Resident Evil: The Final Chapter - review

2016 (UK / France / Germany / South Africa / Canada / Japan / Australia / USA)

2017 Sony Pictures Blu-ray R(Free)

Contains mild spoilers.

  

Well it's been a long ride for Alice (Milla Jovovich). Resuscitated with memory loss, attacked without mercy by the scourge of the undead and their corporate overlords, then over the decade hunted and beset by all the increasingly monstrous and depraved super mutants that director Paul W. S. Anderson could conceive. She's been shot, stabbed, sliced, diced and blown from the sky. She's been cloned, watched good friends die, learnt the dark secrets of her past and witnessed the world she knew torn a sunder. To say she's due a break is an understatement but with this instalment, it would appear Anderson might just be finally letting us, and her, enjoy some kind of rest to the madness.

Over the ten years and six chapters we've slowly but surely witnessed a profound cinematic transition to style over narrative, characters, or any real attempt at substance. It's as if someone gave control of the crazy dial to a young excitable boy and then kept ploughing him with coke long after he'd definitely had enough. From a gritty, claustrophobic and earnest debut, success turned into cash, then into budget, and finally unfettered approval to bring life to the most fantastical scenes and effects, and thus did story, congruence and any concerns for character arcs, in turn, fall to the way side. Part five was the epitome of action surplus; a cacophony of battles and over the top and never-ending lunacy that failed utterly to actually be engaging or rewarding precisely because of this deficit accrued. With The Final Chapter I'd argue that while the giddy young fella seems relieved from his sugar purgatory, this is for all intents and purposes the grand finale, and as such, why is there a want to temper things now. Whilst one can see a whisper of desire to return with Alice and the entourage to Racoon City, and to the intimacy and cinematic authenticity of where and when it all began, there's too much water under the bridge; too much superficial silliness to ever really think they could.

By now we understand that it's not the gold star action and cinematic wizardry that will let a Resident Evil film down but the downtime, the moments of peace between the double back flip, the Matrix style kung-fu, or the triple barrelled shot gun into the giant toothy flying mutant of doom (I think a Kipepeo). Yet I've seen The Final Chapter come in for a lot of criticism about how it's all been cut and spliced together. Ultimately I think it comes down to personal taste, as I didn't mind the frantic and chaotic shaky cam approach; in many ways recognising it as a nod to the perils and confusion of war. The fact that so much of it was shot in near darkness however, I did, especially as Anderson to his credit does manage to return the simple un-mutated zombie back to the forefront for a large swathe of the film, and it would have been nice if we could have really seen them in all their glory.

Another recurring problem I have by now, is Alice's invulnerability. I'm all for the epic hero, the Thor or Beowulf blessed by the Gods with incredible fortune as well as strength, but as all about her fall and as buildings tumble, one never get the feeling, not for one second, that's she's actually in any real danger. The problem with winning the no-win scenario, is how do you follow it but with an equally implausible one. It's the magicians conundrum. Day one it's escaping from a box, Day 100, it's escaping from a box suspended over the Grand Canyon, on fire with a rat in your underpants. Watching Alice, yet again dancing with the big Resident Evil brute +1, or the next CGI enhanced video game inspired super boss, there's nothing really new, never any real tension and no tangible threat. Yet again, dare I say, it's all a tad stale and insipid, and no, adding another rat or maybe a cat to the pants won't ever really fix the fundamental problem.

The Final Chapter isn't as bad Retribution but that would have been a hard thing to have accomplished. At least here there is a semblance of a narrative to make sense of the carnage, even it deviates on what we've been told before, and makes a mockery of all the heroes and villains that have come together to give her a final send-off, with what in effect are short meaningless cameos. Through in truth, if anyone is really watching Resident Evil for any semblance of a coherent narrative or intelligent by this point, they're way off the mark. With action this undeniably good I'd be hard pressed to say there isn't something of merit watching Milla's perfect death bringing choreography, or any of the big picture perfect explosions; and I did find some nostalgia in the final scenes despite them ending up an insulting mockery. So as I said, better than the last, but I had very low expectations - 4/10.

Steven@WTD.

Train to Busan - review

2016 (South Korea)

2017 Studio Canal Blu-ray R(B/2)

Contains mild spoilers. 

Hype always makes me nervous. It raises expectations and thus investment; and it raises the bar such that any wrong step can feel like betrayal. It also makes it harder to be impartial as the mob has already ruled, and laid a pejorative marker against any who might disagree. It makes it hard insomuch that one doesn't just want to be seen going along with the herd, and the herd are very much on the side of Director Yeon Sang-ho's Train to Busan. Edgar Wright of Shaun of the Dead called it the "best zombie movie I've seen in forever", and professional accolades and plaudits have been thrown by dozen. Well hands up; sometimes the herd can be right. I'll say upfront, Train to Busan, is arguably one of, if not the, best and most complete zombie film ever made.

Twenty or so minutes in I could feel it. There's a moment near the start of every great disaster movie, before the horror, action and actual catastrophe, where all the trepidation, anxiety, fear and excitement you know is soon to come is tantalisingly tangible. It's like being seated on a roller-coaster, slowly rising up towards the first hundred-mile-an-hour gut-wrenching plummet that you know is coming, yet can do nothing to stop. Seok-woo (Gong Yoo) and daughter Soo-An (Kim Su-an) have boarded the early train for Busan, some 453km away. Fleeting and fragmented phone calls and news flashes point to some greater and more expansive violence and confusion in the inner cities. And a lone very poorly woman stumbles quickly onto the train unbeknown to the guards and crew. It's as near a perfect application of the genre; the passengers embark and settle down for the long haul, and it's impossible not to lean forward with sweaty palms, heart racing and a grin from ear to ear. It's the zombie trope, but Sang-ho proves why tropes are tropes; if done properly they can be beautiful and timeless.

