Oh Hai George

As some of you might know, the ponytailed national (turned Canadian) treasure is responsible for my favorite film of all time, a little slice of zombie mayhem and mall madness known as Dawn of the Dead. Regarding the rest of his filmography, I can simply say it’s a mixed trick-or-treating pillow case from an economically challenged neighborhood, filled with some tasty, if cheaper store-brand candy, slick but tasteless Good ‘N Plenty, and a heavy percentage of frustrating Milk Duds.

To give a brief summary of my estimation of the Dead sextology, so you know where I’m coming from in reviewing Survival:

Night: Classic, brutal, groundbreaking and still effective. The modern horror movie.

Dawn: I hug it once a day, just so that it knows I still love everything about it.

Day: Though it's grown on me over the years, I still declare Day to be overrated and kind of obnoxious, filled with good ideas (Dr. Frankenstein), amazingly crafted zombies, and a batch of characters I would like to shoot myself

Land: Underrated, the kind of film that gets progressively better for me on repeat viewings. Once I got over my initial excitement-met-with-disappointment in the theaters, I’ve been able to watch this much more objectively to say it’s far more relevant and better made than I had initially thought

Diary: A mess, but not as embarrassing (in my estimation) as others make it out to be. I like the idea of going back to the start with a comparably low budget and believe it or not, I even like some of the themes. Unfortunately, Romero insists on molding said themes into a giant orb and bashing us over the head with it via a bland and awful narrator.

And thusly do we enter 2009’s Survival of the Dead, a continuation of sorts of Diary that mixes shambling “deadheads” with feuding Irish clans off the coast of Delaware (I’m serious). Let us begin.

Quick Plot: AWOL from the National Guard, Sarge (Diary cameo-er Alan Van Sprang) and a few of his cohorts decide to follow a suspicious ‘Net (yup, the same entity that robbed Sandra Bullock of her identity in 1995) advertisement to an island paradise off the coast of...Delaware (cue Wayne’s World clip of "Hi! I'm in...Delaware"). 

En route, the team picks up a moody, if efficient teenager and lands at the dock. Not surprisingly, they meet some opposition from both zombies and humans, in this case, Patrick O’Flynn, an exiled old man looking to send some trouble the way of his former home. I think. 

Anyway, a fairly interesting boat escape sends our gang on a ferry, O’Flynn hopping onboard to give proper directions to the oddly leprechaun-less island. Romero starts to have a little fun setting up the strange society fashioned by O’Flynn’s rival, Seamus Muldoon. Where O’Flynn had attempted to purge his land of all the undead, shooting any soul with gray skin, Muldoon sought to preserve all victims in their former state with the hopes that one day, some smart Frankensoul might discover a cure.

Such a conflict is interesting in itself, especially when we get a peek at chained zombie mailmen delivering some bills and undead farmers fruitlessly plowing the fields. Yes, it’s ridiculous for a rotting corpse to maintain enough tension in her body to ride a horse for three weeks (don’t those ankles give out, Mr. Romero?) but I honestly don’t mind a seasoned, somewhat bored filmmaker trying out new tricks with the genre he created.

Of course, ‘not minding’ the idea of experimentation doesn’t mean anything when it’s executed so poorly. Survival is a weirdly awful film, one that tries to be funny without telling any good jokes, then attempts to make a statement by forcing its who-cares narrator (another narrator? HAVE YOU LEARNED NOTHING FROM DIARY OF THE DEAD???) to deliver a lazy diatribe on What It All Means. The final image of Survival is interesting; it didn’t have to explain itself.

You can understand the uncomfortably picklish Catch-22 Mr. Romero has found himself in. For forty years, film fans have been crying for more zombie movies, but by most accounts, Romero ended that era with Day of the Dead. He found new ground with Land then, I imagine, realized he was out of gas once more. Rebooting the zombie myth with Diary made sense...it was just poorly done. So now, at the age of 70, everybody's favorite newly declared expat seems to say "Whatever. I like Westerns. They like zombies. Here's my compromise." The attitude is refreshing. The film is not.

By far, the worse thing about Survival is not necessarily its acting--none of which is particularly good, but hey: Romero’s always been more about presence than performance--but the ridiculous broad nature of its characters. It’s fine to have a diverse cast, but not when each is defined by their ‘thing.’ You know you’re in a bad low budget film, for example, not when there’s a lesbian character, but when said lesbian insists on telling you with every line of dialogue that she likes to have sex with women. Are all lesbians as horny as they come off in bad horror movies?

High Points

Considering the vast use of stereotypes to define virtually every character onscreen, I’ll give Romero minor credit for having a spunky Irish brunette that wasn't named, as most spunky Irish brunettes in film are, Kate. Also, it would have been so easy to add a leprechaun so you know...restraint.

At first, "Survival" of the Dead seems like an arbitrary word pulled from a dictionary to replace the already used times of day in the title. However, I will say that it actually fits the film and its storyline. So that's something.

