Deadgirl (2008)

Deadgirl was directed by Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel, and stars Shiloh Fendandez, Noah Segan and Jenny Spain.

I was warned this movie was disturbing, and they weren't kidding. This film left me in a deep malaise for hours after I saw it. It's a great movie, but I certainly wouldn't recommend it to anyone without reservations. I felt dirty after watching it. I don't know what to say about it.

The film: A

How it made me feel: D for Disgusting

I Drink Your Blood (1970)

I Drink Your Blood was directed by Davis E. Durston and starred Bhaskar Roy Chowdhury, who had a tragic, but fascinating life.

This movie, inspired by the Manson Family, is abut a group of Satanic hippies who get on the wrong side of a little boy. As a result, he doses them with rabies by injecting the blood of a rabid dog into meat pies and selling them to the hippie clan. The rabies spreads as the hippies go on a crazy killing spree until the town is razed to the ground. The only thing saving the few survivors is that rabies causes an extreme fear of water, which allows for an anticlimactic escape through a river.

I think the description says it all, really. A wonderful example of why Grindhouse movies are great. :) I mean, this is two hours of hippies wielding axes as they foam at the mouth. Beautiful.

Also, Bhaskar Roy Chowdhury really gives a stand-out performance. His dance background is readily apparent in the theatricality of his acting. The movie is worth seeing just to see him as a Satantic cult leader. He comes across as much more of a protagonist than the sociopathic little boy.

A+

Blogging will re-commence in... Five... Four...

Hey folks!
I've been out of commission for some time, but I'm back, and ready to review! Expect Last House on the Left (2009) and Skeleton Key (2005) shortly.

-DR

Dead Alive (1992)

Dead Alive, also known as Braindead, was released by Peter Jackson and stars Timothy Balme and Diana Peñalver.

First of all, this movie blew The Lord of the Rings (2001) right out of my head. This is what Peter Jackson should be known for, not hobbits tromping around New Zealand, no offense to the LoTR fans. There were literally buckets of blood sloshing over everything. It was like the hallway scene in The Shining (1980), but with chunks. Simply awe-inspiring amounts of gore.

The only problem I had was at the end. When Lionel and Paquita, the heroes of this fine piece of cinema, kiss in the end scene, they are absolutely covered in what must be at least a dozen zombies' worth of goo, but they don't even wipe their lips. Things like that bother me in movies.

However, that scene is the least of the disgusting things contained within this film. I have a pretty strong stomach, and I still had some trouble at times eating my cheese and crackers. I threw all my limbs in the air with disgust many times throughout the movie, but I tell you, I never took my eyes off the screen.

However, there was never a scene that felt smug. Watching, say, Hostel, (2005) one feels as if the film-maker is sitting back, smirking to him or her self and thinking, "Those smucks won't be able to handle this." In contrast, Dead Alive seemed gleeful in its treatment of the disgusting.

Every way that a person could possibly be killed is shown in amazing, over-the-top detail. It's intended to be gross, but any torture it intends to bring upon the viewer seems entirely good-natured. The message of the movie is basically, "Gross! Dude, come look at this!" and that is exactly what makes it enjoyable.

Dead Alive is high camp of the first order! A+

Zombie Walk!

Just thought I'd post some of these amazing pictures from Toronto's Zombie Walk. People went all out, and it really shows. Here's a few of my favorites:




Pictures from this site.

If you'd like to participate in a Zombie Walk, here's the site to see if there's one in your area. There'll be one in Richmond on Saturday and you can bet your brains I'll be there.

Quarantine (2008)

Quarantine was directed by John Erick Dowdle, and stars Jennifer Carpenter and Steve Harris. It is now in theaters.

Okay, I know a lot of people were angry that the trailer showed the end scene of the movie, which I agree was a stupid move on the part of Andale Pictures, but to me, the fact that the trailer AND the poster state "The residents were never seen again" gives more away. The inclusion of that sentence contextualizes the movie as just another "found footage" film, putting it up against Cannibal Holocaust,(1980) the horrible little movie that invented the genre, The Blair Witch Project (1999) and Cloverfield (2007), all of which could be said to have more going for them.

Without the trailer and poster, Quarantine stands up much better against the competition. The point-blank explanation of the cover-up given in the trailer dehumanizes the terror of the people trapped in the building. I finished the movie feeling spooked, but then I looked up the poster and it made me say "Meh" and basically forget everything I had just enjoyed about the film. The image, which is taken from the last minutes of the movie as well, makes the movie seem generic and derivative. It is practically interchangeable with the poster from Pulse(2006).

This is not to say that the plot isn't derivative. It absolutely is. Quarantine is a remake, specifically one that was put into production before the original, [REC] (2007) was even released. As a result, there's no way this movie wouldn't suffer somewhat. The thing that saved it, however, was the acting, which is something that can rarely be said about a horror movie.

This is evident in one of the last scenes, in which Angela, the reporter, and Scott, her camera man, are the last two people left uninfected. They enter a dark room for a reason I'm not too clear on. Angela is wailing and crying, and she keeps repeating "Keep the light on me!" to Scott, whose camera has a lamp attached to the front. To me, this captures perfectly the irrationality of terror. The light won't save her. In fact, it will probably attract more infected to her, but her human need for illumination, for vision and for the clarity she instinctively feels vision will bring her, is too strong. She descends into gibbering fear in a realistic way, without going over the top, and it really is the strength of the movie.

Scott has a similar moment after he beats an infected person to death with the camera. This not only makes for a really cool scene, but the few seconds shot with the lens spattered with blood are harrowing. Scott has a Lady Macbeth moment, with the camera trained on his face as he obsessively wipes off the blood long after it is gone. This is his only real screen time, but he certainly makes the most of it.

The movie also got me thinking about the new "fast" breed of zombie that has been so popular since the release of 28 Days Later (2002). I think their rise in popularity is not only due to the fast zombies' increased virulence as villains versus traditional shambling zombies, but to changes in what we fear as a culture. This fast zombie is never a dead person risen from the grave, but someone infected with a rage virus (28 Days Later), a mutation of rabies (Quarantine), or something similar. Even I Am Legend, (2007) which was based on a book about vampires, was transmuted into a movie about zombies caused by a faulty cure for cancer.

I've heard theories that zombies are a personification of people's fear of meaninglessness, but I think a greater, less existential fear has taken over: the fear of science. This is similar to the proliferation of nuclear mutation films in the 1950s. With all the current talk of pandemics and biological warfare, disease is in the front of everyone's mind, and corruption of the body is one of the most personal and intense fears a person can have. What is the fear of death if not a fear of betrayal by one's body, of pain? Combine this with a distrust of government and you get Quarantine.

Acting: A
Movie: B
Marketing: C-