Then it begins. To say the ride is relentless would be putting it mildly. One becomes two, then three, four, and before anyone has any clue, the train is a claustrophobic maelstrom of screaming, running and blood. The following hour and forty is a barrage to the senses; perfectly paced, unremitting in its savagery and able to totally subsume the viewer so that there's a coming together to share each high and low as one. It's as finely crafted a zombie experience as I can recall. The train is the perfect vessel to constrain the tension and the roller-coaster is the perfect analogy. There's no escape, no  getting off; just helpless surrender to the ride ahead.

The few confused and desperate passengers that survived the initial onslaught are shaken and desperate, yet as a disaster movie and into the chaos, the experience is ultimately only as good as how they respond. An action horror spectacular it is, but Train to Busan is also an emotional narrative on good vs evil, of self-serving vs self-sacrifice. The zombies are at the end of the day quite neutral; they're automated killing machines driven entirely by instinct to spread the infection and never actually conscious and therefore responsible for their actions. To call them evil would be to call piranhas evil; they're nippy little shits yes, but they're just doing what they're designed to do. 

It's the passengers and the conscious decisions they choose to make in reaction that defines, in this instance, morality. This self-serving; looking after oneself at the expense of all others, versus, sacrificing oneself, or putting oneself in harm's way is the recurrent theme throughout the feature. It's deliberate that Seok-woo has a career that's perceived as selfish and his charge, Soo-An, is a small girl with a huge heart. It's also no coincidence one of his first decisions is whether to pull shut a door guaranteeing the safety of his daughter, or risk everything to let Sang-hwa (Ma Dong-seok), a working man who ultimately comes to be Seok-woo's moral gauge, and pregnant wife Seong-kyeong (Jung Yu-mi) through. His becomes a journey of discovery, of redemption, and the narrative an overarching exploration contrasting the best and worst of what it is to be human. 

Impersonation is the sincerest form of flattery and World War Z should be proud that Train to Busan has adopted their vision of the zombie and, other than their own origin stories, I could easily see each sitting comfortably in the others universe. Both share the upgraded 28 Days Later zombie for velocity and ferocity. Both share the rather demonic and inhuman veined appearance, and irregular and violently fitful movement model. And both imply the same viral contagion, where it's all about the infection wanting to spread with as much virulence as possible and not actually about anyone eating anyone else. Brad Pitt may have spent a purported $190m, but Sang-ho with his $10m easily keeps up, and watching each and every new vicious and rabid frenzy of anger and teeth scream to life, ready to join the hunt, is always exhilarating, and never gets old.

I don't recall a movie, never mind a niche zombie one, that so consistently got so much right. An action spectacular, a tense disaster drama, a human tragedy; it convinces on all fronts. Yet still at heart it's a fearless zombie film, unashamed to wear the crazy undead gnasher loud and proud, front and central. Yeon Sang-ho has given the tiring genre a more than welcome shot in the arm with a visual and audio feast that, as said, is just about as good as you're going to get. And yet for all these plaudits, it will be the friends you've made, and the friends you've lost, that you'll mostly recall when thinking about it. It is complete and masterful storytelling that excels in all areas and a privilege to watch, 10/10.

Steven@WTD.

The Omega Man - review

1971 (USA)

2003 Warner Home Video DVD R(2)

Contains spoilers. 

In 1964 directors Ubaldo Ragona and Sidney Salkow brought us The Last Man on Earth and Vincent Price as Robert Neville, a broken lonely figure forced to deal with the mundane realities of existence and subsistence by day and the real threat of attack by night. Their adaptation Richard Matheson's I Am Legend wasn't without fault; preferring a rather more traditional action packed finale than the more nuanced origin of evil twist of the book and thus rather missing the point, but over-all I found it quite the poignant post-apocalyptic vision. It was also, with its slowing and dumbing down of Matheson's vampires, a rather important part of the cinematic zombie story, with Romero even citing its crucial influence. The 2007 Will Smith blockbuster I Am Legend further blurred the vampire and zombie lines and with its theatrically released ending perhaps even further missed the Legend point; but I unashamedly enjoyed it for the big budget action packed spectacular that it was. In between though there was this other adaptation, and the cover exalting Charlton 'from my cold dead hands' Heston's automatic weapon prowess I think best illustrates the direction I felt it ultimately took.

To be fair Heston paints a performance worthy of Vincent Price's legacy and taken in isolation from its peers director Boris Sagal, and writers John William Corrington and Joyce Corrington, have fashioned quite the accomplished post-apocalyptic yarn. Los Angeles is captured hauntingly empty and Heston is every bit depressed, bereaved, despairing and unhinged as a person would be having to deal with not just the mundanity of surviving during the days, the existential angst and ennui of existing in a world without purpose, but the very real threat to his life every night. The 'family'; the Omega Man's vampires present themselves as an interesting and subversive, if a little incoherent and comically pathetic adversary, and though the infected and new order Ruth, is replaced with Lisa and a gun toting group of disparate survivors, in quite the departure from the book, it does open the way for a traditional and entertaining, if safe, action oriented plot.

