Anvil and Sprocket Movie Review

Over at the not-safe-for-work Suicide Girls, George Romero is interviewed about his upcoming DVD, Diary of the Dead. Reading through the interview, this passage in particular caught my attention. Romero gets asked how he feels about the high-speed, super-strong zombies that populate recent movies like 28 Days Later and the re-make of Romero’s own Dawn of the Dead.

Oh boy, I don’t believe they can do it. I mean, the stuff I said in the film is exactly [what I think.] I think their ankles would snap. It doesn’t make sense to me. I used to get asked, after the Return of the Living Dead movies, “Well, how come your guys aren’t coming up out of graves?” Because no individual zombie has the strength to dig through all that mahogany, man. So there’s a little set of rules there, anyway, that keeps it, at least in my mind, somewhat reasonable.

I like zombie movies, but aside from Shaun of the Dead and Romero’s own Land of the Dead, I find I have very little use for modern zombie films. The reason for this can be summed up in two words: Fast zombies.

Of course, Romero has a good logical reason for why zombies shouldn’t be fast or particularly strong. They’re dead. Dead people shouldn’t really be faster or stronger than they were when they were alive. As for me, I have a storytelling reason for why I don’t like it. Fast zombies lose the very element that makes zombies uniquely scary among other movie monsters.

A super-fast, super-strong zombie has nothing to distinguish it from a vampire or a werewolf or any number of creatures put on film by Hollywood over the years. They’re all beings who can outrun you, outfight you, and who want to feast on your flesh (or, in the case of a vampire, blood).

A slow, shambling zombie, however, is uniquely scary because of what it means if it actually catches you. If one of the new breed of movie zombies – fast, strong, and eerily intelligent – grabs hold of you, it’s not a big deal. They’re faster than you. They’re stronger than you. For some reason, they’re just better than you. Being caught by a slow zombie, however, means one of two things. Either you have been caught in a situation in which defeat is inevitable or – more likely – you seriously screwed up.

In other words, when a slow zombie chows down on your brain, there are no real excuses. There’s a better than even chance that it’s your own fault.

I just canceled my Blockbuster Online Total Access Premium membership — their top tier membership, I might add. I just received an email message letting me know — very cheerfully, I might add — that my price was going up. By just under 50%:

As a BLOCKBUSTER Total Access subscriber, it’s always easy to have the right movie during this holiday season with more than 75,000 titles, including great new releases

[ * * * ]

To continue to bring you the unmatched convenience of both online and in-store DVD rentals, your monthly subscription fee will change from $24.99 to $34.99. This adjustment will go into effect on your next billing cycle on or after December 27, 2007. The benefits of your subscription plan will remain the same.

I think the only sane reaction to this is “bite me.” I don’t think I would have found this half as insulting, however, if it hadn’t been couched in a lot of happy talk about how great their service is.

Now, at first I thought I had been singled out as a heavy user even though I’ve been holding on to their DVDs for several days before turning them around. But no, this appears to be a general rate increase. I’d love to see the metrics on how many people hit the roof when they open their email tomorrow.

I’ve heard Cabin Fever described as “funny.” I’ve watched about thirty-five minutes of it and I’m still waiting for the funny to start. So far this film has nothing on Evil Dead.

Update: Just a little over a month later, I’ve canceled my membership over a sudden and dramatic price increase — from $24.99 a month to $34.99 a month with no increase in service.

When I started this site in 2001, I just wanted to have some project that would justify the enormous amount of money and time I was spending on movie rentals as a Netflix customer. So I’ve been using mail rental services for a very, very long time. But I’ve not really been loyal to the Netflix brand — I just rent from there because they have the best selection and service. But a couple of weeks ago I made the decision to drop Netflix and go with Blockbuster Online for awhile. Not because of anything Netflix did, really. Just because I wanted to try out the competition.

If you use Facebook, consider joining our Facebook group: I Can’t Believe I Watched the Whole Thing!

I’ve been looking at a lot of horror franchises lately. Of course I’ve done my list of the top 5 underrated horror sequels, and I recently published a list of 5 horror sequels that deserve the low rating they’ve gotten. Along the way, I’ve learned a lot about how these things work.

Now here’s a tip for the budding filmmaker who is concerned that their successful horror franchise is holding them back or that their being called in to continue a franchise will destroy their reputation. Here are four easy tried-and-true steps that will sink your franchise like a stone until such a time as the next Rob Zombie/Eli Roth clone decides they can get some mileage out of remaking it.

Horror fans are notoriously difficult to please, and they can be even more difficult to please twice in a row. Sequels in general receive a lot of criticism, but in the horror world they can be brutalized almost as much as one of the victims depicted in the actual films. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that horror fans are used to successful movies turning into long-running franchises, as in the eleven-movie long Friday the 13th franchise (nine movies if you choose to ignore Jason X and Freddy vs. Jason, which a lot of fans choose to do).

There’s a discussion on Boing Boing about a new copyright-enforcement policy at movie theaters — taping the audience.

Well before our first child was born, Elf and I almost stopped going to the movie theater. The expense and the ads are all an enormous turn-off. But occasionally one or both of us could overcome that misery to go see a film where films are intended to be seen. Now, with the police-state tactics bordering on farce, we probably won’t go again except to the indie theater down near the college.

With lots of modern action flicks billing themselves as action comedies, I thought it might be worthwhile to take a brief look at some of the scenes that have skillfully blended the two elements. Comedy and action can make an ill-suited duo sometimes, as the latest installment in Die Hard illustrates nicely.

So I have put together this list of 5 must-see comedy action scenes. While I have rated these (in my opinion) in terms of strength, this is not a “5 Best” list, and I’m sure other scenes can be pointed out that might even be better than these. But this list represents five scenes I feel lovers of comedy should take the time to seek out and watch. To keep variety in the list, I’ve limited it to one scene per movie. For the spoiler-sensitive among you, some plot elements will be discussed. But, frankly, most of these movies are well over twenty years old, so spoilers exist pretty much everywhere.

Some time ago I took screenshots for Resident Evil: Apocalypse. At the time I’d enjoyed it even more than the first movie, but I never got around to actually writing the review. Now I’m kind of glad I didn’t, because I just watched them both again. I stand my my earlier assertion that Resident Evil is one of the best of the Aliens knockoffs, but the second one… there’s a lot of noise and excitement, but it doesn’t stand up quite as well to repeated viewing.

Nevertheless, the cliffhanger ending has me eager for the release of Resident Evil: Extinction, scheduled for release on my fifth wedding anniversary.