Dead and Buried

From Dan O'Bannon, the legendary screenwriter behind the first two Alien movies, Lifeforce, Total Recall, and The Return of the Living Dead, comes Dead and Buried (1981), a creepy lost horror classic. To get a better idea of D&B, imagine Death Becomes Her meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers meets a Scooby-Doo mystery meets Night of the Living Dead. Yeah, that's pretty much what you'll get from D&B. The film oozes atmosphere, from the dark score interspersed with cheery big band tunes, to the foggy New England setting, to the abandoned Victorian houses dotting the landscape.

The sleepy coastal town of Potters Bluff holds a horrifying secret, and Sheriff Dan Gillis is about to get caught up in it during the investigation of a recent string of grisly accidents, murders, and disappearances. When murdered tourists begin to come back to life, the Sheriff's wife is implicated as a practitioner of witchcraft, voodoo, and the dark arts. Is she behind the recent outbreak of the undead? Or is she hiding an even bigger secret?

The late great Stan Winston headed up the creature effects for D&B, and it really shows, particularly in contrast to a scene added late in production. The scene in question, completely superfluous, was added near the end of post-production, and Stan Winston's team was unavailable to create the effects. The result, a man's head being pumped full of acid and melted from the inside out, looks like a 3-year old working with playdough next to Winston's masterful zombies. This incongruity is a low point in an otherwise pretty sweet film.

There are a few other rough spots, including some clunky dialogue here and there, although its hard to say if the awkwardness is the fault of the screenplay or the actors. Also, filming constraints forced a re-dubbing of the audio for a scene in one of the aforementioned creepy Victorian homes. This resulted in problems with audio/visual synch, but these are limited to only one scene, and it's really only a minor annoyance.

The bottom line: despite some awkward writing here and there and a regrettable non-Winston scene, this is a really awesome and fucking creepy film, with some inventive and cool-looking death scenes. A must see for fans of the macabre.

Storyline & plot: 7/10
Cinematography & effects: 8/10
Music & mood: 7/10
Performances: 6/10

The Reverend says: 7/10

Let Sleeping Corpses Lie

Jorge Grau's Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (1974) is easily one of the best zombie movies I've ever seen, and I've seen a whole damn bunch. Sleeping Corpses combines the technical mastery of George Romero and the mood and gore of such Italian greats as Lucio Fulci and Lamberto Bava.

When a string of mysterious murders rocks the idyllic English countryside, the police suspect a cult of Satanists, and turn their investigations to newcomers George and Edna. Now the two Londoners must race to prove the real cause: reanimated corpses brought back by an experimental alternative to pesticides.

This film is pretty solid. It has a fair amount of zombie gore, but is by no means over-the-top. Screenwriter Sandro Continenza has put a unique (and environmentally-conscious) twist on Romero's zombie origins mythos. The effects, of course, were standard for the time, which is to say that they are organic and make-up based, rather than digital.

The film starts at a leisurely pace, but by the end, the tension and action are at a fever pitch, culminating in a blood bath at the creepy local hospital/insane asylum. Most of the film is shot at night or around dusk, the twilight melding with the eerie sets to create a deep sense of dread and foreboding.

One of the truly great aspects of Sleeping Corpses is the scale of the zombie outbreak. So many zombie movies, particularly those of the last 10 years or so, feature an apocalyptic pandemic-style outbreak, wherein zombiehood is pathogenic and highly communicable. Because of the constraints of the zombie origin in Sleeping Corpses, the outbreak is actually quite minor, confined to a few miles of the English back country. And zombiehood is only communicable under very specific circumstances.

George Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968) was rumored to be a commentary on the Vietnam War. Similarly, there is a very strong counterculture subtext in Jorge Grau's Sleeping Corpses. The zombies represent hippies in the eyes of the mainstream: mysterious, cultish, and dangerous. The zombie outbreak is created and unwittingly propagated by the "establishment," the authorities, so to speak. And the only people who know the truth are the misfits, the outsiders, the dirty hippies.

All in all, a very enjoyable film, although I was fairly disappointed with the ending, which is beyond all common sense and logic (even for a zombie movie), and basically feels like Grau giving in to what he thinks his audience would need for a satisfying conclusion.

Storyline & plot: 8/10
Cinematography & effects: 7/10
Music & mood: 7/10
Performances: 5/10

The Reverend says: 7/10

The Car

Remember when you were a kid and you played with your Hot Wheels cars all afternoon, creating imaginary car chases and awesome explosions? Remember how your favorite car was basically invincible and could survive any of these imaginary crashes and could do the car equivalent of Matrix-style wire-fu moves? The Car (1977) is pretty much a movie version of that.

