Feed (2005)

“Feed” is one of the most stupid movies made in the past 10 years. The synopsnis somehow made me believe this was a Se7en-like thriller, but it’s too stupid to compare to Se7en. “Feed” is about the feeder-gainer fetish, something I never understood on any level, yet the only thing that somehow makes sense here. The appeal of this fetish is explained in the first 10 minutes, with the depth and enthusiasm of a wikipedia stub. After that… well.

The main character, Phil, is apparently an Australian cop whose partner is an aging surfer bro. His main task is to remind Phil that he has no authority over cases on other continents. This doesn’t stop Phil from investigating what looks like the Meiwes case in Germany, and right after that, a feeder guy in Ohio. No, Phil is not a member of an international task force or anything. He just flies to wherever his internet research leads him and “investigates”, with no involvement or even knowledge of the local police. His “police work” includes breaking into suspects’ houses, kidnapping their wives at gunpoint in a church (during service, no less) and being allround stupid.

It is hard to pinpoint the most stupid moment. A highlight reel should definitely include Phil getting a syringe full of… fat, I assume? injected into his belly, and him simply cutting it out with a pocket knife and carrying on like nothing happened. Then there’s falling into a room full of garbage, including insects and human remains, piercing his arm with a chicken bone or something, and again, being not worried, getting up and going on with the “investigation”. There are several phone calls and e-mail exchanges in front of the suspect’s wife (who, at this point, is Phil’s hostage) and over the suspect’s computer, in his house. The end of the movie belongs in this reel, too. Phil marries the suspect’s sister and keeps said suspect in a farm house full of trash, in the room with the remains of the “gainer” woman (who Phil shot), where he starves him to death.

I have no idea what this was supposed to be. Shocking because it deals with a fairly disgusting fetish (there’s less vomit involved than one would think)? Some morale about the cop being the bad guy because the woman wanted to be like that (and was shot for saying so)? Maybe a favor to a special FX designer who always wanted to make a realistic fat suit?

Famous Last Words: A waste of both calories and time.

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Falling Skies S04E09

Christ on a bike. It was physically painful to watch in every possible way.

Based on a hunch and much theorizing, Tom Mason decides to fly to the moon. With the beamer that was not only shot down by the Volm, but also had an Espheni bomb go off inside. Sound plan. Said beamer being buried under rubble (how? Matt and Weaver spent an entire episode removing rubble?!) is not a problem because Volm are magical and happen to have a secret weapon cache that contains exactly the required tools.

Off they go to recover the cache, and take Matt along for absolutely no reason. It results in a showdown with many explosions and toxic waste, caused by Matt’s Hitler Youth girlfriend (Mira?) who totally unsuspiciously appeared. Tom does the first and possibly only smart thing this season and ties her up, just so his idiot son can free her and have her call an aerial strike. The usual “Matt is in danger, Tom almost dies but makes it out without a scratch and Matt is fine” ensues. They do not recover the magical Volm tool.

Meanwhile, the teams Maggie/Ben and Sarah/Pope compete for the most cringeworthy scenes. (Spoiler: They’ll both lose this contest, despite best efforts.) Apparently, Sarah’s fade out speech about being a new person contained something about painkillers? I have no idea, but Pope is all upset when he sees her with a pill bottle. After Super Maggie threw a piece of concrete on Sarah by accident, because Maggie is now She-Hulk. In turn, this accident also leads to Ben teaching Maggie about her super powers and, as absolutely everyone ever expected, they now have a magical spike connection and kiss. Hal sees it, of course, to further the “love triangle drama” absolutely no-one ever wanted to witness. Conclusion: Hal punches Ben; Sarah takes off with a rifle and Pope will very likely go after her next episode because it’s such an uncharacteristic thing for him to do.

The cringe contest is won by team Ann/Tom when Tom proposes in a world that has neither state nor church, Ann accepts and then Weaver marries them. Seriously, the fuck? Volm to the rescue even in this situation, as Cochise’s second in command interupts the “human ritual” with news about the beamer. The magical Espheni Candy Lipstick can make the beamer dig itself out and fly! MOON, HERE WE COME.

