John Pope and Daryl Dixon walk into a bar…

It’s really easy to line out some similarities between John Pope (designated Falling Skies Token Evil Team Mate) and Daryl Dixon (designated Walking Dead Loner). Both were introduced with a “bigger evil” brother – Pope’s brother raped Maggie, Merle Dixon is a racist crackhead with a bad temper. Both immediately lost said brother right after the introduction, basically making them Evil by Association only – Pope’s brother got a Karmic Death delivered by Maggie, Merle got a Fate Worse Than Death when he was left behind, handcuffed to a rooftop about to be overrun by zombies. Both Pope and Daryl got stuck with the “good guys” due to their legit survival skills – Pope knew how to efficiently kill skitters, Daryl knew how to hunt for food. Both had moments when they were nearly-turned “good” by saving kids – Pope when he came back to help the children Clayton wanted to hand over to the skitters, Daryl went looking for Carol’s lost daughter for no less than half the season and seemed to be the only person who genuinely cared about finding her. Even more significant: Both Pope and Daryl were introduced making slightly racist comments about the asian guys Dai and Glenn and the black guys Anthony and T-Dogg, respectively. After this first remark, neither ever brought up any issues with the asians later, yet both moved on to save the black guys lives. Needless to say, both are also Badass Bikers and both are widely considered as the Ensemble Darkhorses of their shows, and if you look closer, you notice that Daryl often prepares his food, which can be counted as “both can cook”. See, it’s really really easy.

A bit too easy to get too attached to the idea that “Pope is a copy of Daryl and in general, Falling Skies copies The Walking Dead”. I’ve never understood fandom wars and why everything remotely similar to something else needs to be compared in every detail. I love both Deep Space Nine and Babylon 5, two shows that are more frequently accused of “copying the other” than anything. Yes, there are similarities. Both have a big, intergalactic war going on; both have a space station and a guy with a big ass important spiritual destiny to fulfill; godlike aliens that interfere in the dealings of the mortals; space battles and the occupation of one alien world by another, more ruthless alien species. If I wanted to, I could probably just take two random characters; one from each show, and compare them to death. However, that’s already been done to death by others and didn’t lead to any conclusions whatsoever. Both shows are still completely awesome, period.

Yes, Walking Dead and Falling Skies have a similar premise. The world went to hell, now one group fights zombies, the other aliens. And yes, there are Pope and Daryl, who look similar at first glance. But that’s a flawed thought, because they don’t have the same feedback options to develop – the characters around them, for beginners. They also aren’t as similar if you look deeper.

Pope is clearly an extrovert person with a big mouth, and he was also clearly in charge of the gang, making his brother a follower. Hell, Pope goes so far to insult the intelligence of his brother while said brother is bleeding to death a few steps behind him. And after he’s dead, Pope doesn’t care at all – he never brings it up and just settles for some new followers shortly after. Pope also doesn’t take shit – or orders, for that matter – from Tom Mason or Dan Weaver. When he disagrees with them, he takes matters and most notably a gun into his own hands and tries to fix the issue in a pretty straight forward manner, and upon failure, deals with the consequences.

Daryl, on the other hand, is very clearly an introvert. He does bring up the fact that Rick Grimes (and to a degree, T-Dogg) effectively sentenced his brother to death, if only for the sake of “well, he’s kind of a jerk, but he’s still my brother”. His hallucination later reveals that Daryl is as much a victim of Merle’s temper as everyone else, likely even more. Where Pope decides to save the kids because of a principle – “the skitters want the kids and I hate skitters, hence I don’t let them have what they want” – Daryl truly cares about finding Sophia because he relates to her and the situation of being lost and alone. Pope walks around the camp like he owns it and stirs up trouble by stating unpopular facts (such as the possibility that Tom was brainwashed); Daryl withdraws to solitude when the group drama shit hits the fan and refuses to take sides in any conflicts between the others. He clearly accepts the leadership claim of Rick, even after Rick has a major freakout moment; and doesn’t even challenge his position when Carol calls him out to do so. Pope, on the other hand, refuses to acknowledge there is a chain of command to begin with, only follows the orders he sees as right, but dismisses everything else – going so far to challenge Tom’s orders while surrounded by skitters in the woods.