Honestly, there's really not much plot to sum up here. A demonic car goes on the rampage in a Southwestern town. It's up to James Brolin as Sheriff Wade Parent to kick that car's ass. As usual, Brolin's emoting runs the gamut from really cool and macho to slightly pained and really cool and macho. The film is a glorious schlockfest. It's bad. There's no denying that. But it's also hilarious (unintentionally, of course) and fun, so it's well worth it.

The effects are laughable. The sound used for the car's horn is quite noticeably that of a fucking big rig truck. An interesting aside: the exact same sound was used for the killer's truck in Jeepers Creepers (2001). Let's see, what else.... oh yeah, the cop cars in this town seem to explode at the drop of a hat, and the explosions inexplicably start somewhere in the front seat rather that at the gas tank or engine. Throughout the film, to create the illusion of speed during the car chases, the film has quite obviously been sped up, resulting in hilarious '20s-style silent movie footage.

But all these things pale in comparison to the utmost height of absurdity in this movie: the car literally goes through a house to kill someone. Straight through. Flies into the air, goes through the front wall, smashes into somebody, sails right on through the back wall of the house and continues on its merry way. I nearly pissed my pants from laughing so hard on that one. Classic.

There's not much else to say about The Car, besides mentioning obvious influences to later films such as Christine (1983), Maximum Overdrive (1986), and The Wraith (1986). It is what it is: a fun cheesy film with lots of car chases, explosions, and grisly murder.

Storyline & plot: 5/10

Cinematography & effects: 4/10

Music & mood: 7/10

Performances: 6/10

The Reverend says: 6/10

Dead Like Me: Life After Death

Back in 2004, Showtime's "Dead Like Me" joined an infamous list of great shows cut down in their prime, snuffed out way too soon for no discernible reason. I suppose the show's death was bitterly ironic, given its portrayal of sudden death, of life cut short for no discernible reason. But we fans still grieved. Given the deepening storylines surrounding head reaper Rube Sofer's mysterious past and George Lass's ongoing struggle to keep her life and her afterlife separate, it was unfathomable why "DLM" got the axe at the end of its second season amid critical and popular acclaim. Such is life, I suppose.

Then, in 2006, rumors started stirring about a possible DLM movie. As these things usually go, things were mulled over for awhile. Interest in the project, both internal and external, was gauged. Funds, schedules, and shooting locations were procured. And in 2008, the dream became a reality. Principle filming for Dead Like Me: Life After Death (2009) began. But there were already many disappointing hurdles. Mandy Patinkin declined to reprise his role as Rube Sofer, the lead reaper considered by many to be the heart of the show. Sofer was written out of DLM:LAD and replaced by Henry Ian Cusick as the slick and business-savy Cameron Kane (more on him later). Additionally, Laura Harris declined to return as Daisy Adair, the shallow-yet-deep reaper counterpart to Callum Blue's just plain shallow Mason. Instead of write Daisy's character out of the movie, producers chose another actress, the much less attractive and much less talented Sarah Wynter. On top of all this, it was announced that DLM:LAD would not have a theatrical run, but go straight to DVD. Not uncommon for a TV show movie spin-off, but many fans were disappointed just the same.

LAD picks up 5 years after events in season 2 of the series. Comics-style story boards and George Lass's (Ellen Muth) typically deadpan voice-over quickly catch us up on events. Little has changed in the intervening 5 years. Much like in life, death for undead reapers is filled with the quotidian trappings of a routine existence. The day's reaps are coordinated with earthly careers. After all, their physical bodies still require nutritional maintanence, and that requires money. But the team's routine is about to be shattered when they learn that Rube has received "his lights" and moved on to the next plane of existence. Cameron, Rube's replacement, is a fast-talking businessman looking to streamline the reaping team and working towards his own mysterious goals. Without Rube's stern influence, the team struggles to behave under the guidelines of the undead, which are admittedly fairly ambiguous. While attempting to fix a reap gone horribly wrong, George finds herself caught up in the lives of her mother and sister (Cynthia Stevenson & a grown-up and disturbingly hot Britt McKillip), whom she's been expressly forbidden to see.

This film suffers tremendously from a really terrible script. One of the great things about the series was the dynamic ensemble cast. George was always our narrator, but it would be untrue to call her the main character. For LAD, this convention is left by the wayside. The rest of the cast fades into the background, and Muth and McKillip are left to carry much of the film. Not that they are unworthy. Both are great actresses. But the film feels a little lifeless without the team dynamic. 