Geez am I excited for next week. No, really, I want to know if it can possibly get any more nonsensical and awkward than this.

Falling Skies S0… oh whatever

The fuck did I just watch? The most cringeworthy episode to date, and by now, that’s really quite a feat.

To get the minor stuff out of the way: Congratulations, Maggie and Hal, you are no longer the couple with least chemistry! Pope and Popette just dethroned you by bonding over a burned corpse!

Now, back to what matters: Tom Supermason. For the second time since the mole planted explosives in Charleston, we find the 2nd Mass digging through rubble for survivors. Tom, while being buried under tons of debris and a crashed beamer, naturally has no scratch and can easily free Dingaan with his superhuman strength. He then proceeds to stick his arm into slimy alien devices to open the conveniently present hatch of the beamer. Once inside, we witness the 418th infection with some alien parasite in Tom’s life because he just has to touch something that suspiciously looks like Lexi’s cocoon. Y’know, the thing Weaver badly burned his hand on. Dingaan takes a brief break from completely freaking out about everything to remove the parasite. Remember the badass guy who builds suits from trash to escape Espheni ghettos? Well, Dingaan does not, which is unfortunate, considering that badass guy was him, last week. He’s now a whiny mess and blames himself for the death of his family and wants to die. Lucky him, because there’s also an Espheni bomb on board of the beamer, and the pin was removed. (It’s a grenade bomb with the world’s longest timer.) Not a problem for Supermason, he simply drags Dingaan back through the hatch and voila, both are protected from the blast, all while reciting speeches about not losing hope as usual.

Above, still digging in rubble, Weaver and Matt Mason are… digging in rubble. That is all they do, except in the beginning, Matt knocks down Pope for the suggestion that Tom is probably dead. Matt. 11 years old Matt. Knocks down Pope. Worf Effect detected. Whatever.

Meanwhile, Ben has been taken to some Espheni facility by Lexi, who shows him “the future”. And that is turning humans into skitters because evolution. This is apparently supposed to be the Espheni’s “true big plan”. The one they only remembered in season 4, while doing completely unrelated things in the 3 seasons before. Then Lexi just lets him go.

Ben returns just in time to join the second coming of the “paralyzed” story arc. This time, it’s Maggie being paralyzed instead of Hal. Before Ben’s arrival, Ann has already performed a syringe-only procedure on Maggie and injected the spine spike fluid from Deni into her back, with zero success. Ben then insists that Ann takes out his spikes and implants them into Maggie because “he couldn’t save Lexi”. (I must have misunderstood the episode before, as to me, it looked like Ben was going to find Lexi so she could save him.) He also points out to Ann that “the Lexi we knew is gone”. Strange, the Lexi I knew was always a psychopath, right after magically aging from 5 to 21 and changing her race. Anyway, of course, the Volm can provide the technology Ann needs to go through with this plan. And why wouldn’t she, after Deni’s fluid did absolutely nothing and no-one had any reason to believe the spikes would even work on adults.

After the surgery, the Espheni bomb detonates and conveniently reveals Dingaan and Tom, right where Matt and Weaver were digging in the rubble. Ann then abandons her two unconcious surgery patients for many a Mason Hug [tm]. It ends with Hal and Tom witnessing a strange green light on the moon. I can only repeat what I said before… whatever. This show started so damn strong, and now… it just really, really blows. It’s so sad. Sorry, Tom, I cannot have hope here anymore.

Cell Count (2012)

Umm. I’m not sure why this movie exists.

So there’s Russell Carpenter and his dying wife Sadie. I think she has cancer or something. After the emotional introduction of this situation on her deathbed, a doctor with a – presumably – German accent tells Russell in no uncertain terms that Sadie will die in one week. Unless she joins his secret program, that can totally bring people back from death, and to prove his point, the doctor totally rips open his shirt and shows a totally convincing scar. Despite the outragous claim and little evidence, Russell immediatly agrees to not only sign up his wife, but join her, too. Russell Carpenter, as it turns out, is not a man of wise decisions.

