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.

Outpost II: Black Sun - review

2012 (UK)

2012 Lionsgate Home Entertainiment Blu-ray R(B/2)

Contains mild spoilers.

I'd been led to believe I shouldn't expect too much from director and co-writer Steve Barker's 2012 sequel to his 2008 dark Nazi horror Outpost; stick with the first, the original I was told; forget the rest, but I shouldn't have listened. I did really enjoy, if that's the right word, the first. It was gritty, real and nasty, and oozed palpable heart-thumping suspense at every corner. Full of memorable firefights, gory and gruesome deaths, as well as intelligent and coherent character design and development, it wasn't without fault, but things were easily overlooked and it came to be quite the claustrophobic and sadistic little favourite of mine. The first thing that sprang to mind coming away from this sequel is how Barker's hasn't chosen to deviate; it's just, if not more, dark and brooding and that's what made outpost tick, and constantly challenge my bowels, is all still there. Barker had fashioned quite the nightmare world, and Black Sun has every right to belong as part of it

Armed with a larger budget, though still modest if I've read right, Barker has definitely dialled the notch up though. The cat is out the bag so to speak. Following straight on from the rather fatal antics of the first, everyone from NATO through to, let's say slightly more nefarious parties, are now acutely aware of the rather small bunker in Easter Europe and the rather dangerous and intimidating trans-dimensional zombies and their plan to usher in new a thousand year Reich. Physicist Hunt and his British no-nonsense military mercenaries of the original didn't really help if we're honest. Ok, they brought the not so late Brigadeführer Götz and his army of super soldiers to the attention of the world, but in doing so somehow armed him with not only additional ambition but the ability to act on it. It's here with a rapid NATO response force desperately holding back the relentless and inevitable tide of terror that our story begins.

Black Sun is quite relentless and ambitious, opting for a more expansive story over the subtle claustrophobic driven narrative of the first. It's a film that tries to cram a lot in; perhaps a little too much with far larger scale zombie death, carnage and mayhem over-exposition and build-up pretty much from the start. I'm not complaining; though maybe Barker could have started with a little more insight as it took me longer than he probably intended to get fully behind Lena (Catherine Steadman), the Nazi war-criminal hunter and even longer, her relationship / acquaintanceship with physicist Wallace (Richard Coyle). That being said watching grand NATO skirmishes with the putrid zombie horde was truly delightful and I'm not sure I'd trade...

The rag tag gang of British soldiers that Lena and Wallace get caught up with compliment the narrative of the original whilst offering something both new, and coherent with the story as Barker is trying to tell it. Whilst they at first they come across a bit one-dimensional and peripheral to the core pair, Barker once again weaves wonders unveiling and unravelling each and every back-story, so that by the time, inevitably, this is Outpost remember, they're killed off in increasingly sadistic, brutal and pointless ways, they're looked at with appreciation and even fondness. Even the token gobby Scot who f's, blinds and threatens with the best of them eventually knocks at the friend door demanding to be cared for.

One thing Black Sun could perhaps be accused of is trying a little too hard; with maybe one of the producers or co-writer Rae Brunton (sole writer of the first) telling him to cut down on the sugar intake during filming. We're not by now talking about the whole trans-dimensional stuff and Klausener's Nazi experimentation to shift soldiers outside space and time Philadelphia Experiment style. We're talking about human machine integration; cyborgism and the ability to expand electro-magnetic-fields as a consequence, strange electric lightning ray powers (a la the Emperor from Star Wars), a strange Nazi zombie hag (Medeiros girl) and predominantly the end of the film. It doesn't all ruin the film but it does hamper it from being quite as coherent as it could; and did tend to spoil the ending. I also couldn't help notice the zombie trans-dimensional ability seemed to be more focused on invulnerability over jumping about in space-time. I can understand this provided the means for the more linear and coherent narrative which wasn't removed entirely; but the zombies of Black Sun in many instances lost that fear factor they had from literally being able to be around any corner. The introduction of EM pulses as a means to actually defeat them also detracted from that utterly undefeatable aura they had in the first. Don't get me wrong; they're still, in action, quite formidable and the nastiest group of undead psychopaths you're ever likely to see but it's just all a lot more traditional zombie; albeit stabby, stabby not bitey, bitey.