And that's primarily what The Omega Man is; a glorious post-apocalyptic promise that doesn't quite deliver. But one that also doesn't actually fail. If anything it's that post-apocalyptic film trap. Set up a destitute, lonely, introvert inspiring world with gorgeous expansive cinematography that leaves the skin tingling, add a struggling hero one can empathise with, then fumble around rather unsuccessfully struggling to maintain all the built-up atmosphere and ambience when it comes to actually doing something with it. Watching Heston stumble and bluster around the city is as funny as it is tragic. Clearly broken from his two year exile, his life now the permanent contradiction of retaining dignity and humanity in a world where there's no accountability or obligation to do so, is perfectly realised; and summed up beautifully with each new bitter and utterly helpless sardonic quip. Then enters the family, Lisa and her gang in a tidal wave of high speed action, explosions and the film becomes something else; that certain je ne sais quoi gone.

Whilst the zombie case could be made with The Last Man on Earth and I Am Legend with their ambiguous vampire and infection fusion; the nocturnal albino protagonists of The Omega Man despite their physical and psychological changes are a more difficult proposition to argue for. Clearly alive, clearly cognisant and clearly rational, does a radical change in world view, a clear over-night about-turn in how one perceives and interacts with reality constitute zombie-esque irrationality, delusion and surrender to a singular hunger? Not at all I'd argue. The theme of The Omega Man, and one it does assume correctly from Matheson's source, is the question as to whether it's the family that's delusional and dangerous, or as they posit actually Neville and the old order that's got it all wrong. A perfectly reasonable and congruent position is still a position even if it's different. A person banging their head and waking up with a different personality is still a person; even if they do now want to set you on fire.

The one thing I would add before dismissing the zombie case all together is perhaps the point that they are infected, and their final change does seem to coincide with loss of empathy, social intelligence and individuality. The family are also driven by a counter-culture dogma, and structured as a cult like with a zealot leader Jonathan Matthias (Anthony Zerbe) who enforces his new bastardised ideological stance with violence and an inability to compromise. Maybe they're not quite as free-willed in their new state of mind as they intimate? I'll leave it open save that though there's probably enough to argue they're not zombie in any classical sense but there is ambiguity, that zombie discussion in relation to cults, drugs, mental health, and any impairment of the neo cortex doesn't seem to be going away, and the film does come with enough heritage to deserve to be not ignored.

As said, taken for what it is, The Omega Man is a rootin' tootin' post-apocalyptic action film with much to admire. Whether tearing the streets or removing his shirt to single-handedly dominate both because of and despite of the fact, Heston provides the lines, the action and the presence to ensure each sequence and scene is a success. Under scrutiny it may not hold together, nor do justice to Matheson's legacy; why for instance, armed with semi-automatic weaponry and a whole city of devices, technology and information can Neville not deal with a foe who want to tackle the situation as if in the Stone Age? But as said, looked at as an albeit of its time fun, action sci-fi, it holds up well with a coherent and interesting story, solid film making and decent effects. It also should be commended for one of cinemas first interracial romances. So, not really zombies and not the best I Am Legend adaptation it's still worth watching if for Heston alone - 6/10.

Steven@WTD.

Bio Zombie - review

1998 (Hong Kong)

2000 Tokyo Shock DVD R(1)

Contains spoilers

Bio zombie is pretty much everything you'd want from a comedy zombie film. Witty dialogue, dark and dirty zombies and carnage, a delightful buddy pairing in Jordan Chan as Woody (Invincible as he's credited) and Sam Lee as (Crazy) Bee who are helped to shine by interesting complementary characters, and a director who clearly understand pacing and delivers when called upon. Honestly if you think Shaun and Ed (Simon and Nick) mixed with Dead Alive (Braindead) staged like Dawn of the Dead given a bit of video-game touch up, you'd be on the right track. Add that it's not doing any of these zombie 'A' list films a disservice by association and you'll get an idea how good I think this forgotten and overlooked gem is. Okay, if we're picky one could say it does take a good hour to really get going, and I would possibly have to own up, that should I watch it again I'd probably fast forward much of the dialogue heavy pre-action; but once dialled up, it really does deliver.

Woody and Bee remind me of Bill and Ted, yet slightly more rounded and authentic for two down and out chancers interested only in booze, drugs and getting laid; this due in part by not being restrained by any PG film rating requirement. When not ripping young geeks off, harangue local traders and female shoppers and generally larking about causing mischief, the two scallywags pretend to run a small video store in the New Trend Plaza shopping arcade for their boss. Now, it was on one such errand for their boss, the minor manner of collecting his car from the garage that they also became responsible for the rather more serious disruption that's the focus of the film.

Now I say they're responsible; but really, following the tried and tested zombie outbreak trope that contrives to deliver the actual highly secret and dangerous compound or toxin; and ultimate seed of universal armageddon into the hands of ignorant and usually quite naïve and curious passers-by, I'm not sure quite sure how much responsibility they should take. I mean covertly trading the bio-zombie bio-weapon in a Lucozade bottle with minimal security in a warehouse close to a residential and retail centre, alongside a test subject who's gotten rather aggressive and hungry, is kind of asking for trouble. Again though, Woody and Bee did choose to take the fleeing dying soldier to the mall, force feed him the soda then forget about him so they could play video games; then realising their error not raise the alarm on finding a zombie cocoon, missing body and hearing a monstrous moan, so maybe they should shoulder some of blame for the consequent death, carnage and mayhem.