Three weeks later, he wakes up desoriented in a sterile looking research prison, along with a bunch of other people. Bill/y aka bald guy with the tattoo, Blackhaired Girl, William the hobby photographer (or journalist?) and Delusional Timetraveller Mason. For some reason, Billy’s dog is also in the facility, in a locker room. And somewhere, two inmates who were sent to this research program; Timothy and Abraham. None of them is a very wise decision maker.

Everyone gets a mystery surgery to have “the cure” implanted, which is a crossover of a… roach or bug and a 5 foot long tapeworm. Apparently.

What stands out about all characters involved is how little they question anything. No-one looks particularly trustworthy or sane, but there are absolutely no conflicts or trust issues between them. Everyone also magically knows where to go, based on information like “that room where the dog is”, despite this being a huge facility with various corridors and security doors. At some point, the “regular” patients make contact with the inmates, whose cell doors are simply opened because why the hell not. Timothy soon pukes out a giant flesh bubble that wraps around his face. He is/goes insane and Eraserhead would have made a quite descriptive nickname. No-one has any reservations at all to trust Abraham though. Good for him, because he now reveals the truth about the “cure” being some sort of parasite. Though at least one person still has that thing inside his stomach, the group decides to escape. Now it gets a bit chaotic and I don’t know what the actual plan was supposed to be. Some people die, they kidnap the doctor and make it outside, where magically a bus with a driver (who is magically also a friend of Abraham) awaits. It is possible that Abraham, Billy and Mason all had planned to die to destroy the facility with the conventiently present C4, but they all make it to the bus anyway. Where it is revealed that they are in a quarantine zone of 100 miles that is inhabited by mutants. Then the movie is over.

Umm. It was an ok premise and had a neat (Hyper)Cube/The Experiment atmosphere at some point, but the extremly flat characters and their unexplained actions also make it… not boring, but very anti-climatic and hard to follow. I don’t expect much depth or logic from horror movies, but there are way too many things that make no sense.

Famous Last Words: Even body horror can suffer from plotholes; respect.

Caffeine Blues

Early today, I heard that some Food Association in Sweden is looking into a ban of Monster, Red Bull and other energy drinks; reason: since 2004, 4 people died from consumption of Monster/booze mix. Now, there is so terribly much wrong with that, I don’t even know where to start.

First, I offer for your consideration: Maybe, the energy drink had nothing to do with their deaths and actually prolonged their lives because it thinned the incredible amounts of booze these people drank.

Really, if people don’t know when to stop, maybe it’s simply evolution at work; thinning the herd by natural selection. I’m not militant about anti-alcoholism. Actually, in my youth, I drank a damn lot. However, I only once in my entire life drank to the point of blacking out as a teenager. And as snobbish and holier-than-thou as it may sound, I did it in a responsible way – at home, with no school the next day, to see what it is like. I found out I didn’t like it and the aftermath wasn’t worth the experience at all. I never once missed school or work because of drinking the day before. I never did “stuff I couldn’t remember” or “stuff I did because I was drunk and then regretted it”. The worst thing I ever did because I was drunk was planning a vacation with some guys I couldn’t stand sober. Needless to say, we never went on that trip, so no harm done.

At age 21 – ironically – I decided I don’t want to drink anymore at all. Not because I thought I was addicted or because I did something awful or anything like that. It was simple logic. I had calculated how many DVDs I can buy with the money I used for drinks in clubs. Overpriced drinks in clubs I only went to to drink and rant about the music, people and prices of the drinks. In other words, it was way more efficient to buy DVDs I liked sober, watch them at home, with people and music I liked sober and buy snacks and drinks at regular prices. That realization was 11 years ago. In the meantime, I did have a beer or something here and there, but on average, I’m perfectly sober on 360 out of 365 days a year. And have shitloads of DVDs.

I certainly don’t expect everyone to follow my example. I also don’t mind if others drink, go to clubs and whatnot. But I also can’t help to think it’s their fault if they don’t know when to stop and drink to the point of blacking out or even dying.