Barker has taken two of our most popular conspiracies and run with it, fashioning an unashamedly perverse alternative world history that for as prosperous as it all sounds makes for a remarkably serious, coherent and cohesive duo of films. A rare zombie film that not only embellishes and compliments its predecessor but leaves them intact as unique experiences, I can do nothing but praise. Ok, as said, the ending wasn't great and Barker could have shown better composure with pacing and some, shall we say, improved discernment over some interesting but out of place ideas, which could easily have reduced all the good work to farce. The hellish nightmare vision Barker presents though, does ultimately hold together and thoroughly entertains - 7/10.

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.

Frankenstein's Army - review

2013 (Netherlands / USA / Czech Republic)

2013 Entertainment One DVD R(2)

Contains mild spoilers.

So two reviews in two that are for releases of the same month; I could kid myself I'm getting relevant and with the times, but I'm sure its just coincidence and I think after being so recently taken by the Nazi Zombie madness that was Outpost I was really just after more of the same.

Director and co-writer Richard Raaphorst's Frankenstein's Army is a riotous insight into the mind of quite the depraved visionary. It's dark, perverse and deeply disturbing, and the descent for Novikov (Robert Gwilym) and his unruly band of degenerate Soviet scouts into Frankenstein's lair is truly the stuff of nightmares. I loved it.

Viktor Frankenstein (Karel Roden) is the grandson of the same Victor Frankenstein Mary Shelley penned back in 1818. Released from a mental institute by an ever desperate Nazi regime facing onslaught from two fronts he has been given resources and moral exoneration to expand on his and his grandfathers ideas to create an army of super soldiers that could put a stop to their inevitable defeat. The band of Soviet scouts that stumble into the hive are the usual ragtag assortment of ne'er-do-wells, innocents and beleaguered, and their exploration the usual tailspin from cocky to utterly fucked as their numbers start to plummet. 

WW2, Nazi occult, scientific, cyborg, morally repugnant experimentation; it's nothing we haven't seen before with each new iteration trying to out-do the one before with ever increasing depictions of cruelty and depravity. What stands Frankenstein's Army out from the crowd is the sheer lengths it's willing to go to become the new crowned king of in your face sick and repugnant and its use of 'reel' first person camera footage to capture the carnage, a la [REC] and Blair Witch.

I was in two minds, very much like how Sergie (Joshua Sasse) ends up under Viktors knife, as to whether to look at this as zombie film. Though my definition of zombie has gone through quite the period of reflection and relaxation this last year, I'm still pretty adamant that the synonymous Frankenstein's monster as penned by Shelley still doesn't quite fit the bill. While reanimation, slow ponderous movement, confused state and moral ambiguity are all obvious genre influences, it's the drive of the monster to always become the resurrected human he once was, that's the rub. I'm less concerned these days whether a zombie's deadness should be reduced to having a pulse or not; what interests me is whether there's still will, super-ego and ability to be autonomous and as is the case with the macabre monstrosities of Frankenstein's Army, whether they're entirely subservient to a master who has stripped them of all their self-defining facets. Viktor does reanimate them back to life with electricity and he does have to feed them once they're back on their feet but the people they once were are gone; there's no search for bringing back life, it's about the creation of robots, slaves and unquestioning killers, and in my mind this fits with zombies type.

It goes without saying they're also pretty twisted and unnaturally unpleasant to watch; and not that dissimilar in style from the nightmare creations in Clive Barker's Hellraiser. Viktor is indiscriminate whether the material for his bizarre flesh and steel fusion comes dug up, is recently deceased or even comes shrink-wrapped and alive and screaming. He's also quite the Henry Ford of monster making as once into his elaborate factory of recycling, r&d and manufacturing, conveyor belts of body parts are stitched and fused into quite the breathtaking original and elaborate array of creations by a workforce of equally unnatural zombie slaves. There's a definite anything goes approach to Raaphorst's freakish mis-creations, and wondering what he'll have come up with next is very much one of the highlights of the film. Such is the ludicrousness and excessiveness though that in some ways it does loose a little of the overwhelming fear that you feel should be there. In many ways I felt it all too quickly turned a bit comic book / video game-y as the first person camera ducked and weaved away from one bulking knife-wielding, propeller-spinning or jaw-snapping brute after another. It's a film more than many that calls for a high suspension of disbelief, as peeking behind the veil, which I did on more than one occasion, and seeing the terrifying monstrosities for what they were, quite excessive and daft prosthetic costumes, can be quite off-putting. It never turns into a full on farce though, but at times it falls precariously close.