Director and co-script writer Wilson Yip's pacing if a little slow to get going, is nigh on perfect once zombie-soldier man turns into zombie soldier and zombie-police man, then into zombie-soldier, zombie-police man and zombie-sushi man ad infinitum. The initial undead encounters which tie the main characters, whom we've already bonded with, together are full of charm and laughs; the subsequent ramp up of danger is legitimate and measured, understanding the zombie threat's need to develop and grow in parallel to the survivors' ability to deal with it. And though there are moments of poignancy and seriousness, especially the final ten minutes or so, where you find yourself feeling uncomfortably challenged waiting for a punchline that doesn't seem to be coming, Yip still understands that he's putting together something that wants to play with the absurdity of an enemy that's neither alive or dead. Once on the scene there's no contrivance and pretence to explain what they are; we know what they are, Woody, Bee and Rolls (Angela Ying-Ying Tong) know what they are and we're all together in understanding their strengths and their shortcomings.

Obviously taking their influence from Dawn of the Dead the blue tinted zombies stumble and groan between each new and tasty meal. Though slightly more frenetic than their Romero cousins, it's still all about an enemy that relies on maths to eventually win; the lone zombie easily circumvented or dispatched with a satisfactory amount of blood and ingenuity. Yip also allows himself a little more licence than Romero to play, allowing for zombies to demonstrate certain amounts of self-awareness and recall, either to aid the narrative or just for the lols; for example, the security guard knows to hit a switch to close the main shutter doors removing our heroes one perceived exit, and Sushi Boy / Loi (Emotion Cheung) who retaining his crush for Rolls, as an obvious Warm Bodies influence, tries to distract other zombies from her by serving them actual finger-finger-rolls.

Overflowing with energy and confidence Bio zombie is also a very human film, full of warmth for characters you do quite quickly invest in and care for. Yip may provide the perfect canvas but Jordan and Sam (Woody and Bee) had still to deliver, and do so with a genuine killer buddy performance that's pretty much as good as it gets. As said once in full swing it's all the bit the great relentless zombie gore fest, yet it's the first hour with it's witty, sharp script, top delivery and deep character development that sets it all up to be so good and as such shouldn't be so dismissed. A Hong-Kong pop-subculture horror / comedy / action mash-up, Bio zombie is an overlooked zombie great - 8/10.

Steven@WTD. 

Apocalypse of the (Living) Dead (Zone of the Dead) - review

2009 (Serbia / Italy / Spain)

2010 MIG Blu-ray R(B/2)

Contains mild spoilers.

Apocalypse of the Living Dead aka Apocalypse of the Dead aka Zone of the Dead must have caught me on a good day as though there's much to criticise, overall I really quite enjoyed director Milan Konjevic and Milan Todorovic's visceral and dramatic little Eastern European zombie horror. Made on a shoestring (a purported $1m) what we have is an earnest attempt at a frightening apocalyptic story in the Romero vein with absolutely no rom or com, with deference for the genre and a healthy respect to work to the budget. You could say Apocalypse of the Living Dead is an old school antithesis to all the Shaun of the Dead wannabe's, to all who've try to paint the picture that z-day wouldn't actually be deeply unpleasant, and to everything The Asylum has managed to put out. This is Serbia, it's the zombie end of the world, and it's no laughing matter.

Really, what Apocalypse of the Living Dead needs is a good edit. Someone to go over all the dialogue, give it good old polish and take out all the unnecessary exposition and play with pacing. It does improve significantly as the film progresses but struggles to get all the characters to where they need to be when the action takes off, in any kind of coherent or cohesive manner. This doesn't just apply to the dialogue either as the getting to the point where the zombie-genie is firmly out the bottle requires quite the number of dominos to fall in the most forced and avoidable way. Don't get me wrong, once Mortimer Reyes (Ken Foree - Dawn of the Dead 2004), Dragan Belic (Miodrag Krstovic) and Mina Milius (Kristina Klebe) are battling the undead forces of darkness everything clicks in to place; it's just getting there is all a bit amateur and if we're honest, not really very well thought or planned out.

You're the president of Serbia and you've got some crazy dangerous reanimating compound you're thinking of using to bolster your armed forces to make you an influential player on the world stage. I'm betting one of the first things you wouldn't do, is transport it on the railway with minimal protection, especially when we're lead to believe the Serbian public transport system allows random armed soldiers to not only wander on the tracks but get into light skirmishes with transport policemen inadvertently firing their guns at anything that happens to be passing through.

There's no ambiguity with the Living Dead of this Apocalypse. One whiff of the green gas and it's death and zombie as fast as you can say snarly little gut muncher. With ground zero established and a ravenous zombie first wave out and ready to make wave 2 the mayhem soon spills into the adjoining city of Pančevo and bumps into Mina and co. who have been tasked with moving a prisoner to the airport for transport to London. Not content to tell the straightforward disparate group of survivors against an increasingly belligerent zombie threat story, Konjevic and Todorovic include not one, but two mysterious kick-ass pseudo Riddick characters. Both know how to use a gun, both keep their cards close to their chests and while both could have come across as comical or farcical each actually fits with the narrative in a way that feels natural. Think Michonne from The Walking Dead; she's larger than life but still fits in the world and story.

As said, with a good hard edit and a bit of polish I feel we'd have a great pilot episode of a gritty new zombie series. Reyes, Belic and Milius along with Riddick 1 and 2 make for intriguing characters and some great zombie killing action, and the undead menace itself while following the traditional modern Romero template, shows enough original ambiguity and thus the possibility of complex content with two hundred year old ancient curses, the Chernobyl disaster and even that hell might be full, all getting a mention. A surprising gem, I really thought this was going to be more zero budget zombie fodder to throw on to the cynical fire but I couldn't have been more wrong. A solid, dark apocalyptic no thrills zombie explosion with blood, gore and truck loads of menace. With a bigger budget and some solid production and editing I feel these guys could really deliver something very special; scary indeed, 6/10.