Caffeine and especially energy drinks, on the other hand, are my addiction. My voluntary addiction and my lifeline. I really made a concious choice to get myself hooked on Red Bull when I was 15. I didn’t like the taste at first, at least not in large quantities, so I forced several cans down my throat. Because I had also figured out that caffeine had the opposite effect on me than legends claim it has on most people. My parents raised me with the same damn orange lemonade for my entire youth. The only drink with caffeine I got was Coca Cola, when staying at my aunt’s and uncle’s house. I figured out that it wasn’t some magic that made me sleep better there – it was drinking cola all day. Where my mom went “OMAIGAWD if you drink cola, you can’t sleep!”, my aunt was more liberal about that. I could never really sleep anyway – except when I drank a lot cola during the day. In my childhood, doctors had the (ridicolous) theory that I had the biological rhythm of the opposite side of the planet and this was the reason I couldn’t sleep at night – because it felt like daytime to me. Of course that’s bullshit, but it did help me to make the connection between “caffeine” and “opposite effect”.

During my teenage years, I experimented with caffeine and especially Red Bull and Flying Horse – the only available energy drinks back then – instead of drugs, like the average rebel teenager does. I managed to regulate my sleeping pattern and attention span by that. It sure never became a healthy pattern – staying up to the point of total exhaustion with Red Bull, then kickstarting myself with Red Bull after a near-comatose sleep. But it did get me through school, it did keep me functional and it did help me to regulate and develop at least healthy amounts of sleep. Red Bull pulled off what none of the countless sleeping pills and doctors managed to do.

Of course, back then, the assumption “has opposite effect” was the only thing I had to work with. Many years and hours of research later, I know it’s no coincidence and caffeine is in many cases an effective way to deal with ADHD. The “opposite effect” is a fact for many people, it’s not me being a freak of nature. In the light of that, it seems utterly ridicolous and biased to me to blame energy drinks for the death of 4 morons who didn’t know when to stop drinking booze.

WTFsapiolithromantic?!

I hereby wish to distance myself from asexuals on various online platforms who keep coming up with ridicolous new labels all the time.Let me explain why.

I am asexual. I am not attracted to people in a sexual way. I do not think of people as “hot”, “sexy” or “I’d hit that”. That’s easy enough to distinguish from the other sexual orientations out there. At least in my book, there are only:

• Heterosexual: Attracted to the opposite sex
• Homosexual: Attracted to the own sex
• Bisexual: Attracted to both opposite and own sex
• Pansexual: Attracted to people regardless of sex (including transsexual, intersex and other non-binary people)
• Asexual: Not attracted to anyone

Adding to the “who”-attractions, there are a couple of terms defining the “how”, such as demisexual (experiencing only secondary sexual attraction, i.e. only after having an emotional bond with someone, often friendship) and the grey area (low and/or rare sexual attraction, simplified); as well as mono- and poly- prefixes, stating if monogamy or polygamy applies. One can be heterosexual and demisexual; experiencing attraction to the opposite sex after forming emotional bonds. It’s simple enough as a system to label.

When it comes to romantic orientation, things get more difficult. Naturally, romantic attraction has the platonic counterparts to the sexual orientations and definers, which are still easy to understand. A sexual orientation states who you like to bang, a romantic orientation states who you fall in love with. The problem, however, is that for a vast majority of people, these two orientations match. Most heterosexuals are also heteroromantic, for example. Therefore, a vast majority of people is confused if the orientations do not match, i.e. an asexual person who has no desire for sex, but still wants a romantic relationship.

It is confusing enough as it is to people who are neither asexual nor aromantic. Why oh why make it even more confusing by making up new labels for every slight variation on the spectrum? Is it so hard to explain yourself in a few words that you need a label for everything? And that requires basically everyone you meet to read a dictionary – one in a constant state of change, no less – to understand what the hell you are talking about? “Sapiosexual”, for example, doesn’t mean that one is attracted to neanderthals or bipedal beings, it means “attracted to intelligence”. Seriously? I never met anyone who was turned on by stupidity. “Lithromantics” do explicitly not wish their romantic feelings to be returned, or even fear this might happen. Which doesn’t change the basic romantic attraction and is just a horribly specific way to say “doesn’t desire a romantic relationship”. And the latest trendy label is, in all seriousness, called “wtfromantic”, which no-one can explain better than “having weird crushes and being kinda aromantic”. Yes, that’s exactly what it sounds like.