Frankenstein's Army is quite a stupid film with a very simple premise and story, but with critical thinking firmly disengaged it's quite the thrilling dark and unsettling experience. The soldiers descent into madness is coherently defined and paced, and Raaphorst certainly knows how to use sound, effects and the first person viewpoint to create quite the evocative heart racing chase scene (which there are many). The first person perspective almost avoids the pitfalls that come with the territory providing quite a reasonable narrative reason for Dimitri (Alexander Mercury) to not stop filming when the proverbial shit (well blood) is hitting the actual spinning blades, but inevitably it can't dodge them altogether. Frankenstein's Army could be nit picked to death, and maybe I'm getting soft, but I couldn't help but respect and enjoy it for being quite as audaciously excessive and ridiculous as it was. Gory, bloody, in-your-face-nasty but not quite as scary as it wants to be, 7/10.

Steven@WTD.

The Astro-Zombies - review

1968 (USA)

2000 Image Entertainment DVD R(1)

Contains spoilers.

Twenty minutes into The Astro-Zombies as I sat patiently watching Dr DeMarco (John Carradine) the films Dr Frankenstein painstakingly remove three screws from a small metal box, drop in a small bit of a circuit board then screw them up again, only for the action to then move ponderously to his deformed Igor, Franchot (William Bagdad) who was crouching waiting for a switch to be flipped so we could watch his large bucket of blood dribble full I realised that I really do hope your guys and gals appreciate what I'm putting myself through on your behalf. That scene alone took about five minutes though it felt much longer, and that's the rub with The Astro-Zombies; it's just so damn ponderous and laboured.

I love a good-bad zombie film, and must even get some kind of masochistic pleasure from bad-bad ones as for all its problems, and there's a hell of a lot, Ted V. Mikels 60s exploitative space, pseudo scientific mumbo-jumbo spy thriller isn't actually all bad, though not for the reasons you'd think. It's not the wooden acting, the appalling masks and prosthetics, or the implausibly incoherent narrative or kitchen sink approach to content that pulls it down. Ironically it's the fact there's too much trying to present the ludicrously ridiculous as plausible and coherent, too much sincere explanation and a good thirty minutes of fluff that could easily have been cut or heavily edited out.

The story is pure b-movie super-cheese. The CIA, lead by Holman (Wendell Corey) are investigating a series of grizzly mutations suspecting it might have something to do with the missing Dr DeMarco who before he was dismissed from 'the space agency' had been working on an idea to put reanimated memory-and-will-sapped cadavers in space with solar powered hearts, disease free blood and thought wave transmission circuitry so that they could be operated from earth telepathically by highly skilled operators. Yeah. It's a bold idea and if I was the CIA I'd probably be keeping an eye out on him too.

They're not the only ones after him though. Not content for the film to be CIA vs the mad scientist and his zombies, Mikels deemed it necessary to add a third party to spice it all up and turn it into a bit of cold war spy thriller. The KGB have decided they want in on zombie space men so they've sent a crack team (I say crack team, I mean thug and camp sadist) lead by femme fatale Satana (Tura Satana) to acquire the research first by any means possible.

What we end up with a confusing tale, not helped with overly complicating editing. The CIA stumble about, the KGB stumble about, the rogue astro-zombie, or quasi-man, as they put it, stumbles about; there's a bit of espionage, a lot of 60s drinking and misogyny, a few shootings, lots of fringe-science / star trek-esque science-fiction that's over explained and even a few minutes of totally unnecessary topless go-go dancing from a painted girl to a Haitian Latin bongo beat. It's pure b-movie z-grade nonsense with hammy dialogue, poor effects and bad direction, but it did on occasion tickle my fancy so to speak. If we're honest we expected all this though; it is 1968 and the bizarre obviously fake prosthetic skulls, break away shots to blood spattered walls or silhouette whenever there's an amateur zombie fumble all attest the fact it's a shoe-string amateur production, obviously well intentioned but entirely lacking the ability to pull it altogether intelligently or cohesively.