Moving on. The character of Cameron Kane is a mess. He is vastly underdeveloped, his motives are unfathomable, and at the end of the film, you've really gotta ask yourself if his character was completely superfluous. I'm thinking yes. The film's running time is pretty short (86 minutes), and you've gotta wonder if it should have been fleshed out to make some of the glaring plot holes a little less glaring. Once again, I'm thinking yes. And you know what, I think there's maybe 2 or 3 reaps in the movie. What the hell? The creative and elaborate deaths were yet another hallmark of the show that got lost along the way. Thank goodness that Muth can still deftly work with the existential poignancy of a wasted life, because that's one of the few things this film has going for it.

Aside from the writing disaster, this film is sorely missing the tremendous acting talents of Patinkin and Harris. Their replacements are boring, shallow, and quite obviously disadvantaged in the arena of acting talent. The music and effects are roughly comparable to the show, which is to say, good but not great.

The end of the film, of course, leaves the door wide open for a sequel. And yes, I would still welcome another film, because the show was that good and its legacy is strong, and also because there are still a lot of storylines to play out. But I would suggest that the next film's creators really sit down and think about where they want the next film to go. Oh, and getting down on your knees and begging Mandy Patinkin and Laura Harris to come back probably wouldn't hurt.

Storyline & plot: 4/10

Cinematography & effects: 6/10

Music & mood: 7/10

Performances: 5/10

The Reverend says: 5/10

Waxwork

Waxwork (1988) is a fairly obscure horror gem from the late 80s. I first saw this movie at the tender age of 7. Yeah, I know; maybe my parents were a little lax in letting a 7-year-old watch gory horror movies. But my older brother was 5 years my senior, making him 12 at the time. Since we did pretty much everything together back then, and my parents allowed him to watch these movies, they knew it would've been futile to try to stop me from watching them as well. For better or for worse, I was viewing fairly graphic movies at a young age. I'm fairly certain that Waxwork represented not only my first exposure to horror, but also to many subgenres of horror (I'll get to that in a minute), and for that, it will always hold a special place in my heart as a piece of nostalgic win.

In Waxwork, 6 teenagers are invited to a private midnight viewing at a mysterious wax museum. Despite the proprietor (David Warner) looking like an insane circus pedophile, resplendant in a purple and yellow big-top tuxedo, the kids find this to be an agreeable proposal. Dressed to the nines, and looking like nothing so much as a group of 80s douchebags and cheap hookers, the high-schoolers arrive at the museum. Things are a little off from the get-go, as the kids are greeted by a dwarf butler (Mihaly Meszaros) with Eastern European accents so thick as to be unintelligible. And Mr. Purple-and-Yellow is nowhere to be found. Undeterred, the kids blithely venture into the museum, where dioramas depict grisly scenes of terror featuring such greats as the Wolfman, Dracula, the Marquis de Sade, zombies, and mummies. The kids soon discover that each diorama is a portal into a realm of terror, where souls are collected in a ritual to summon a demon apocalypse. Can Mark (Zach Galligan) and Sarah (Deborah Foreman) stop the ritual before it's too late?

The genius of Waxwork lies in the script from first-time screenwriter and director Anthony Hickox. By utilizing the idea of the diorama portals, Hickox transforms Waxwork into a series of horror vignettes, tapping into and paying homage to some of horror's greatest traditions, movies, and subgenres. The creature costume and make-up effects are incredibly detailed, reportedly requiring 8 solid weeks of 18 hour days from effects artist Bob Keen. But this film was not built on effects alone. Each vignette not only features a different aspect of horror tradition, but it is steeped in that tradition as well. Camerawork, lighting, and music are all altered for each diorama scene to really bring these worlds to life.

Waxwork is fun and unique while still being awesomely 80s. Before Netflix, I had despaired of ever again seeing this obscure movie that had influenced me so much. Thanks Netflix! Waxwork stands the test of time.

Storyline & plot: 9/10

Cinematography & effects: 9/10

Music & mood: 9/10

Performances: 5/10

The Reverend says: 8/10

The Matador

The Matador (2005) was better than I expected, considering the two leads. From what I've seen, Greg Kinnear pretty much plays the same character in every movie he's in, and I expected Pierce Brosnan to be stuck in an acting box after enduring several years as James Bond. Granted, Kinnear was still fairly blah in this movie, but Brosnan was outstanding. He was outstanding because he was perfect playing a character-type that everybody knows in their real life, so everybody can relate to. I'm talking about that type of guy who is outwardly gregarious and fun, but who actually has no friends to speak of. That guy who gets drunk publicly, makes lewd comments and advances, and generally makes an ass out of himself. Yet, in his own way, he's very likeable, and people find it difficult to turn him away when he turns on his hang-dog charm. Oh yeah, and in The Matador, that guy is also a hitman.