The Blu-ray I watched was the German MIG release. It comes with both the original English audio track as well as a German dub. There are no English subtitles and it's region locked to Europe.

Steven@WTD.

Junk - review

2000 (Japan)

2003 Warrior DVD R(2)

Contains mild spoilers.

Put aside for one minute all the gnarly gut munching, gratuitous eye gouging and colourful brain rainbows, by far and away the biggest shock of the afternoon was looking down at the case some thirty minutes in and realising that Junk was in fact a film released in the noughties, and not as I was assuming the early eighties. At times a low budget Yakuza film with guns and goons, at times a painfully forced The Return of the Living Dead wannabe complete with chemical spills, a military cover up and a hell of lot of painfully bad decisions, and at its best a Fulci inspired video nasty; the one thing Atsushi Muroga's Junk never is, is refined or even vaguely contemporary. Honestly, whether it's the gangster posturing, the copious leather and denim, the sets and cars, or heck, the score and video presentation, everything screams Nightmare City, The Zombie Dead (Burial Ground) and Zombie Flesh Eaters; and certainly not 28 Days Later or Shaun of the Dead, both of which were released only a few years later. If we're kind we'll say Junk is deliberately old school; a somewhat kitsch hark back to when acting qualities and narrative sensibleness weren't quite so important as long as guts were spewing and dead people were really, really unpleasant.

A zombie munch in the first minute is always a good thing in my book and watching the topless Kyôko (Miwa) pull herself up from her peaceful permanent slumber, take one look at the scientists inquiring innocently as to how she felt and deciding she wanted a piece, was delightful. Skin gets ripped, blood spurts out and yes, the set is sparse, the acting even sparser but it's campy, fun and unashamedly in your face zombie. Yet it was all a tease; a glimmer of what we'd have to wait a lot longer for, as despite this no nonsense zombie start, it takes another thirty minutes for things to really get going again as Muroga has another film in his head too.

As much as the film does end up descending into exactly the European eighties video nasty nonsense we expected after the start, it also tries very hard to be a semi-serious Japanese gangster film with a Yakuza boss, a jewellery heist and a motley assortment of honourless goons who'd no sooner ask for your hand as stick it in a zombie's mouth. The robbery, the getaway, the boss and his goon-squad and young getaway driver Saki (Kaori Shimamura) and her attempts to buy her second hand dream car from a bafflingly superfluous used car salesman is all light, fun and entertaining in its own special way, it just drags on way too long for what's really just a narrative reason to get nine victims to the same abandoned remote factory.

It's entertaining when the world of the gangsters and zombies finally collide; it's just baffling so much attention was heaped on the one part of the zombie story that really didn't need much at all; especially given the brief part each of the characters was ultimately going to play once it kicked off. On top of all this Muroga also deemed it necessary to provide a western narrative and even a love story, that could sit over the chaos to present it all as reasonable, coherent and plausible but again like the gangster preamble it all ends up feeling a tad half hearted and redundant. I should reiterate that it's not all bad though as when focused on zombies and death Muroga gets it entertainingly right.

We have DNX, a highly experimental US funded drug which has brought Miwa back to life as an insatiable neck biter and flesh eater. We have the two doctors that administered the drug now bitten and turned into Romero tradition zombies too implying oral / viral transmission and a situation that could quite easily expand out of hand. Then to top it all off, in full on Return of the Living Dead tradition we have a bit of an industrial accident, a vial is spilled and the remaining corpses are up and joining in too.

There's a bit of a mix going on if we're honest; Kyôko it seems is actually quite intelligent and powerful, in a kind of possessed The Evil Dead / The Exorcist / Manga kind of way; those freshly bitten are blue tinted ponderous walkers straight out of Dawn of the Dead and the extras are a hideous bunch of foul fetid maggoty horrors that look like they've shuffled straight from filming Bruno Mattei's Hell of the Living Dead; which for reference, also concluded in a very similar looking industrial complex. One could nit-pick the non uniformity or design of it all, but it doesn't really matter. The zombies are fun, dark, dangerous and there's copious quantities of well-presented gore on display. The final superhuman Kyôko who survives a head shot, only to come back stronger with different colour hair doesn't make any sense at all but by now I'm starting to get used to Japan's need for a boss fight and it was at least captivatingly stupid.

Junk may be cheap but it is fun. The gangster and US military narratives are superfluous guff adding little to the trashy exploitative carnage that's the focus of the film but they're not actually offensive; and at a little over an hour and twenty minutes long I'm guessing Muroga needed some way to fill the time. It's daft, it's brash, there's some appalling English from some Japanese speakers and some painfully amateurish moments but you get the feeling Muroga knew all this and didn't really care. The mash of ideas and narratives never really gel yet in never firmly adopting any distinct identity, it kind of ends up getting one all of its own anyway and one can see how it got its name. A daft English / Japanese hybrid eighties throwback that's as entertaining as it is awful it's definitely worth a watch with a beer (or ten), 5/10.

Steven@WTD.

(Zombie) Death House - review

1987 (USA)

2010 Excalibur DVD R(2)

Contains mild spoilers.