Yes, both Pope and Daryl have trust issues. But Pope seems perfectly fine with it – he never really trusted anyone to begin with and sees no reason to change that, as circumstances show him again and again it would be a mistake. Daryl never learned what trust really is, so he has nothing to dismiss due to circumstances. If anything, he tries to trust the group and most notably the leadership of Rick.

And those factors – extrovert vs. introvert, experience vs. principle, seeing no need to trust vs. having no ability to trust – are the important ones; the things that clearly set Pope and Daryl apart and prevent them from being copies of the other. Their motivations are polar opposites and the importance of motivation outweights any Badass Biker gimmick.

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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.

Short Cuts

Digging through movies I haven’t seen in ages/at all, I came across these in the 2nd January week.

Blood Feast II – All U can eat

The thing that bothers me most about this classic is the title. “all U can eat”. That’s l33t speak before it was trendy. But luckily, the title is really the only thing I dislike. The story is incredibly funny and gory, and though the FX can’t completely keep up with more recent movies, it is still way better than most so-called gore flicks of the past 10 years.

Bloodsucking Freaks

An all-time fave that combines so many of my fave grindhouse elements – caged women, slave trade, sideshow flair and sick torture, along with an almost stand up comic lead duo. What I don’t really get is why this movie is said to be so politically incorrect. The dwarf, for example, is not shown as a mindless idiot who obeys whatever his master Sardu says. No, he’s almost an equal partner – almost because Sardu is the director and Ralphus an actor. But still, he gets his share of fun and artistic freedom, and frequently enjoys the same luxury as his boss. Also, the caged women are almost all white, while Sardu’s dominatrix and her aide are black – that’s very open-minded for a gore flick and completely reverses the ‘token minority dies first’ trope. This movie has been a fave from the first time I’ve seen it, and it will always be.

Wrong Turn I & II

Oh man, how could I ignore them so long? Answer: I got them along with Vacancy I and II and High Tension. I found all of these boring and uninspired, so I didn’t bother to watch Wrong Turn – and then forgot. Now I gave them a chance and they immediately made it into my top list. While Wrong Turn (1) was nice and bloody and didn’t have any lengths, Wrong Turn 2 – Dead End is even better. Not just bloodier, though that certainly applies. I also just love the premise of a reality survival game show turning into the real deal. Bonus points for Henry Rollins as retired marine Dale, who is so badass, he’d technically need an identical twin brother to contain it.

Dead Snow

…made me regret yet again that I never learned any Scandinavian language, because the DVD only features the original Norwegian sound and German, both also as subs. Not really helpful. As much as I love the movie, as much am I bothered by German synchros. I would have watched it in Norwegian with English subs, if there were any. German translations always seem to lack authenticity – the voices seem wrong even if I don’t know the real actors’ voices. Still, a great movie that will always have a special place in my heart. Nazi zombies are simply better than just nazis or just zombies.

Saw II

Easily my fave of the series. Not that hard, as I only consider Saw 1 – 3 as decent and the rest as crap I only watch to rant about it. Mainly watched it because I needed to relax, voice-wise, and it was the nearest DVD I knew had English audio.

Anatomy

After (yet another) failed attempt to watch Salo – The 120 Days of Sodom, I decided to make the test: a German movie in original language. And yes, my theory confirms; the voices sound right, only synchros suck bad. To my surprise, the movie didn’t suck. I hadn’t bothered with it before because I don’t like Franka Potente, which is a reason I dislike a lot German movies. It’s sad but true – we don’t have that many decent actors. One of them was in Anatomy, by the way, Benno Fürmann.

The movie has a few lengths in the middle, but that’s not too bad. It’s actually quite entertaining and features some awesome grotesque plastinated bodies. I hadn’t expected the surgery scenes to be so explicit; kudos.

Salo – The 120 Days of Sodom

Well, I just don’t get it. It’s one of these ‘must sees’, but I can’t get through the full length. Why the hell is this movie so controversial? Why do people claim it is perverse and shocking? It’s goddamn boring! I make 1 hour at best, and then I get distracted by the first fly on the window, hunger, urgent desire to play a video game… anything, if it’s only more entertaining than this. I keep trying, just so I can say I’ve seen it, but I have a feeling I make it through the 235 minutes cut of Caligola before I ever see the rest of Salo.