The zombies are actually quite interesting all things considered. They're fresh cadavers, they've somehow and let's not get into it, had their emotions and memories removed to turn them into, as DeMarco puts it, pure calculating machines then they're given artificial hearts, organ transplants, a thought wave FM radio mind controller and then brought back to life. In many respects they're the perfect meeting point for the old Haitian voodoo zombies and the dead Romero-esque modern killers. They're automatons and slaves but they retain a murdering instinct and can go out of control. The rogue quasi-man is actually a rogue; he's bad, he's (with sinister music) dun dun dun, a criminal, and that's actually why he's gone off on his murderous rampage. You see, he may have been asset stripped of all that made him who he was but here central morality is all nature (not nurture). If you're a bad egg, you're a bad egg and you probably shouldn't be reborn with insatiable brutality, super strength and the ability to shake off being shot. Physically they entirely human in movement and even keep on their funeral suit; all that's different is the ridiculous head gear and all the cyborg circuitry.

The Astro-Zombie really is a clumsy cheap b-movie rehash of the Frankenstein story albeit spun as a poor early star trek episode allowed to be a bit gory and a bit less plausible. You've got to understand what you're getting yourself into with a movie like this though; it's right up there with Plan 9 and some of the worst movies ever made, with preposterous scripts and baffling audacity and ambition, especially given the lack of money and talent. The thing is, knowing all this, and going in expecting to be it all one can actually have a good time, and the absurdity becomes compelling. The Astro-Zombies is what is; the pinnacle of bad b-movie sci-fi horror film making with no redeeming quality other than having no redeeming quality. Great cheesy rubbish, 3/10.

The picture quality for such a b-movie was for the most part pretty good though there was the occasional scene or set of scenes with a lot of noise or sudden reduction in resolution. Sound was good if soft but I had no real problems with the disc. Some extras would have been nice though.

Steven@WTD.

Zombie Self-Defence Force - review

2006 (Japan)

2011 Switchblade Pictures Nihombie!: The Complete Japanese Trilogy (Zombie Self-Defense Force / Attack Girls' Swimteam vs. the Undead / Zombie Hunter Rika) DVD R(1)

Contains spoilers.

Now that's how you do a zombie film if you've little to no budget and little to no restraint. Forget keeping things sane or simple; the one thing clear from the batshit crazy opening from director Naoyuki Tomomatsu's zombie opus, is we're in for quite the ride.

You see, some aliens have crash landed their ufo in the forest at the foot of Mount Fuji throwing out green radiation which has reanimated the dead. Three disparate groups get caught up in the ensuing mayhem, cross paths and try to survive. It could easily happen.

If the premise sounds simple the delivery is anything but. Zombie Self-Defence force is a tour-de-force of madcap, over-the-top, total top drawer nonsense film making. Tomomatsu has recognised the inherent ludicrousness and absurdity of the zombie and just run with it, fully capturing the essence of what makes such great audaciously stupid gore comedies such Dead Alive or Evil Dead II, work, albeit on a smaller, cheaper scale. Never afraid he might be going to far and never stopping to show restraint he's produced a film so intrinsically bad one will either love or loath it. It'll be either, turn it off with a shake of the head before the opening sequence has passed, or do what I did and get with the program, and join in with the laughs.

It really is a stupid film. Zombies, zombie embryo/babies, aliens, ancient spirits of world war 2 heroes, cyborgs; it's got it all. At heart though it is still a zombie film, and Tomomatsu demonstrates respect to the medium throughout, poking fun at the absurdity of the subject rather than the subject itself, and it's this which allows it all to work. However ludicrous the story gets or how stupid the action, the cohesiveness of it all stays tight and the central vision and gusto of the film stays on point. Of course with such a so-bad-it's-good story you need an accompanying range of exaggerated characters. Whether it's the small rather sensible Japanese defence force, the prima donna Idol Hitomi (Mihiro Taniguchi), the camp Yakuza, or the quite insane adulterer and homeowner the group find themselves huddled up with, they're all pitched and played to perfect b-movie perfection.

The zombies are proper reanimates. They can be momentarily stopped with headshots but whether their head's been removed or their brains have been shot out they'll soon be back up and back on the trail for flesh. Despite the low budget Tomomatsu has taken every care to make them appear gruesome, gratuitous, comical and most importantly authentic as possible and they actually come across well. He's also made clever use of speeding and slowing up the film to make their movements appear spasmodic, jagged, and unnatural; and it's all quite effective. Never one to avoid a joke, and never one to avoid a little zombie-fan service the film is full of subtle in-jokes and references to the rich zombie cinematic back catalogue with many scenes the direct parody of fan favourites. 

