“Hell is other people. And Ewoks.”
Wednesdays are tough. Have a Leia cat.
I am a huuuuuge fan of zombie movies, but even us fans have to admit that there’s been an over-saturation of zombies in the last decade. A few of these movies have been really good or at least fun to watch — like [REC] and Resident Evil! — but we’ve also been inundated with complete crap — like [REC2] and Resident Evil 2!
As a quality control measure, I swore off English language zombie movies a couple of years ago. It’s not that aaaaaaall English movies are bad and aaaaaaaall foreign movies are good, but usually avoiding English movies weeds out the worst of the Zach Snyder-esque “movie-as-music-video” pieces*. At least with a foreign movie I’m likely to get a little sense of another culture and some scenery at worst, and a neat intellectual piece at best. (Yes, basically I am just a huge movie snob.)
The point of all this is to say that I plan on breaking my pledge for The Curse of the Buxom Strumpet, starring Ian McKellar, Dame Judy Dench, and Gillian Anderson. The movie will “follow a 1700s town in England that becomes overrun with zombies”. Period costumes! Strumpets! JUDY DENCH KILLING ZOMBIES. Yes. Please.
On the topic of zombies, here’s someone’s list of the 15 most badass deaths in zombie movies, which is amusing if not entirely accurate. (A tree is not a zombie.) And if you’re a zombie over-preparer like me you might be tempted to buy this “Z-SAT Zombie Survival Aptitude Test” from ThinkGeek.
* The intro sequence for the Dawn of the Dead remake is absolutely stunning. The rest of the movie is terrible. Like, zombie baby terrible.
I wrote this about six months ago for another website, but it seems equally appropriate for Prolixity. I have seen a lot of scary movies since I wrote it, but I’m not sure any deserve a spot more than the movies that are already here. Bunhongsin (The Red Shoes) was extremely well done, but I can’t say it keeps me up at night. La Horde, a French zombie movie, would be another candidate, but I need to see it another time or two to be sure.
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It was actually pretty tough to make this list — I ended up with 15 good movies and had to winnow out the weakest entries. My final standard of recognition was how long the movie sat with me after I turned it off. Did it haunt me that night? Was I still chewing over the ending at lunch the following week? Do I still to this day worry about finding… well, just wait and read the list.
The most influential horror movie of the last 10 years has to be Saw. It spawned a million sequels, revitalized indy horror, and really gave a name to the torture porn genre (link is safe and informative!). That being said, I generally loathe torture porn movies and you won’t find Saw or any of its ilk on this list. Instead we have an unsurprising 5 zombie movies, 3 generally supernatural titles, and 2 plain ol’ human killers.
And so, in alphabetical order:
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| … or how I learned to stop worrying and love the fast zombies. This had everything you could ask for from a serious zombie movie: “who is the real monster?” philosophizing, a solid origin story, devastating urban wasteland, and a true crushing sense of being alone. I walked out of this movie with the sense that I had just watched the most realistic portrayal of a zombie apocalypse since Dawn of the Dead classic.
A link: The 28 Days Later Urban Exploration page for abandoned asylums. Why is the group named that? I don’t know, but these photos are creeeeeeeepy.
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| Frailty talks a lot about god, has a twist ending, and stars Matthew McConaughey, and yet it improbably all comes together in a very satisfying way. I almost can’t say anything about the movie without giving away a bit of the magic. Let’s just call it an interesting take on the line between religious fervor and insanity. If you enjoy psychological thrillers more than blood’n'guts, this movie is for you. |
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| Okay, let’s get this out of the way up front: I hated the end of this movie. The twist? At the end? Arrrrgh. Crappy crappity crap crap. But up until that point, High Tension lived up every bit to its name. The movie oozes terror from every pore. Plus it’s French, so if you watch it with subtitles it also counts as a cultural experience.