Hard Rock Zombies

Hard Rock Zombies aka Heavy Metal Zombies

The movie starts with like 12 totally senseless stereotypes. A rock band is on the road and that’s already trash at it’s best. The singer, Jesse, would win any Freddie Mercury lookalike contest in a heartbeat. The mustache! But also the guitar-or-bass-guy (they switch instruments sometimes) scores with a perfect symbiosis from Jon Bon Jovi in his weirdest hair crime times and Richie Sambora, putting together the very worst of both.

But back to the story. This awesome band also has a manager and sometimes that guy uses buttons on a mixing pult. And now he invited THE record label owner to a gig. Of course, this historic moment takes place in a village out in nowhere. Where else? On the way there, the pretty musicians take a female hitchhiker with them; she will shine in ultra-senseless dancing scenes a bit later. However, for now she invites the band to stay over night in her house – but does not mention her family: her 95 years old super-potent grandpa, her werewolf grandma (Are werewolfs blue?), two dwarves (one eyed and disfigured) and a not really introduced guy who is addicted to taking photos.

Meanwhile, Freddie-Mercuy-Wannabe played out his sensible side. He hates groupies and wild orgies, he has only eyes for the morbid hairdo of the village’s beauty queen Cassie. She sometimes shows up and tells him to leave the village because the mayor declared rock music as the devil’s work. And what do politicans do? Right. They come up with a new law: rock music prohibition! For being devil worshippers, the band is sent to jail, but the hitchhiker girl helps them to escape. While Jesse writes a love song for Cassie. It’s also a good rhyme, Jesse and Cassie.

The band hides in the hitchhiker’s house again and now the real fun part begins. The freak family starts to slay the band; partly in parodies of famous movies from more talented directors. For example, we share the doubtful pleasure of a very very bad copy of “Psycho”. But that’s not the real big bang. The real big bang starts with the grandfather to pull off his rubber mask and turn out as Adolf Hitler! And his wife is not only a blue werewolf, she’s also Eva Braun! Grandpa’s speech is the funniest piece of celluloid history ever made. I mean, really, Adolf Hitler saying “Ami go home, Winnetou is back!” is a milestone.

But before I get distracted too much by the most awesome speech in movie history, back to the story. As the last survivor of the band, Jesse gives Cassie a tape and tells her to play it in case he dies. And yeah, of course he dies. The miracle happens: the music played on the band grave brings them back to life! The zombie band takes revenge on the freak family, turning them into zombies in the process, and then goes to play their gig.

Now guess what, the record label guy doesn’t notice the band is dead and tries to sign them. Meanwhile, outside the concert hall, almost the entire village is a zombie nest. The last humans try to stand their ground and fight the zombies with the best weapon against walking dead: posters of Jimi Hendrix! Of course, that makes no sense and also doesn’t save them. So the villagers remember an old legendary way to get rid of zombies: Tie a virgin to a tree. As soon as the zombies ate her, they’ll go away for 100 years and become someone else’s problem. Luckily, Cassie shows up to the villager meeting – and surprise, she’s a virgin!

The raging mob, or what’s left of it, drags her to a hill where some tree-like whatever stands. But they didn’t count in the band’s manager! He goes to re-animate the band again and the undead rock stars fight the zombies with their satanic music and save Cassie. Of course, she still loves Jesse and will stay a virgin forever because the undead lover returns to his grave after the battle and stays there.

The most awesome movie ever made! Really, it’s a perfect and senseless treasure case of trash that I can only recommend again and again. From cheap early 80ies rock including hideous hair metal outfits to awful parodies to the tremendous speech of the grandfather – this movie has it all.

Tombs & Return Of The Blind Dead

Tombs of the Blind Dead

A totally 70ies zombie b-movie from Portugal. It was my absolute fave when I was a kid, along with the sequels. I would watch them over and over again. Today, I really wonder why. I had so many better movies. Still do. And I bet everyone else does.

Is there a story? Yes. Berzano is a ghost village in the nowhere near Lisbon. This is where Virginia (occupation unknown), Roger (her just-a-good-friend) and her best friend from school, Betty (runs a store for shopping window dolls) meet. Not that it makes any sense that Betty shows up in the hotel where Virginia and Roger stay, because, well, she lives in Lisbon anyways.

It doesn’t matter. Because Virginia and Roger planned a camping trip to wherever, and Roger asks Betty to join them.