Death House or Zombie Death House as it was renamed when given a new cover when it came to VHS is an overly complicated, confusing, exploitative, low budget, badly acted shambles of a film. Put together in the US and starring and directed by John Saxon, it's an Italian 80s gore laden gratuitous pile of nonsense yet not actually Italian, but American, and missing that special European surrealist something that somehow lets the likes of Zombie Flesh Eaters, Hell of the Living Dead etc. get away with it. It's not a bad-bad film, and it's hard to list exactly what it's not doing in comparison, but it just doesn't really ever light much of a fire.

Dennis Cole is Derek Keillor, a purple heart Vietnam veteran who desperate for work has agreed to work as chauffeur to mob boss Vic Moretti (Anthony Franciosa). In a convoluted and quite frankly unnecessary preamble to get Derek incarcerated on death row (the death house) there's a long winded tale of treachery, murder and infidelity, and there's car chases, shooting, fights and boobies. It's not that bad, but it does drag on far too long detracting somewhat from the main reason one would watch such a film: slobbering death munchers and total carnage.

Being on death row, it turns out, is not the worst thing in store for Derek. The heart of the film is about a highly experimental and morally dubious behavioural modification program being run at the prison where inmates act as guinea pigs for special privileges, namely, and I quote, booze and pussy. Wanting to try something a bit more risky, strong, but extremely misguided patriot Colonel Gordon Burgess (John Saxon) convinces the prison warden to inject one of the inmates with the highly dangerous and untested HV-8b which, you guessed right, has some quite severe and unexpected consequences.

It's all a bit of a slow ride to be honest. By the time Adams (Earl Johnson), the second inmate injected (yes, the first thing one would think to do after a person's skin starts falling off and they need to be double sedated and double straight-jacketed to stop them wanting to kill everyone is inject a second person) starts his rampage we're nearly half way through the film. It doesn't stop there either. For every head crush, arm severing, throat slashing, decapitation and pick axe through the chest there's a tedious amount of fannying about from characters you never find yourself invested in. The gore is good, don't get me wrong, it's strong, unashamedly over the top and in keeping with the Fulci and Italian shock tradition. It's also well presented and every bit as uncomfortably funny as you'd want, it's just surrounded by too much mediocrity to hold the film up on its own.

Now we come to the big one. Up until the last ten minutes I'd written the inmates off as deranged but alive and not actually that zombie-ish in any traditional manner. Yes they're skin's peeling off and they've taken leave of their senses to become homicidal manic killing machines but they're still very much alive; also remember the word zombie was only added to the title of the film on its VHS release. Yet, ten minutes to go without previous suggestion, the super-soldiers on mass decide they are in fact interested in eating one people, hunting in packs and shuffling about with Saxon suddenly fully invested in full on traditional iconic (albeit a bit too iconic at times) zombie imagery. It's good stuff, if a little late and a little incongruous with what we've had to put up with for an hour and twenty.

(Zombie) Death House is as bad as it sounds, yet has a bizarre kind of charm that those who are drawn to off the beaten track quirky low budget gratuitous cinema will somehow get some joy from it. A zombie / gangster / prison / government-conspiracy narrative mash-up makes watching it for story reasons hard work, yet it's too invested in said narrative for the shock-horror to take the focus and make up for it. What we're left with is something that rarely works as horror or a drama; an acquired Italian delicacy with Monterey Jack instead of Parmesan. It's hard to recommend yet I feel it's one, should you get the chance, you ought to indulge in, 4/10.

Steven @ WTD.

Hell of the Living Dead (Zombie Creeping Flesh / Virus / Night of the Zombies) - review

1980 (Italy / Spain)

2002 Starz / Anchor Bay DVD R(1)

Contains mild spoilers.

I've sat in front of the computer for ten minutes now trying to work out not only how to start the review, but actually how I actually feel about what I've just watched. I mean, I can't hide from the obvious; it's a woefully low budget 80s euro-trash zomploitation video nasty with b-movie acting, a poor English dub (there was no original soundtrack with subtitles option on my DVD), a meandering derivative story devoid of any real content or meaning, and an obsession with the ridiculous misuse of externally sourced stock footage. Yet, I somehow enjoyed my hour and forty minutes with Lia (Margit Evelyn Newton) quite the enthusiastic front line reporter and Lt. Mike London (José Gras) and his blue boiler-suit wearing commando goon squad.

There's a rather superfluous and unexplained back story about a global conspiracy to euthanize the third world and it all going wrong with some giant clouds of degenerative toxins leaking out into the atmosphere. There's also a radioactive zombie rat. All that's really important to know is Lt. London is in New Guinea with his crack force of three totally unconvincing exaggerated 80s bad boy throwbacks, he can't get hold of his superiors, his crew have stumbled into Lia, her camera man Vincent (Selan Karay) and decided to let them tag along, and the normally quiet jungle landscape is teeming with blue skinned undead flesh-eaters.

There's not much else to the story. The gang of six travel to the nearest village, Mia takes her top off to communicate with natives who she was alleged to have stayed with for a year, the village is overrun, then they travel to an abandoned plantation, it gets overrun, then they travel to Hope #1, a sprawling industrial complex and the source of the zombie death cloud, and it gets overrun. Each location starts with the same promise of respite, only for some shadowy figure sitting in a chair with their backs to them to reveal themselves as a macabre flesh eating zombie and the place to come under siege.