If I would use all labels that somehow apply to me, I would end up with a list that fills a page. And after reading it, no-one would be one bit smarter than before and I would have to explain every single, specific term to define who I am attracted to in what way, to what degree and how I would like the person to react to it. Therefore, I stick with aromantic – I don’t “fall in love” and desire no romantic relationships. Simple enough, without having to define why exactly I feel that way, how I feel about people instead and whatnot.

When was the last time you met a heterosexual Ordinary Joe who gave you a book to read when asked what his orientation is? Who ever split “hetero” in “hetero with a strong preference for blondes, but only in long distance relationships (phone communication, weekly) and average school grades of x”? Right, no-one does that because it’s unneccessarily complicated. Maybe I just don’t get it because I don’t have the classic sexual or romantic attraction, and hence see no need to specify my preferences in every detail. But I do have social preferences; things I look for in a friend or someone I look up to. Know what? Either my criteria are met or they aren’t. No labeling myself as “roflcoptersocial” will change that – social interaction doesn’t work that way. Neither does romantic or sexual orientation. It’s a gamble every single time you meet a new person if you ‘click’ with them, have similar preferences for the possible relationship or not. Life isn’t a dating site where you meet everyone based on a checklist and a “looking for” essay.

Coming up with complicated and highly specific labels does nothing to help you. It’s not helping to be taken serious either. Identifying as lmaosexual demi-hollaifyouhearmeromantic just makes you look like a highschool hipster who desperately tries to be “mysterious, exotic and interesting”. And the only thing that label tells me is: I want nothing to do with you.

So there. I am an aromantic asexual. The strongest affectionate emotions I develop for people are friendship and admiration. That’s all I have to say, label-wise, and I really really don’t care what you new hip bumper sticker is supposed to tell me about your social interactions. It doesn’t.

 

The Walking Dead, Season 2

It is not easy to talk about the second season of AMC’s The Walking Dead. Because I really really want to love this show. Not just “like it”. “Love it”. And I just can’t. This has really nothing to do with “comics vs. adaption”, not the slightest. This has only to do with damn high expectations after a spectacular season 1 and the feeling of being massively let down in season 2.

In season 1, I found many of the characters authentic and interesting and no-one plain boring or annoying. That has changed big time and in a character drama, that poses a real problem. While Rick Grimes, our main hero, drifts more and more to the territory of “ultra annoying asshat” – only rivaled by his whiny, self centered wife Lori – many of the other characters took a turn to oblivion. Best example: T-Dogg. Why is that guy even there? In many episodes, he doesn’t have a single line, and pretty much everyone, not only the viewer, seems to forget he exists. Daryl Dixon is a close second – after being season 1’s anti hero with legit survival skills that made him too valuable to the group to argue with him, he finds the meaning of life in season 2 in searching for a missing child. And nothing else. While still being portrayed as the oddball of the group with whom everyone has a problem. As the viewer, I ask myself two things:

One, why the hell is everyone acting like he’s such an asshole? In season 1, he was quick to drop a politically incorrect line or express that he gives a shit about everyone else. No-one made a big deal of it. In season 2, he cares about the wellbeing of the group, is surprisingly understanding and helpful and even provides emotional support for Carol after she lost her daughter. Yet now the group sees him as unstable?

And two, the even bigger question: Why the hell does Daryl put up with all the bullshit? Rick left his brother for dead. Rick, the newcomer in an established group, who thinks because he used to be a cop, he can call the shots now. Daryl’s reaction? Shrugging and becoming Rick’s deputy. Andrea accidentally shots him when he returns from doing the only thing he does in the entire season; search Carol’s lost child. Daryl’s reaction? Shrugging and being totally okay with that. Carol, the one person he tried to help most, being a bitch to him? Ah, that’s alright; he just risked his life for her kid, probably knowing she’s long dead anyway, to put Carol’s mind at ease and not let her drown in depression; of course it’s cool if she now leashes out on him (and not only him).

For one brief moment, one episode, hope gets restored. While foolishly roaming the zombie infested woods in search of Carol’s daughter, Daryl hits his head a bit and hallucinates – a conversation with his redneck meth head racist brother. He seems to be a bit nuts, returning to the camp with a necklace made from zombie ears. It looks like he’s found his way back to season 1 status. And quickly disappears from any remotely interesting scene, to compete with T-Dogg for the title of “most underused character”.