The totally 70ies background story is that Virgina and Betty had a lesbian affair in school. In the train, Roger starts to hit on Betty, Virginia gets jealous and jumps off the train because she’s so angry with both. Umm, ya. However, she finds the abandoned village and stays the night in the ruins. That, or something else, wakes up the Templar Knights, a group of knights from the 13th century that brought back the secret of eternal life from Egypt. The secret is: kill people, drink their blood, perform satanic rituals. Why that is Egyptian? Don’t ask.

Virginia gets killed by them, the police starts to investigate and blames a group of smugglers for the murder. For totally no reason, Virginia returns from the dead in the morgue, kills the perv night guard (or whatever he is), then goes to Betty’s store and dies in a fire when she tries to kill Betty’s shop assistant. Meanwhile Betty and Roger visited a strange history professor who is the father of the leader of the smuggler gang. Umm, the police investigator suddenly shows up after the professor told the story about the templars, to reveal that the smugglers are the killers.

Again, without further reason, Betty and Roger visit the smugglers and find Pedro (prof’s son) and his bitchy girlfriend, and talk both of them into staying in the ruins with them over night. Pedro gets killed first after raping Betty on the cemetary. Roger loses a hand when escaping the dead and dies a few minutes later from blood loss. Pedro’s girlfriend dies right after him, only Betty manages it to escape and reach the train. The train stops, the blind dead kill everyone, and somehow the train reaches Lisbon anyways with Betty as the only survivor.

Now, Betty. A face you just wanna kick. These horrible – even for the 70ies – clothes. That she survives so long is really pissing you off. All the time. You so wish that ugly thing would finally be killed by the blind dead. But alas, they are blind, they don’t see what you have to suffer.

Other notable mentions: When Betty stops the train and even gets help to climb on it… It is humanly impossible to be THAT slow. Yeah, you read right! That fugly bitch is to blame for everyone else getting killed! Because SHE is so slow!

Several scenes, especially the wake of the dead from their graves, and riding around on their horses, are recycled in all movies. You see each scene at least 3 times. With the same cheap and really bad sound effects, that is.

The blind dead, well, yeah, they look pretty funny. I think its not actors with make up. Its bad actors with skeleton masks and gloves. Adding to that, we have rubber bodies and slow motion, and thats it for FX.

Do I recommend this movie? No. I recommend all of them. They are so bad that they are already good again. The actors suck, the FX suck, the story barely makes sense – and that’s why you just gotta love this crap.

Return of the Blind Dead

Umm, I watched this for breakfast and already forgot most names. Sorry if I mix it up, but so does the DVD – the cover says “Return of the Blind Dead”, the DVD menu “Return of the Evil Dead”. I’m perfectly on topic.

Let’s try to get the cast together…

We are in Berzano again. 500 years ago, the villagers burnt the Templar Knights after catching them performing a sacrifice for the devil. The knights promised to come back for revenge, and their eyes were burnt to blind them, so they wouldn’t find the village anymore.

Here, we have Mayor Duncan, his bully/assistant (I forgot the name, he’ll be called Bully for the rest of the review), his fiancee Vivian; the young family Branco, Amalia and daughter Nina (or Nancy?); Bully’s wife (no idea, I call her Blondie now), the village idiot Mordu (Modo, Mudro…?) and Jack.

Its the night when the village celebrates their victory over the templars with a festival. For that, the mayor and Vivian hired Jack, who is an expert for fireworks. The difficult social network will play a role later, so I try my best here. Blondie (Bully’s wife) is not on the festival; she cheats her husband with her secret lover Juan (he also looks like that) in their house outside the village. Bully self lusts after Mayor Duncan’s fiancee Vivian, who is the ex girlfriend of Jack and decides to leave Duncan for him on the festival. Earlier that day, Blondie saved Mordu from some bullies.

While the village prepares the festival, Jack and Vivian make out somewhere outside the village – in the ruins where the templars are buried. There, Mordu surprises them when they talk about leaving the village together and start a new life. He tells them that legend about the templars and all, then they all go back to celebrate.

The festival begins, and Mordu – who considers himself a friend of the templars – waits in the ruins for their wake. They do wake, but clearly not require his help to find the village – there’s a huge noisy firework to guide them, so they simply ignore Mordu. Meanwhile, Blondie got a visit from Juan. When the templars knock on the door, she fears its her husband, but alas, its not. The templars kill Juan, Blondie escapes through a window and with one of the undead horses. She reaches a train station and convinces the guy in it that the legends are true. He tries to call for help, but no-one hears the ringing phone because of the – firework. Blondie runs off into the (quite bright) night.