I've seen director Bruno Mattei described as a total hack unable to fashion anything original, but I've also seen him described as the man to turn to, to get the job done with as little fuss and money as possible, and both are undoubtedly true. Hell of the Living Dead is a veritable pastiche of everything Zombie Flesh Eaters and Romero. It's formulaic, it's derivative, scenes are stolen, music is literally stolen (Goblin's Dawn of the Dead soundtrack) but if the remit was for a by-the-numbers repeat of the two success stories above, to be filmed in four weeks with no money, credit however begrudgingly, has to be given. What story there is never really comes together and it does drag out, but it doesn't actually fall apart, the characters are cheesy and obnoxious, and played poorly, but at least they're all entertaining each in their own special way, and each action sequence is contrived and poorly choreographed but the way the so called professional soldiers throw themselves about is always amusing to watch. There's also the fact there's an abundant and near constant flow of gratuitous and shocking gore on offer, almost as if Mattei knew this alone would sell a few copies regardless of all films other short-falls.

The zombies are, funny enough, a Dawn of the Dead / Zombie Flesh Eaters fusion. They're blue, they shuffle and groan, they arrive on mass and they like eating people. I've that usual complaint, that for quite the desolate unpopulated area there's an awful lot of zombies and even with a Jeep and boat the gang can't find five minutes respite. Also the zombies do seem to know when to hold off that fatal bite, even with people literally in their grasp, yet on other occasions, for instance when the village is over-run, a native must merely flash a bit of ankle for the teeth to get sunk in. It's almost like the zombies knew when each main character was to be bit and all the action was contrived to ensure it happened as planned. Other than this, it's head shots, with the guys going through the early rigmarole of shooting the body repeatedly first before having the hallelujah head-shot moment, fire being the zombie-no-no and lots of staggering around slowly with arms outstretched. There's nothing new on show but at least Mattei has taken what works and not embellished it unnecessarily, other than allowing their innate cannibalism to get a fair bit more screen time than Romero would have.

I'm not going to pretend that this is a good film; it's one of those that somehow transcends all that it does wrong to become worth watching for the sheer exaggerated stupidity on display. Mia's tribal undress entwined with all the obvious third party tribal stock footage is worth watching if only for the audacity Mattei had in thinking he could get away with it. Wise cracking Zantoro (Franco Garofalo) is worth following if only to witness a truly great maniacal goofy performance, and there's a good game of guess the next jungle animal in stock footage forced in to allegedly make the film as long as Dawn of the Dead. Dawn of the Dead it isn't though; and for all I say go watch it, be prepared for a bit of a genre stinker that you must remember even Mattei was ashamed to have his name attached at launch (he went as Vincent Dawn). Still recommended for that 80s euro-trash no-story maggot-crusted, flesh-munching zombie itch, but don't say you've not been warned, 6/10.

Steven@WTD.

Return of the Living Dead 3 - review

1993 (USA / Japan)

2001 Vci DVD R(2)

Contains spoilers.

There's two things I'll take from Brian Yuzna (director) and John Penney 's (writer) twisted little zombie love tragedy. One is never, ever stick your hand in the mouth of a zombie however permanently dead you think it might be and two, don't ever think resurrecting your significant other with a highly experimental biological agent in a top secret military base is a good idea, however much you miss her. They're two quite avoidable scenarios when you think about it, but where would we, the zombie enthusiast who gets off on buckets of gore, total pandemonium and apocalyptic end game scenarios, be, if people could be relied on to demonstrate the tiniest bit of common sense.

The story in Return of the Living Dead 3 is really that of a succession of bad ideas. Whether it's Curt Reynolds (J. Trevor Edmond) stealing his father Col. John Reynolds' (Kent McCord) security key card, so he and his girlfriend, Julie Walker (Melinda Clarke) can break in to the top secret military base to see what they're all up to, or speeding down a highway helmet free in the centre of the road at night with your crotch being fondled, it's one moment of stupidity after another. In fact the whole idea, that there could still be a practical use for Trioxin, the highly volatile and dangerous zombie resurrection compound responsible for all the trouble and death in part's one and two, is itself a really bad idea. But as I said earlier, it doesn't half lay a great foundation for another good zombie horror film.

I didn't really like part II; I felt it was watered down and excessively family friendly-goofy with a Goonies vibe and too much focus on the teen audience. Right a way I'll say part 3 is back to where I feel it should be. It's visceral, it's depraved, deaths are plentiful and nasty and there's an abundance of gratuitous blood and gore thanks to some down right imaginative and gruesome brain eating zombies.

If Curt didn't take Julie's death well the same can really be said of Julie's reaction to being brought back to life. Sequels have a fine line to tread balancing respect and homage with telling something new, yet with the toy box provided. Part II got it wrong, losing focusing too hard on having fun and thinking re-filming verbatim scenes from the first was what fans would want to see again. Part 3, by spinning a tale that references all that has gone before, subtly using imagery and the zombie set of rules Dan O' Bannon set out, yet telling something unique in content and style demonstrates with confidence how a sequel should be done. At heart what we have is a story of love, forgiveness and redemption; a Greek tragedy. Julie isn't upset to be reunited with Curt, she's upset because she knows a line that should not have been crossed has, and the story is their journey to accept the mistake and forgive each other and accept the inevitable however painful it will be. It's stylish, at times poignant and what's most important, it works. 

I should also mention that along with the sad tender journey, there's also the fair bit of action, blood and gore and Brian Yuzna isn't afraid to crank things up. As well as being sought by his dad, the base commander, and the morally unscrupulous Colonel Sinclair (Sarah Douglas), the love-struck duo manage to upset a local gang of four Mexicans lead by Santos (Mike Moroff), get a shopkeeper killed and even manage to find room to return some hospitality shown on them by a homeless river-man (Basil Wallace) by seeing ultimately turned into the worlds first prototype zombie cyborg. It's quite the trail of destruction all delightfully presented and paced.