A link: 50 Must-See French Horror Movies |
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| I debated internally for a while about whether this is actually even a horror movie. And really, that says a lot about the quality of this film: it has a vampire and more than one horrible bloody death, but at the end you are left with a sense of poetry and perverse whimsy that transcends the genre. Hollywood made an American remake of this, of course, those buzzards. It’s titled “Let Me In”, which makes me think right off the bat that someone doesn’t understand the true message of the original. |
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| Of all the movies on my list, I predict this one will cause the most groans. (Stuff it, Max!) I stand by my decision, though. Rodriguez (and I suspect a bit of Tarantino) smooshed up all of the greatest genre cliches into one rollicking ride of a movie. It has hot babes, dastardly men, military intrigue, cheesy over-the-top special effects, and a LEG GUN. I’m not saying it’s a pinnacle of art, but much like another movie that almost made it on this list, Zombieland, Planet Terror is two hours of good fun American movie-making.
A link: How to make a Cherry Darling cosplay gun (no amputation required). |
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| From a raucous American movie to reserved Canadian content! This is a small, subtle movie with approximately 3 sets, 5 actors, and one giant idea. What if a deadly disease isn’t spread through biting or airborne molecules? What if instead it is spread.. through speech? A linguistic virus — it’s a fascinating concept. In a press interview at the time the director (Bruce McDonald, famous Canadian!) said that his movie doesn’t have zombies but instead “conversationalists”. Conversationalists. Love it. Love it! Love love lovelovelololololooooooooooooooo…… |
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| So there I am, sitting in my dark apartment by myself, watching a cinéma-vérité-style movie about zombies in a dark apartment building. It was TERRIFYING. And you don’t have to be in an apartment to find [REC] scary — this Spanish flick excels at being horrifying without showing its hand. The characters are confused, they’re scared, they’re in the dark, and things want to eat them. Plus: subtitles, so again you can feel all cultured. |
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| Interestingly enough, despite having seen many of them, the only Asian horror movie on my list is.. an American remake. And don’t get me wrong: most J- or K-horror remakes are abominable, but The Ring somehow manages to keep the heart of a good atmospheric ghost story with just a dash of North American dazzle. Plus, it has that scene. You know the one, with the TV? Possibly the most horrifying 10 seconds EVER. (I also spent way too long thinking about who I would pass my Evil Video Tape to if I got Ring’ed in real life.)
A link: Watching the cursed video on YouTube won’t haunt me, right? Hang on, my phone is ringing…. |
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| David Caruso is frequently scary in a oh-god-why-am-I-watching-CSI-Miami way, but he delivers a subtle little performance in Session 9. This movie is definitely a psychological horror, with an abandoned asylum, mysterious patient tapes, and ambiguous flashbacks. Probably the best flick on this whole list for the squeamish. |
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| Well duh. |
Always a bridesmaid: Cloverfield, The Decent, Pulse (yes, Pulse), Tale of Two Sisters, Zombieland.
This weekend I watched Twilight Eclipse.
I know! It’s abhorrent! I’ll give you a moment to clutch your head and wonder why, but know this: I don’t feel the least bit bad about it. (Gasp!)
That’s because I watched the movie while RiffTrax‘ed, of course! RiffTrax is run by many of the same folks who did the awesome and terrible Mystery Science Theater 3000, and the concept is very similar. In this version, you supply the movie (in my case I… found it.. on.. my hard drive…) and buy their hysterical commentary for $2-$5 each. Play the movie and the commentary at the same time (it’s easy to get everything in sync), and enjoy!
Don’t believe me? This YouTube sampler of their Eclipse commentary sold me on the whole package:
Over the last couple of years I have watched a ton of Japanese movies, mostly horror*. In the middle of watching Mutant Girls Squad I realized that I have naturally picked up one piece of the language during this time, which I think is spelled “nande yo ne”. It means, roughly, “WTF?”. This is a phrase that is used a lot by both the characters and the audience during Mutant Girls Squad.
The movie is kind of a broad winking take on X-Men, and the plot such that it is revolves around strange mutant girls who live and train together. Near the end of this movie there is a fight involving one girl armed with breast swords and another with an ass chainsaw. Yeah, you read that. Ass. Chainsaw. Nande yo ne?
Mutant Girls Squad was released under the Sushi Typhoon label, which seems to have an ethos similar to Troma (creators of the Toxic Avenger) only with a dollop of that very Japanese menacing sexuality. It features blood, blood, blood, death, boobs, more blood, and cosplay nurses.
If you’re okay with that, however, it’s pretty fun. Mutant Girls Squad doesn’t take itself the slightest bit seriously —it just wants to show us some cute girls with tentacles lopping off limbs to a techno beat. On that scale it is a rousing success.