In the village, the mayor meanwhile noticed that his fiancee is making out with Jack on the dancefloor, and commands his bullies Bully, Branco and Guy 3 to beat him up. Before this can really start, Amalia (the wife of Branco and secretary of the mayor) finally answers the phone, decides the train station guy sounds like he needs help, and the brawl is already over. The mayor and Bully talk to the train guy, and then hear a breaking window. The templars reached the stations and killed the guy. Branco and Bully go to look what’s wrong there.

Vivian and Jack try to use the chaos to leave the village, but run into Blondie who passes out on the street. They bring her back to the village, where Branco and Bully also arrive and confirm that the templars are really on the way and they are all a bit in a deep shit. The mayor tries to call the gouvenour, but he thinks the entire village is drunk.

The templars arrive, and the villagers try to fight them with various gardening tools. Branco, Amalia and their daughter can barricade themselves in the church; almost everyone except the main characters gets killed. The mayor, Vivian, Jack, Bully and Blondie try to escape in a jeep, but are soon surrounded and find shelter in the church, too.

There, they find Mordu in a closet. Then… they talk a lot, and finally the mayor tries to flee somehow. He tries to talk Bully into helping him, but Bully suddenly became very loyal to Jack for no reason and declines. Using the old “its for your family” story, Duncan talks Branco into his plan – distract the templars with fire, reach the jeep and flee. The plan doesn’t work and Branco dies. Meanwhile, Mordu lured Blondie in another room and told her that he will help her escape because she helped him earlier that day. They start to dig through a secret tunnel; no-one notices they are gone.

Now, Duncan does something quite clever. While Amalia is sleeping, he sends her daughter outside to call for her daddy. The screaming child distracts the templars enough and Duncan reaches the jeep – which sadly won’t start and makes more noise than the kid. So the mayor dies instead. Good plan, bad luck.

Now, Amalia notices that her child is missing. They all search and finally see her outside on another building. Clever Duncan pinned her to that door with a dagger, so she can’t come back to the church. Jack, who is a perfect allround hero, sneaks out to get her. The brat makes too much noise, and draws the attention of the templars. To save her child, Amalia runs out with a torch to distract them; it works – at least for Jack and the kid; they make it back to the church; Amalia dies.

At the same time, Mordu and Blondie reach the exist – too bad the templars already wait there and kill both. Bad plan, bad luck. Now, Bully decides its a good time to rape Vivian. But before it comes to that, Jack interferes and more or less accidentally kills Bully by pushing him on the lance of a statue. It doesn’t really bother him. Its getting day outside, and they “can finally see” the dead. The night had been damn bright, so it comes a bit surprising they didnt see them before.

Anyways, Vivian and Jack decide to escape. Jack tells the child that she only dreamed her parents died, and for real, they have a surprise, so they blindfold her and will lead her to the parents. Outside, between all the dead templars, that annoying brat takes off the blindfold and starts to scream. But oh surprise, nothing happens. The templars just fall to the ground and are really dead. Jack, Vivian and Brat walk into the dawn and a probably pretty shitty future.

Is this worth to watch? Yes, totally. The acting is below any known rating; the story makes a bit sense, the dead are cheap as usual, and a lot scenes were recycled from Tombs of the Blind Dead. We get to see weird 70ies fashion and awful hairdos. What more could you ask for? Great movie, even better than the first part!

House of Clocks

The House of Clocks

Lucio Fulci. And a rather strange one. Is it a zombie movie? Kind of, but I fail to see what the real concept was.

There’s an old mansion, inhabited by an old couple, their house maid and their gardener. They have a dark secret – the conserved corpses of their nephew and his wife (both in wedding outfits) in a chapel. The old man collects clocks and loves them like his children. Early in the movie, they kill the maid for knowing too much after she discovered the chapel and dead bodies.

Then we have a trio of young burglars; a couple and the guy’s best friend. They plan to rob that old mansion. Armed with toy guns. They manage to get in the house with the old “my car broke down, can I use your phone” trick. However, they get surprised by the gardener and a shotgun, and in the end, the old couple and gardener are dead; and the robbers can’t leave the house due to a) rabid dogs outside and b) broken gate door mechanism.