When Julie first comes back, with a pulse we might add, she's coherent, her memories of the bed they shared just before the accident are still in her mind and she's walking and talking as if nothing is really wrong. It doesn't take long however, with the onset of numbness and cramps for her to tell Curt she can tell something definitely is amiss though. Melinda Clarke is exceptional as Julie, authentically portraying a woman slowly deteriorating in mind and body and desperately grasping on to what little humanity and self she has left, all the while fighting off an insatiable hunger that promises to consume her entirely. Cramps and a general feeling of unease turns to stiffness, pain and ravenous hunger which after failing to satiate with snacks at a 24 hour convenience store, she realises her hunger is actually for brains. It all stays true to Return of the Living Dead zombie lore, this time we're told by the military scientists the zombie craving is for electricity, from the neurons in the brains rather than endorphins, but it's still brains and this time we get to see a lot more of them, both splattered about and being chewed on. Another thing still firmly entrenched is the idea that the dead undeaded (should be a word) are in a lot of pain.

The hunger is the pain but fortunately for Curt, Julie has also worked out that actual pain, most of which is brutally and sadistically excessively self inflicted, can be temporarily relieved. It in some way's goes to alleviate the discrepancy why she alone is able to fight off turning full on zombie but it doesn't do so, if I'm honest totally convincingly. Other than Julie, a whiff of Trioxin or a bite and transference of the compound and you're turned, groaning and bashing at doors and walls as if the old self and all humanity has been extinguished like a flame. This disparity between 'good' dead and 'bad' dead doesn't detract too much if taken for what it is and understanding Yuzna still wanted to fashion a good old zombie film with zombies in it. In many ways, the film shares much with Warm Bodies, albeit this time Juliet plays the zombie-aberration, and it perhaps, as Col. John Reynolds comments near the end, introduces a new element to the given rule-set, as the old self might not actually be gone after all.

The franchise is renowned for it's fast pace, over the top presentation and slightly camp tongue-in-cheek undertone. Return part 3 has embraced all these, albeit with less overt playfulness, and fashioned arguably the most complete, original and cohesive horror narrative of the lot. With brilliant acting, a tight cohesive story, an abundance of over the top make-up, prosthetic and gore excessiveness, and an explosively satisfying ending, I'm surprised this isn't more highly regarded. It's certainly re-peeked my interest in in parts 4 and 5 and I'll even be taking a more active role in looking at Brian Yuzna's other work. Extremely satisfying, 8/10.

Steven@WTD.

Dead Air - review

2009 (USA)

2012 OMG! DVD R(2)

Contains mild spoilers.

Dead Air really starts well and there were a few moments I started to get carried away. The premise and situation are interesting, the acting surprisingly strong and tension and anxiety are allowed to build up with a solid and natural pace. Half an hour in I found myself invested in the characters and primed to see how it was all going to pan out. Unfortunately for Dead Air it's when the action finally shows it face things start to unravel and it all becomes if I'm honest, a bit of a mess.

It's Friday night and downtown Los Angeles late night phone-in anchor, the extremely confident and affable Moseley (Logan Burnhardt) and his small production crew have gone live on the air. There late night topic for the night is paranoia and as he and his co-host Gil (David Moscow) play the goofy double act on listeners dumb enough to air their insanity they start to receive calls that something particularly nasty is occurring just minutes from their studio.

As said, the set-up is good. The viewer like Moseley is a voyeur to the pandemonium engulfing the city. Taking calls, watching live TV feeds he and in turn us share the confusion and insanity of what appears to be an actual zombie outbreak and watching a small screen on a screen, or listening to first hand accounts of panic and violence things seem to be holding up and the rioting and attacks seem pretty convincing.

The problems arrive the same time the zombies do. I'm really not sure what director Corbin Bernsen had in mind with his strange arm flailing, grabbing, running and punching antagonists but I can tell you it doesn't work. I've read that writer Kenny Yakkel didn't actually conceive them as zombies and more like PCP crazies yet somewhere the two ideas have merged to create something that's neither convincing or frightening. They look like crazy people and act like crazy people albeit with the barest of make-up and zero blood, but they reanimate seemingly from the dead, they carry on waving their arms about like deranged octopuses after being stabbed through the chest and they do go in for flesh (well at least once, near the end). Someone thought they were doing a zombie film or someone thought half way through it should be a zombie film; either way, saying they weren't dead and just high doesn't wash with me.

The frankly amateurish and unconvincing zombies aren't the only problem though. There arrival brings with it the problem of what to actually do with them once they're there and this seems to have found Bernsen wanting. The build up was energetic, well paced with interesting and witty dialogue and it's like someone flicked a run-out-of-ideas switch and the last hour or so shows none of the earlier promise. The story and action become painfully forced, conversations become trite and predicatable, and are actually repeated on occasion, and laboured and laughable action sequences are forced in aplenty. Add a fumbled attempt to add a pro-tolerance, anti-hate political subtext that concludes the film with a cringe worthy Jerry Springer-esque final message and it's hard to remember the earlier positives.

I real missed opportunity where an interesting and original premise is ruined with the idea it needs to be much more. There's half a great film here and half a right load of uninspired guff which is only lifted above mediocrity with extremely solid acting. I'll end by mentioning the vastly superior Pontypool, which despite the same basic premise had a director and production crew who understood what it takes to work with a limited budget; go watch that instead, 4/10.

WTD