Glenn, who also rarely does anything smart this season, is a bit luckier with screen time. Though he certainly does many many stupid things, – in a crowning moment, he plays human bait for a trapped zombie – he at least gets character development. Frankly, I don’t give a damn about his awkward romance with Maggie; it’s angsty and all and I don’t like that. But Glenn also gets caught in a moral crossfire; the keeper of a million secrets that are all rather explosive in the group dynamics. This makes him the last stand of sanity and does the character a lot good.

Surprisingly, I also find myself very fond of Andrea. At first, I wasn’t much of a fan. Her suicidal tendencies and depressions after having to kill her sister were somewhat annoying, but she left that behind. In fact, she turns out to be mostly sane. Mostly, because her affair with Shane is in the way of true sanity, but even with this aspect, she’s nowhere near “annoying” territory. Unlike Glenn and Maggie, this isn’t angsty and awkward. It’s authentic; the two outsiders of the group hooking up in a male-female bromance; no plushy-mushy love affair.

And in comes super-antagonist Lori; wife of Mr. Guild Trip Rick Grimes, mother of Mr. Oh So Grown Up, 10 years old Carl Grimes, and PMS-raging ex-lover of Shane. While Lori herself is mainly concerned with making ridicolous requests to Shane – “don’t ever talk to me or my son again” and then freak because he ignores her – and being pregnant in a freaking zombie apocalypse, she calls out Andrea for the being the biggest burden possible for any survivor group. Andrea has committed the ultimate crime; done the most irrational and illogical thing one can do when trying to survive: She has devoted her time to learn to handle weapons and neglected her first and most holy duty: doing laundry.

Now, it is very doubtful that anyone really cares about that. Lori’s own husband wears the same dirty clothes for most of the season. As do most others. Andrea’s lover Shane has a lot more variety in his outfits. Coincidence? His rival for “most diverse wardrobe” is Daryl, who appears to do his own laundry in his hunting camp, and has not once complained that no-one does his housework. Nor has anyone else, ever. Just Lori, who sits around and does nothing but whine, complain and train for dictatorship. Oh, and plot to make her husband kill her ex-lover. Psycho bitch much?

Fits her husband perfectly. Early in the season, the group happens to find the farm of Hershel, an elderly veterinarian who lives there with the remains of his family. From the very beginning, he has made it clear that he’ll provide medical aid and be a good host – for a limited time. Then he expects the group to move on and leave him and his family alone. Rick does not accept this, no matter how clear Hershel makes it; no matter how many times he spells it out to everyone. Now, Hershel isn’t exactly on the sane side either – he pulls the “Dead Next Door” storyline by secretly holding zombies in his barn and hoping to find a cure. But really, it’s his farm, so he can do whatever the hell he wants.

Speaking of elderly maniacs. Dale, who was a voice of reason in season 1, develops semi-telepathic abilities and suddenly has insights that come out of nowhere. It is debatable that shaving your head is a clear sign of insanity, but when Shane does this after killing Otis, no-one suspects a thing. And besides being bald now, Shane doesn’t really act too insane – he still provides for the group and puts up with Lori’s PMS episodes. However, Dale soon decides that he knows, beyond a doubt, that Shane killed Otis. Note that this happened far away from the farm, and the only people around were Shane, Otis and a horde of zombies. Dale’s mindreading abilities also let him scan Glenn’s mind and extract the information about Lori’s pregnancy and the zombies in the barn. For that reason, and likely also the newfound ability to predict the future, Dale sets out to do the only responsible thing in a zombie apocalypse: throw all weapons into a swamp. Who stops him? The complete nutjob Shane, who – if nothing else – at least still realizes that it’s better to be armed than not with hordes of flesh eating monsters around.

In a way, we can certainly be thankful to Carl, the child that acts all grown up, for getting Dale killed. While his mother plots the assassination of her ex-lover, the unsupervised brat steals a gun and goes zombie hunting like a big boy, except he doesn’t manage to get any zombies killed. Instead, he lures a zombie to the farm where it feasts on Dale.