They decide to stay til the morning and explore the house. Later, the couple sends the best friend away. He goes to search his lighter for consuming illegal substances, and discovers that the dead bodies aren’t were they left them anymore, and the broken dining table looks like before the fight. During the night, the clocks begin to run backwards, and the “earlier” it gets, the more damage is undone; until the dead are back alive and out for revenge. They kill the two guys, and also the maid and the nephew with his wife come back to life – and the nephew and wife kill the old couple again.

In the morning, the girl that broke in wakes up in the car – both her friends are alive, and they are in the time before reaching the house at all. All had “strange nightmares” (which we see in flashbacks; the scenes when they died or got hunted) and decide to not go to the old mansion at all. They drive away happily and die in a car accident. In the mansion, we see the young couple (nephew + wife) on the dining table, inviting the maid to have breakfast with them.

Umm, yes… The setting and all is quite nice, I totally want that mansion. But the story is just weirdo, though the atmosphere isn’t all that bad. The dream finish is a bit a let down, but oh well, that’s Fulci. Most memorable mutilation… Hard to say. The movie isn’t too bloody, it has more a 1979 than 1989 feel. I’d give it to the old lady killing the maid with a spear (?) and then dancing happily away to tell her husband. The rest is pretty much shotgun and knives. All things considered, I’d go with a 6.8 on a ranking zero = total waste of time and ten = perfect movie.

The Dead Next Door

The Dead Next Door

The Dead Next Door is a great classic. The story is quickly told; the world is overran by zombies and the few survivors are organized with zombie squads – soldiers cleaning up and defending humans. The team the movie follows has the mission to find the original outbreak, the laboratory of Dr. Bow who created the virus, in order to find a cure.

When they arrive in the almost zombie free area, they soon find out why there aren’t many undead. A religious cult around a Reverend Jones holds the zombies in a basement, feeds them and considers it as a test of their faith. Why they also sacrifice a woman remains a mystery though.

Anyways, the zombie squad, along with 2 scientists, finds Dr. Bow’s notes and starts to work on a cure. Meanwhile, they ran into a member of Jones’ cult; Vincent. The guy attacked the squad when he heard they try to find a way to cure/kill the zombies; another member of the squad was infected earlier and its essential they find the cure before he turns into a zombie.

The real awesome part about this movie are the tiny references. Would you call it coincidence if you have a Dr. Savini, the soldiers King and Romero and a squad leader named Raimi in one and the same movie?

Famous last words: Gory, entertaining, the cult is a nice twist and the end is just awesome. Totally worth to watch!

Violent Shit 3

Violent Shit 3 – Infantry of Doom (aka Zombie Doom)

I admit I’m biased. Andreas Schnaas is my favourite amateur/no budget director, and I praise nearly everything he releases. Always did, probably always will. He is what Peter Jackson could have been, hadn’t he sold out to Hollywood. I adore especially the Violent Shit trilogy, and the (original) European title gives it away: This is the third and last part of it.

Its the first that actually had some sort of budget beyond a few 1000 bucks and that you can see. Of course, its still a low budget splatter and barely has a story, but there’s the point. No money, no expert effects, no real story, but it has the essential thing that makes a bad movie a great one: Violent Shit has heart.

Karl The Butcher jr., originally based on a German serial killer’s son in Violent Shit 1 and 2, is now the barbarian chief of a brutal militia, inhabiting a lonely island. It should be mentioned that I’m personally a big fan of Andreas Schnaas as an actor, too. No big surprise I give thumbs up for him as Karl Jr. in a ridicolous (but well made) viking costume with a ridicolous (and less well made) metal mask. We see a lot ridicolous metal masks and costumes, and a real tremendous improvement of make up effects, especially the half skeleton-zombie face of Karl The Butcher sr. stands out.

Three random guys arrive on this island for a camping trip or something, and immediately get captured by Karl’s Infantry of Doom militia. This group trains for something, and prepares to wipe out rebels that are also somewhere on the island; the real point of their purpose and goal remains a secret. After one of the campers and a group of rebels/traitors get executed for offending the Meister (Karl jr. is called Meister instead of Master, to underline the slight nazi reference later), the 2 others are set free to be prey for a training hunt of the warriors. That’s not uncommon, obviously the militia is unlimited in members – Karl executes some of his men as an example every 10 minutes.

The great thing about this is – we see it. Unlike other movies, that leave out such scenes due to a lack of money/material for effects and make up excuses for the scenes not being there… Violent Shit 3 just makes up excuses to have more senseless gore scenes; and the special effects are creative and well done. I love how Schnaas’ movies never miss the humor, in this case a very visual “pain in the ass” scene involving a fishing hook and a spine bone.

