would seem I was right to be cautious.
Directors Michael
Bartlett and Kevin Gates have returned to the bleak English muddy fields,
slowest least dangerous looking undead shufflers ever seen on camera and
obligatory shoehorned in morally bankrupt survivors as if insinuating should
civilisation and authority ever crumble every young lad will immediately set
off sadistically raping and murdering without a second's pause. The first
instalment attempted an ambitious weave of a trio of survival narratives and
while it didn't necessarily all work it was these small personal and
desperate insights, and not the gun toting action finale that made the film
work. The World of the Dead: The Zombie Diaries 2 seems to disagree totally with my take however, dropping
any delicacy and any ambition to instead tell a more straightforward corridor
shooter story with a single group of armed soldiers fighting their way through
one heavily scripted encounter after another. There's no real depth, no attempt at anything particularly fresh and an over reliance that having a lot of zombies on screen and plenty of rather lacklustre head shots could carry it all.
It's several months
after the apocalypse. The countryside is awash with the undead and a lone group
of part time semi-military types are forced to flee the relative safety of their
barracks / bunker, because someone left the door open, and make it on foot to
the shoreline where they've been lead to believe they'll be rescued and
transported abroad where things are much better.
Each of the characters has a reasonably coherent back story and the plot itself while wholly unoriginal is not the worst thing I've come across in an amateur production it's just the whole thing is so dreary. I understand
that bleakness and desolation was the theme, and that a zombie
apocalypse wouldn't be a cause for balloons and dancing, but having the rather
stale and derivative posse quite so uninspired and miserable soon makes viewing
unnecessarily weary.
If you've watched
the first you'll understand the description, slow and non threatening, yet
persistent and plentiful. For a group of armed and trained soldiers the near
snail paced zombies pose a surprisingly major threat. In fact I'd go one
further and really question how such a pedestrian and unassuming foe could so
quickly and totally have overcome a far quicker, more mobile, better equipped
and far more cognizant population. And here's the rub; I'm all for no direct
monster post-apocalyptic dramas, but if you're going to go to all the trouble
to fill it with gnarly undead flesh eaters that are purported to have been
responsible for the untold murder of billions, one could at least try and present them in
a way that might other than fleetingly appear vaguely dangerous.
There is some nice blood and gore and some nice deaths, albeit all too often helped by the
coincidental blurring / damaged film / interference from the hand held docu
style capture but it never manages to ever completely shake off it's low budget
restraints or dare I say lacklustre direction.
It's [REC], Diary of the Dead, Blair Witch all over again with one of the soldiers Jonesy (Rob
Oldfield) seemingly intent to record absolutely everything that happens however
ridiculous it would be that he wouldn't stop and put the camera down to say, run
away or shoot back. I've seen far worse but still suffers the same contrivance
accusations levelled at all films of this ilk. There's also an attempt to add
tension and purposeful drive to proceedings with the inference that should they
not reach the boats on time the country will be firebombed to oblivion though
this too never feels any more than a tacked on convenient narrative
contrivance.
The World of the
Dead: The Zombie Diaries 2 is an uninspired Romero-esque homage. Average acting
performances, laboured dialogue and a plot that feels artificially stretched
with unnecessary scenes added just to
fill the gaps; it rarely offers anything for the viewer to ever get
particularly excited about. There's a certain competence to proceedings and
there's nothing pro-actively offensive, other than maybe an unnecessary and
unhealthy fixation to include rape or torture, it just fails in all ways
possible to stand out. Maybe I'm a tad jaded or maybe I've seen too many
'average' zombie films but The World of the Dead: The Zombie Diaries 2 just
didn't do it for me in any way, 3/10.
Steven@WTD.
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