Yes, the characters are a big problem and frankly, I can’t wait for the announced return of Merle Dixon in season 3. If nothing else, he’ll at least give T-Dogg some screen time due to the unfinished business from season 1. Though his brother Daryl didn’t do a whole lot to live up to the expectations from season 1 (or anything else, for that matter), I doubt Merle is the type to easily forgive and forget being left behind on a roof top, handcuffed and forced to amputate his hand with a saw. A part of me sure hopes he has a chainsaw or shotgun in the place of said hand upon his return.

Another real problem with season 2 is the story. Half of the season, the entire group does nothing except for searching Sophia, Carol’s daughter. Sadly, I was not one bit surprised to see her among the zombies in the barn. Actually, I jokingly suspected exactly that as soon as it became evident that Hershel did hide zombies in the barn. Which i also jokingly suspected when he mentioned to stay away from the barn. Yes, I did watch “Dead Next Door” shortly before season 2. Anyway, the entire group is searching for Sophia, while Carol gets more and more bitchy and annoying – as if no-one tried to help her. Frankly, that is boring as hell, if you have suspicions about the barn or not. It’s clear that Sophia is dead or a zombie; no-one expects to find her alive. Especially not the viewer.

And when this finally turns out to be correct, the new big story is… boring. Because it circles around Lori being a bitch, deep shit between her, Rick and Shane and puts everyone else on the waiting list. There are long, long scenes where either two of them discuss the value of friendship, hope and life – and all other characters basically roam around in the background and do nothing of interest. It just makes you want to scream and bang your head on the desk. It’s a freaking zombie apocalypse, shouldn’t these people have bigger problems than Lori’s pregnancy? Why oh why does really no-one call her out on that selfish bullshit? Not enough that she can’t handle her son – who simply walks off, stealing guns, putting everyone at risk – no, now she also wants everyone to deal with her unborn child. Isn’t one child out of control enough of a burden? And how will she do all the laundry after giving birth?

By the end of the season, all the extras and a few main characters are dead. Sadly, that includes Shane, who may have been quite insane and on a power trip, but also brought neccessary conflict. The good side is that the damn farm burned down and the group finally had to move on. All doors are open for better story arcs, new characters and the return of others. I still believe that Walking Dead can and will be one of the best TV series made in the last 10 years, and I’m absolutely willing to forgive this season. But only if the next one lives up to at least some expectations.

Machete/Ice From The Sun

Machete is an excellent, entertaining movie with a great cast, soundtrack and visual effects. I’m too lazy to write a full review, but this one is really worth to watch. Go, Rodriguez!

Ice from the Sun, on the other hand, is bullshit. ‘Trippy Gore’, most certainly, if ‘trippy’ says you better be on drugs to understand the senseless story. It can be summarized as: Wizard. Dimension. Ice Wall.

Some girl (it takes a while to figure out it’s a girl) named Alison tries to kill herself by cutting her wrists, but while she’s dying, a trippy oracle surrounded by colored smoke shows up and tells her a long and boring story about a wizard who created a new dimension by taking ice from the sun to contain his magic, had an apprentice who now took over this realm and is so f’n mighty that angels and devils can’t stop him. For no particular reason, 6 people have to enter that realm and die from their greatest fear to feed the… apprentice, magic, realm, ice, dimension, wizard. If you think that was a badass long sentence – listen to the trippy oracle. THAT is a long sentence. And one hell of a boring monologue, too.

Alison is the chosen one to defeat the wizardapprenticedimensionicewall by reminding him that he was once human and had to sacrifice his lover to gain power. Or something. Also, 6 random people enter the dimension and die from their greatest fears. Some rather boring, some with okay FX, but nothing that would equal out the oracle speech, horrible cuts, equally horrible actors and kinda stupid story. In the end, Alison turns out to be the reincarnation of the lover the apprentice had to kill to… oh whatever. The movie sucks, especially after ‘Machete’, which makes a lot movies look bad. But still, that’s no excuse.

Famous last words: Maybe the ice was from the sun, but the script was from a drug rehab center, department ‘beyond hope’.