It's also never afraid to go truly over the top with the blood and gore in the ever increasingly gratuitous fights and deaths in true Dead Alive style. Demonstrating inventiveness and an eye for the absurd the blood always sprays a little too much and the deaths can be feel a contrived and set-up but it all adds to the experience. I've come to always expect a little titillation and fan service with my Japanese horror these days and it doesn't disappoint though, and this is with great relief, here it's actually quite restrained and if anything a little parodied itself.

Zombie Self-Defence force will either be a film you love or hate; you'll either get the joke or be appalled by it. A proper Friday night, couple of cans of beer, leave the brain-at-the-door experience; it's a truly atrocious zombie film but one choc full of fun and charm. I honestly can't remember laughing this hard for a while though I'm still not totally sure whether this was at it or with it. Crass and tasteless; a stupid, STUPID film I totally admire, 7/10.

WTD.

Bong of the Dead - review

2011 (Canada)

2012 Left Films DVD R(2)

Contains mild spoilers.

A surreal zombie grind-house buddy road trip comedy, book ended with lavish extravagant comic-book sequences and all enveloped in a post production drug haze. One thing writer, director, producer, score composer and artistic lead Thomas Newman can't be accused of is playing it safe. An original idea he claims at the end of the credits was actively thwarted at every opportunity Bong of the Dead is the very epitome that belief and perseverance can win out however crazy and possibly misguided the dream.

At its heart Bong of the Dead is a buddy film. Edwin (Mark Wynn) and Tommy (Jy Harris) have survived the end of world by maintaining a consistently high state of shit-faced-ness. The embodiment of stoner buddies they witnessed the demise of civilisation from the comfort of their own self induced tranquilised euphoria, their only real concern where their next hit would come from.

Edwin, a life long grower searching for the ultimate hit stumbles upon green-goo fertiliser made from dehydrated zombie brain but the army has done such a good job of ridding the safe zones from the undead, the brainless duo are forced to take a dangerous road trip to source more. The films success, much like Shaun of the Dead which Newman cites as an influence, hinged on whether Edwin and Tommy / Mark and Jy could form an on screen partnership and while it's a bit of a slow burn, I definitely warmed to their inherently dislikeable narcissistic personalities and quite endearing bro-mance. They're dope heads so the dialogue and jokes are never going to be sharp or witty, but they're a likeable duo and their slapstick interaction plays well. They're eventually joined by Leah (Simone Bailly) who adds a timely third pivot at a time there was a danger the joke would run thin and the three play off each other well through to a explosive and ridiculously over the top finale. Like the guy's addled and easily distracted train of thought, and as with all good road trips, the guys do off piste and the storyline all goes a bit daft, but it's fun and bad in the sense it knows it is and knows how to make it still work. 

I've read Newman shot the film on a single camera over fifteen days but then spent the best part of three years alone on a Mac in post production, adding his own score and FX claiming the film only cost $5000. If this is indeed the case, the results are nothing less than spectacular and puts larger budget efforts to shame (looking at you Troma / The Asylum). Add to this some downright guttural, gory, grubby and extremely authentic  zombies made-up by effects wizard Mike Fields, and a quantity of blood the likes of which I've not seen since Dead Alive (Braindead), for a low budget film it's quite the cinematic tour-de-force. With stylish directing, the ambitious comic-book production and the confidence to give the film a post production grind-house sheen, Bong of the Dead offers a genuinely original and unconventional aesthetic befitting the narrative.

The zombie origin is deliberately ambiguous and obtuse. Meteors struck, there was something alien inside and green gas that infected those were first on the scene causing boils, deformities and a particularly nasty cannibalistic hunger. They're slow, cumbersome and destroying the brain is the only way to destroy them. Newman hasn't been afraid to play around with our friends and the film is chock full of absurd zombie deaths and parody. It's sick and quite often in extremely bad taste jarring against a central narrative that despite the outlandish main premise tries at least to maintain a degree of cohesiveness, but it all adds to the films unique charm. There's also the play some zombies retain, or regain their self awareness, while keeping their hunger for flesh and deire to see the demise of the living. It's not explained but it doesn't need to be.