We also meet Dr. Senius, a mad scientist working for Karl jr., who tries to create a Meisterrace of zombies to fight the rebel army, and intentionally resembles Adolf Hitler with the most ridicolous fake mustache you can imagine. Karl is a bit impatient about the army of darkness (quote!) being ready, so the ghoulish Dr. Senius instructs the Infantry warriors to not damage the heads of their prey. Obviously, some disobey and get executed; involving a daring mud wrestling scene with Andreas Schnaas in a viking custome. It certainly doesn’t look sexy in any way, what the term “mud wrestling” may suggest. But I admit, it looks very manly. And you have a hard time to not laugh if you know/understand the original language and can’t help usually finding Schnaas’ dialect much too cute for something like this. It adds an extra level of absurdity to the scene, and the english synchro certainly takes away a bit of the movie’s very own charme.

The two guys on the run meanwhile met an outcast of the militia who disobeyed the meister after seeing his wife sacrificed to a random god. Here comes a big bonus Schnaas always had – Leon is played by one of the badass triad/yakuza looking guys that appear in almost all Reel Gore Productions. They are friends of the team, and do a lot of the stunts (hence the high ratio of masked people in general). In other words, for amateur movies, the fight scenes stand out. These guys are real martial arts experts and not just dressed like they are. While their fights had totally no relation to anything in Violent Shit 2, they finally get well deserved bigger (unmasked) roles here.

Leon soon gets seperated from the 2 campers, but runs into 2 rebels (also played by badass triad guys). The campers die elsewhere (in explicit gore scenes), the 3 asians decide its time to kill Karl, his father and Dr. Senius before they can unleash their zombie army. Their fight scenes in the forest are incredibly entertaining, and spiced up with fun splatter elements in both armed and unarmed combat. After fighting off the first wave of zombies (wherever they came from; Dr. Senius’ experiments were far from finished), they run into the elite of the (viking-militia-metal mask-psycho) infantry – the Black Ninjas. Needless to say we get to enjoy more Hong Kong style fight scenes with explicit mutilation of several rubber bodies.

Disguised as the freshly defeated ninjas, the 3 sneak into the camp and hell breaks lose. I mean, for real. It doesn’t stop at the regular amateur weapons, its the entire arsenal of a war movie. Starting with self made wood spears and a butterfly knife early in the movie, we get it all here. Katana, machine gun, bow and arrow, axe, shotgun, revolver, viking sword, grenate thrower. Yep, that’s right. 3 ninjas blow up viking warriors in army clothes with grenades. Though Leon dies in something you may call “dramatic death scene” (compared to others, at least), the 2 others manage it to kill their targets and win the battle over the entire infantry of doom.

Famous last words: Movies like this are the reason I just love amateur splatter!

 

Last Of The Living

Last of the Living

Now this is totally what I mean when I say I hope there’ll be a new cineastic fashion along with Zombieland. The flair is in Last of the Living, though there were clearly some zeros less on the budget. This is a true amateur/low budget production, and has all the good things – barely/non-authorized filming in public places (from what I read, most street/city scenes were filmed on the morning of christmas – that’s dedication!), cheap (but certainly not all bad) make up, amateur actors, soundtrack (and outro credit performance) by local band… But even better, the camera and cut was all but n00bish, someone did a real good job there.

The PG18 rating was certainly not forced on the movie, I more think it’s for marketing purposes. Its not overly gory, and a lot splatter close ups were left out. That’s where the real good camera work shows. You don’t expect an exploding body in every scene because of the way the entire movie is filmed. Cuts, scene switches and such are well done, too. I admit I compared a bit to Goremet here, and that set a whole new low standard, so really ANYTHING looks well done in the face of it. But still, Last of the Living is solid work; a b-movie for the sake of missing budget, not missing talent.

The story is quickly told. 6 months ago, the outbreak turned all New Zealand (and the rest of the world, I assume) into zombies, except for a few survivors. Our main characters are the self-proclaimed womanizer Morgan, the geeky Ashleigh and the rock band guitarist Johnny. It’s not spoken out, but from flashbacks and dialogues it can be assumed that Ash is Morgan’s younger brother, and they met Johnny about 2 months after the outbreak.