Goremet – Zombie Chef from Hell

Goremet – Zombie Chef from Hell

I’m amazed. There is really a movie that does everything, absolutely everything… wrong. I can’t believe how wrong though, and have no idea where to begin this review…

First of all, it took at least 10 minutes before I got the pun in the title. But that is the only thing I can’t blame he movie for. 70 minutes playtime, and I did have to take a break at 30 mins because my stomach hurt from laughing. Don’t get me wrong, the movie is not funny. We are talking about the manic laughing of a psychopath that normal mortals will never understand; about the urge to giggle in disbelief. The “no way, they *really* did it?” kind of laughing.

Our main character Goza is played by a totally stoned former pornstar past his best years. The problem is, that is not his role. His role is a 600 years old cursed priest who is now a cannibal zombie who runs a beach BBQ restaurant and wears the same hawaii shirt all through the felt eternity of 70 minutes. Decide for yourself what’s worse.

The next problem this movie has is the music. Not the rather senseless mix of country classics, freestyle jazz and organ pipes alone. The sound mix seriously went wrong. If you set the volume so you understand what people say, the music will blow your head off. If you set it so the music does not, you don’t understand a word. Praise the remote control and good reflexes. Anyways, the general feel can easily be recreated at home: Put something like “Braindead” in the DVD player and turn the sound off. Then put the soundtrack from a very very old and very very stereotype Nosferatu rip off in the CD player and turn the volume to maximum. Voila!

Effects are also a major issue. Most low budget movies focus so much on the 2 or 3 gore scenes that they have no money left for a good camera or something essential. Not here. There are not really effects. There are a few plastic limbs with ketchup, but you never see even the attempt of a gore scene. Except for one. And that goes totally wrong, too. A guy boxes off another guy’s head with an uppercut. Or something. Its worse than Violent Shit 1. Its worse than Zombie 90. Reminder: Most effects in Violent Shit 1 were made by intentionally pixelating the scene and in Zombie 90, they had neon pink blood.

Now an attempt to tell the story. And trust me, mine is better than the director’s or the writer’s, and certainly better than any of the actors’ attempts. Goza was cursed by a brotherhood of priests in the late 1390ies for whatever (killing high priest?), and because the brotherhood had the power but not permission to kill him, they made him a zombie. (This does visually not express.) From that day on, he must eat human flesh or he gets a skin disease.

600 years later, Goza kinda likes all that and runs a BBQ restaurant with another priest (?) who is not a zombie, but drinks human blood (he’s no vampire either). A guy finds the ring of his girlfriend in a burger. Then some random people have a party and Goza poisons 4 women. It has no relevance for anything. Then a policeman who never appeared before sneaks through the restaurant and gets killed. And then, we learn that ALL priests of the brotherhood are immortal AND have superpowers. And some decided that it is time to kill Goza and lead the world into the new age. Or something.

Meanwhile Missy, a part time teacher, visited Goza’s restaurant and stole his antique book in the n00bishest way possible. No, the book was never mentioned before. From this book and a drawing in it, she (and everyone else) learns that she is the incarnation (?) of the high priestess.

Another priest goes to battle Goza; not without having an extremly badly performed conversation about saving the world with a random other priest in a park before. Goza appears to this epic battle on a bike and if you now expect the gore to come, nope, sorry. The battle between the priest and the cursed cannibal zombie does not involve any attempts to destroy the head. In fact, the entire battle consists of force chokes. Darth Vader, anyone? Goza wins. With a force choke.

Then he returns to his restaurant because he needs human flesh, but Missy awaits him and finally defeats the monster with the aid of… Oh, you wanna guess? Sure. So here’s the quiz:

The incarnation of the high priestess uses which of the following to defeat the cursed cannibal zombie:

a) axe & hammer

b) bow & arrow

c) scythe & force choke

d) superglue & undefined tool that is probably what wiki lists as “Hot melt adhesive”

YESSSS!!!! The correct answer is d) superglue and whatever tool (used on shoe, so no idea what it really is, it looks like a driller, makes no sounds, doesn’t rotate and obviously also doesn’t do anything to shoes).

The movie ends with Missy, the high priestess, running the restaurant and a scene where 2 priests drink a beer.

Famous last words: No, I didn’t make it up. Its really that bad.