Travelling pitchman Danny (Kinnear), recovering from personal tragedy and facing financial ruin, meets aging hitman and ex-cool guy Julian (Brosnan) in a Mexico City bar. Despite Julian's profession and his asshole demeanor, the two men become tentative friends. Fast forward six months. Danny's life has taken a turn for the better. His business is successful and he leads a comfortable life with his wife in Denver. Things have not gone so well for Julian. Years of booze and a transient existence have taken their toll on Julian's psyche, and a couple of botched jobs have made him a marked man. His bosses have given him one more chance, on more hit, to make good and erase the price on his head. There's just one catch: Julian needs an accomplice. With no colleagues or friends to call on, Julian makes his way to Denver to beg Danny to help him.

This film is remarkably funny, mostly propelled by sharp comedic writing and Brosnan's hilarious one-liners. Also, a speedo, some cowboy boots, and a hotel lobby. But when the writing and acting turn to more serious and "touching" moments, it all falls apart. The lines are clunky, the actors are melodramatic, and the music hits on hackneyed swells of strings. It's all a little too saccharine for me. While The Matador's score is only so-so, the soundtrack, including some great transition tracks from The Jam, Tom Jones, and Asia, is pretty good. The film also feels a little short. The intro drags on a little too long, and then suddenly, we're setting up for the climactic final reel. The film would benefit from a little more beef in the middle section. Some fleshing out of the story, maybe some more detail/flashbacks. I don't know. It just needs..... something.

All in all, worth a watch. Wish the writers/director would have stuck to the comedy gold rather than veering into corny emotional content now and again. Wish the middle of the film had some more to it. But very funny, nonetheless.

Storyline & plot: 6/10

Cinematography & effects: 7/10

Music & mood: 6/10

Performances: 7/10

The Reverend says: 7/10

The Andromeda Strain

The Andromeda Strain (1971) was adapted from Michael Crichton's groundbreaking first novel of the same name, inspired by a conversation between Crichton and a professor about the possibility of a crytalline lifeform. The novel and the film have served as a model for numerous films and novels since, ranging from Outbreak (1995) to Stephen King's The Stand to 12 Monkeys (1995). Given Crichton's educational background and attention to detail, Andromeda is undoubtedly among the most realistic and scientifically accurate of these epidemic movies. But far from being a boring scientific exploration, Andromeda is in turns thrilling, chilling, and harrowing.

The action follows the Wildfire team, an infection-containment group assembled at a remote government installation in Nevada. Up until a government sattelite crash-landed in a New Mexico town and an unidentified pathogen decimated the population, the Wildfire team's existence and protocol were purely theoretical. Now, the team must assemble for the first time and race against the clock to discover the nature of the alien pathogen, dubbed the Andromeda Strain. Their only clues are a delirious old man and a baby who miraculously survived the initial outbreak. Can the team solve the mystery before a nuclear blast obliterates the Wildfire facility and potentially spreads the Andromeda Strain across the globe?

The Andromeda Strain comes from the screenwriter/director team that also gave life to The Haunting (1963), arguably one of the eeriest, most frightening movies ever committed to film. Additionally, director Robert Wise had quite a resume under his belt at this point, ranging from horror (The Haunting) to scifi (The Day the Earth Stood Still) to musicals (West Side Story). The film is a seamless blending: one part space scifi, one part technological thriller, one part procedural (including a lengthy decontamination sequence at the Wildfire facility). The acting in the film is not outstanding, but quite sufficient in a film where the true stars are technology and the Andromeda Strain itself. The film's score is quite subdued, with many stretches going completely without music. When sounds do come into play, it's often in the form of a technological hybrid, incorporating the boops and beeps of 70s-era computer technology.

The worth of this subdued techno-thriller is even greater, considering that today's filmmakers would be hard pressed to make such a film without the aid of gratuitous explosions, car chases, and probably some sort of romantic tension/sex scene. Sometimes, they just don't make 'em like they used to.

Plot & storyline: 8/10

Cinematography & effects: 7/10

Music & mood: 7/10

Performances: 6/10

The Reverend says: 7/10