* This is a discussion for another day, but K-horror > J-horror. FYI.
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Mutant Girls Squad is currently touring North American as part of the Splatter Matters tour, which is still due to arrive in Ottawa, Toronto, Saskatoon, and Philadelphia. Proceeds to go Japan Earthquake/Tsunami related charities.
Here’s a more thorough review and a really bloody trailer from YouTube.
I can’t believe I haven’t heard of this before, but as of yesterday I am here to confirm for you all that Polish movie posters are amazing. Instead of the usual floating heads or people running away from things that we have on our posters, Polish posters have unique, colorful art (not photography) that is more about how the movie makes the viewer feel than what happens in it.
I’m not sure exactly why this is, and the internet wasn’t very much help identifying why Poland in particular has developed these wonderful pieces for its foreign and domestic movies. Suffice to say, I guess, that they are striking, and I wish North America’s posters were half as creative or evocative.
This site has a gallery of their 50 favorite posters, and if you decide you want to buy one for yourself you can do so here. Two of my favorites are below… that Battle Royale poster would look real nice on my wall.
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Dear Internet: I promise to give you amusing Star Wars related photos if you promise to stop spittling “MAY THE FOURTH BE WITH YOU” at me, okay? (via the totally fascinating and not-at-all-porny thisisnotporn.net)
Kenny Baker enjoys lunch on the set of Star Wars.
John: This villain of mine comes under the prediction.
Terminator: It is the T-1000 that threatens thee. He is indeed, sir, the most skillful, bloody, and fatal opposite you could possibly have found.
Husky Jackal Theatre, an independent group from Nashville, is trying to raise Kickstarter financing for their production of Terminator 2: Judgement Day… as a Shakespearian drama. When asked why they picked this particular project, a representative said, “[T]he themes so pervasive in Shakespeare’s plays lend themselves to the story of the Terminator: horrific prophecies, charges of madness, the terror of an implacable enemy, the fierceness of a mother’s love for her son.”
Dang, good point guys. The Mary Sue has a sample dialog page available, which is awesome. Consider throwing these guys $5, and then you can tell everyone in your office that you support the arts.
Sucker Punch, 2011
It’s been a long time since I saw a movie as bad as Suckerpunch. Let’s get that out of the way now. The script, the acting, the directing, virtually every element of the fundamental structure of the movie was deeply, fatally flawed. The lines the actors were forced to read, sometimes with visible difficulty, were atrocious. The film’s narrative was disjointed and largely incoherent. The “twist” ending was telegraphed so far in advance, I could have slept through the entire second act and still given a detailed breakdown of how the movie ended. Frankly, I almost wish I had. Let’s not kid ourselves, this flick was BAD. But even in the midst of all this determined awfulness, there are a couple of bright points. So let’s move on from Suckerpunch’s many failings, and focus on the movie’s one saving grace, the combat sequences.
The action director for the movie deserves a solid round of applause. The combat was big, both in scope and in drama, visceral, and was always very, very pretty. The girls’ martial displays were elegant, lyrical and a pleasure to watch while they carved a path through crowds of faceless, CGI-spawned mooks. Snyder has a lot of experience using CGI landscapes to good effect, both in 300 and Watchmen, and he uses that to good effect here. The dreamscapes the characters rampage through are a delight; giant temples, “Heavy Metal”-inspired World War 1 trenches, and futuristic alien cities. Even when I was actively trying not to listen to the dialogue, I was glued to the screen for the visuals during the combat.
Given all of that, Suckerpunch can be viewed as the most recent blow struck in Zack Snyder’s continuing war of style against substance – a deliberately vapid movie that exists only to display a large amount of nubile young girls in skimpy outfits hacking their way through armies of sluggish monsters. It’s stupid, sure, but it’s not meant to win awards, it’s just here to tittilate us. The movie is all surface, with absolutely nothing under the hood, like a Lamborgini chassis put on a go-kart motor. But for some people, that’s the perfect ride.
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Jessica adds: Warner Brothers released the first six minutes of the movie today to lure in more hapless viewers, I suppose. Be aware that these are six of the best minutes — it doesn’t sustain this pace. 