This film holds the esteemed title of holding the lowest IMDb score of any I've reviewed; yes a whole one point below Osombie and I find it hard to understand why. I like my zombie films to have good zombies, check, an interesting and original take on the end of the world, check, convincing acting, check and most of all a degree of authenticity and respect that makes me feel those involved cared about what they were doing, and this has that in abundance. Look, I'm not saying it's the best zombie film either. It does have dub problems (the actors had to rerecord all their lines post-production), and pacing is too slow at the start and too rushed at the end, but it's individual style and identity, memorable and convincing acting, and stylish direction certainly warrants you give it a go. A daft, gratuitous, doobie smoking, zombie bro-mance, that as long as you don't take too seriously, man, is quite the fun ride, 6/10.

WTD.

Bloodstörm (Nazis at the Center of the Earth) - review

2012 (USA)

2012 Revolver Entertainment Blu-ray R(B/2)

Contains mild spoilers.

I've seen some daft films in my time but nothing prepared me for Joseph Lawson's Antarctic Nazi exploitation craziness. Maybe if I'd take the time to research it a bit and discovered its US title I would have had more on an inkling I'd bought a first class ticket to crazytown and importantly I may have saved myself from all the cinematic lunacy as it's not a zombie film.

You see, the decaying Nazi foot soldiers aren't actually dead. They're nearly dead; they should be dead, but they're not. From the cover and title I'd kind of assumed another Dead Snow, and I'd even wondered if this was to be another Draugr film but Dr. Josef Mengele (Christopher Karl Johnson), the evil mad scientist and leader's minions are in fact patched up monstrosities kept alive with harvested flesh and organs taken from unsuspecting Antarctic researchers. They're foul looking and kind of behave for the most part like zombies but they're very much alive. A certain Nazi bigwig is kind of either brought back to life or reanimated with half an hour to go and I guess he could be a kind of zombie but I'd just be opening a big can of worms if I said he was, and in all honesty it's not something I care to do and I don't think he really is. In fact as the film was reaching it's truly off the scale bat-shit-crazy climax I was in two minds whether to actually write a review for my blog and it was only Paige Morgan (Dominique Swain) shouting 'bobble headed zombie Nazi son of a bitch' that swayed me to do so.

It all starts reasonably sane and safe, if seventy odd year old hidden Nazi kind-of-zombies capturing Antarctic research students to experiment on and harvest, can be deemed safe. Paige and Brian Moak (Trevor Kuhn) out experimenting on the ice are seized and taken to the Nazi secret underground bunker. After failing to check in, the rest of the Antarctic team lead by Dr. Lucas Moss (Joshua Michael Allen) set off to look for them only to find signs of a struggle and footprints leading off into a series of caverns that go deep under the ice.

It's a 'The Asylum' picture so it's in your face 'B' movie stuff with CG and blue-screen effects in keeping with the low budget direct to TV/DVD standard the studio is known for, and a script not afraid to jump off the deep end. As such I was ready for when the caverns lead to some kind of prehistoric (without dinosaurs, though I don't know why with everything else that happens) centre of the earth lost world. I was also ready when when the gang found the secret Nazi complex and the lead Antarctic scientist Dr. Adrian Reistad (Jake Busey) was outed as a Nazi sympathiser and explained how he was complicit helping them stay alive and preparing to take on the world and begin a fourth Reich.

I like a good bad film and so far so good. I'd left my brain at the door, ignored the dialogue, laughed at the narrative and cringed at some of the truly gratuitous gore sequences. It was daft, the pacing was all over the place but it was all interesting enough and the acting wasn't that bad. There was nothing I could have done to prepare me for where the film went for final thirty or so minutes though.

I imagine writer Paul Bales half way through writing a semi-serious screenplay about kind-of-zombie Nazis and lost worlds just suddenly said ah, fuck it and every idea screwed up under his desk was picked up, unfurled and added to the mix. But as much as I want to say it's the most painful, mind numbingly atrocious, absurd piece of cinematic fruitcake I've yet seen, I couldn't help but be blown away by the sheer ambition and audacity of it all. That someone took the screenplay, read it and exclaimed they would make it, on its own is breathtaking; that they actually did with seriousness, consistency and coherence is truly mind blowing.

One of the most ambitiously ludicrous films I've ever seen with very little to recommend it other than to say that you actually have, Bloodstörm is an ultimate 'B' movie. You can't help but admire everyone involved in getting this made but you also have to question how and why they did. I imagine after that first screening to friends and family there would have been a lot of awkward polite smiles and nods, and a lot of excuses to leave quickly. A bad film made kind of good only through the audacity to be as mad as a bag-of-cats, just not a zombie one, 4/10.

Steven@WTD