Now, that sounds kinda stereotype. It is, and that’s totally cool. All three are losers in their own way. Morgan makes comments that he was working as an actor before everyone became a zombie; sweet and intentional irony that he says he was a great actor and Ash starts laughing at him. From the quality of the acting, I’d say Ash and Johnny are clearly better than the rest of the cast; however, Morgan isn’t as bad as other reviews claim. Ash is the type of geek you’d really expect to survive an outbreak. He’s not too cowardly, but still careful and tries to protect himself with logic. He’s the only of the survivors wearing “gear” when they go zombie bashing, to show less skin the zombies could bite, for example. Johnny, much older than the two brothers, is stereotype rock’n’roll. His solution to everything is chips’n’beer, and he doesn’t mind much to run into a house full of zombies and beat the crap out of them with whatever he finds on the way. My favourite Johnny line has to be when he’s asked if he thinks the zombie issue would be in the way to make his band famous, and he says he’s the only surviving member, but doesn’t really see that as a problem because most bands sold more records after being dead anyways.

These three have no claim to save the world or anything. They break in houses, take what they need from shops, play video games and that’s about it. When they decide the current house is too boring, they drive around to find a better one and come to a church that is surrounded by zombies. They correctly assume there are survivors hiding in the church and go to help them (mainly because Morgan hopes there’s a hot chick). They find a scientist and his daughter Steph, both were working on a cure for the zombies. The father gets bitten, Steph makes it to escape with the trio, but loses the blood sample needed for the cure. To get a new one, they have to go to the hospital where she used to work, extract a new one and put it in some machine. Obviously, the hospital is full of zombies.

In a world that was overran by living dead 6 months ago, its also no big surprise the power goes out while the machine is running. Morgan and Ash fight their way to the basement where they can activate an emergency generator, while Johnny stays in the lab with Steph and defends the blood sample. Morgan and Ash are trapped in the basement; here we get some character scenes that lead to my guess they are brothers; before they can escape through a tunnel or tube or something. Elsewhere, Johnny and Steph escape from the lab, with the blood sample, and they face 30 zombies surrounding their car. While Morgan comes up with a silly plan to just make a run for the car, Johnny offers to distract them since he got bitten and will turn into a zombie within an hour himself. For an amateur script, that’s a real great and touching sacrifice scene and I didn’t even think about Hard Rock Zombies when Johnny gives Steph a tape with his latest songs and asks her to take it to the right people when all this is over. A beautiful detail is that he goes down fighting, and its the first time his self-invented boxing move works (at least for a while).

The 3 survivors continue their way to an airport to bring the blood sample to an island where other scientists work on the cure. Stupid problem – Steph, the only one who can fly a plane, gets bitten. The flight will only take 40 minutes, and she has an hour before she turns into a zombie, so we are a bit in a hurry now. On the airport, Morgan almost sacrifices himself to let Steph and Ash escape, but finally makes it to jump in the plane last minute. And now, as you probably already expected, Steph becomes a zombie during the flight and Ash has to use his knowledge from video games to land the plane on the island. Here, they find the science camp deserted, and in a quite surprising scene, Morgan falls victim to a sudden zombie attack.

Ash finds a not properly working radio in one of the zombie infested buildings, saying to stay away from the island because there are no survivors. Hunted by his now-zombie brother, he runs to the beach and tries to leave the island with a boat. In the process, he kills Morgan and also loses the blood sample in the water. I’m not sure this is really the best way to end the movie, but Ash becomes the last of the living, escaping on a lonely boat. There would have been more original ways to get there, but I’m not really complaining. The movie makes too much hope for the new zombie movie fashion to really happen, and its way better than most other amateur movies I’ve seen since 1995 or so.

Famous last words: Sequel, please!

Dead Snow

Dead Snow (2009)

A masterpiece of trash from Norway. The topic of this movie is nazi zombie fun splatter. 8 college students (of medicine) wanna spend a weekend in an old hut out in nowhere. Nothing but hills and snow around – and some weirdo Reinhold Messner type of person who lives in a tent and warns the kids that this place has a history. After a raid during WW2, the villagers fought back and the surviving nazis had to flee to the mountains with all gold they could carry. People thought they froze to death, others claim they still roam the mountains. Actually, both is true. An army of nazi zombies wakes up when the campers discover the hidden gold in their hut.

Its bloody – I mean, really bloody. Its funny. It has great effects, especially the makeup of the zombie leader is awesome. Highly recommended!