Low Points

I don't want to hop on the boo-hoo-CGI train, especially since I think most of the Survival zombie kills looked fine. But did the first major headshot have to be more digitalized than something out of Left For Dead?

SPOILERS

I understand that ever since Barbra whined her way through the farmhouse and silly Judy went up in flames, George Romero has attempted to atone for Night's not-too-bright-or-brave female characters. Still, aside from Gaylen Ross's Franny, has there ever been a realistic or likable woman to survive his dead films? Making your female tough doesn't make her real, a trend continued here with the ridiculous, bland, and aggressively butch (and obviously named) Tomboy, played by Athena Karkanis (Saw IV-VI).

THUS ENDETH SPOILERS

Lessons Learned

With that, just in case you didn't know, this movie taught me that lesbians dig hot chicks

Handguns do indeed work after being submerged in water

People who grow up in Alabama will not in any way develop a trace of a deep Southern accent. Perhaps it's beaten out of you in the National Guard

Um. Zombies bite people. Just in case you forgot, despite living on an island with them for three months


Killing yourself is a one way ticket to hell

There is a magical Irish-filled isle off the coast of Delaware where all inhabitants dress like John Wayne or extras in the Oregon Trail

Rent/Bury/Buy

I so wanted to like, or at least not mind this film. Sigh. Maybe hybrid fans of cheesy Saturday morning Westerns and old school zombies will get the humor. I didn't. Then again, I do believe Romero, unlike someone more stuck in a bygone era of filmmaking like Argento, has a weird Cassandra-like power of making movies that look and feel better twenty years down the road. I do indeed cite Land (now 5 years old) as a prime example of a film that is simply stronger with so much time between its initial release. Perhaps Survival will follow?

So do I recommend the film? I can't tell you not to watch it:it's a Romero zombie movie for goodness sake. But be prepared to be baffled. Those who simply hate the idea of a childhood hero now slumming in a weird land of make believe may want to skip it. Better yet, if you were a Star Wars fan who considers the prequels to be dangerous to your health, then avoid Survival of the Dead. At the same time, you're a curious movie fan who needs to open Pandora's box. Maybe it won't be that bad. For you.


--

Mass Transit Massacre

Rescue Mission Activate!
As some of you know and others don't care about, I spent the last year or so contributing to Pop Syndicate, a recently renovated website that lost all its past content (and writers). The following article appeared in 2009 and since you can't find it anywhere else in InterWorld, I'm rerunning it here. Apologies for the deja vu.

While riding the subway this morning, I experienced the occasional misfortune of hearing the sudden click followed by a very brief decrescendo. Once again, I had forgotten to charge my iPod. This being rush hour in one of the largest cities in the world, too many people were blocking my view of the new tet-heavy Dunkin' Donuts advertisement and I lacked the arm room to reach inside my bag for a book. What you ask, was a bored, half awake, rather irritable horror fan to do with only the screeching sounds of train tracks for entertainment?

Movie-filled imagination action, that's what. I've seen my share of bloodfests and know that the only thing scarier than watching someone die a painful death is realizing that the victim could be me, and the only thing more relaxing is realizing that it could be my enemy. And so, for those dark hours spent in mass transit (commonly known here as 7-9 AM and 4-7 PM), I present a few mind games to keep you sane and safe from boredom, danger, and the urge to kill the gum snapping secretary leaning on the center pole you can only grip with a pinky. Basically, you picture her death (and your subsequent survival) in your head via one of these scenarios:

Final Destination Destinies

The great thing about this growing franchise is that it gives paranoid obsessives like me an endless supply of things to fear. If a tanning booth and Slurpee can kill you, is there anything that can't? While your train is generally not stocked with life-threatening hazards (at least until the recession starts hitting mass transit budgets, that is), everyone around you is constantly at risk should Death draws their Metro card. 

That teenager applying mascara sitting next to the old man with an umbrella? Double eye gouging. The Mariachi band strumming away for spare change? One rough turn and those guitar strings could slice open a neck. An Mp3 player malfunctions to make some poor podcast listener's eardrums burst, sending a chunk straight into another commuter’s throat. A little boy munching on a peanut butter sandwich gets sick on the allergic man sitting nearby. He forgot to pack his  emergency kit. 

Anything could happen. Limits, thy name is not Tony Todd.

  

Battle Royale, Rush Hour Style

I can't think of many scenarios more awful than being whisked away to a deserted island, choked with a metallic and explosive collar, and forced to kill my friends and acquaintances. While I've been known to throw darts at blown up high school yearbook photos of cheerleaders back in my day, the idea of me having to kill--possibly with my own hands--is incredibly disturbing. 

At 8 AM on a Tuesday, however, that changes. State sanctioned murder is far more appealing when your bottom is dangling off a hard plastic seat because some sullen teenager next to you is comfortably stretching his legs in ways that would make my mother blush. Go ahead and airlift our subway car to the wilderness of Japan, fully fitted with danger zones and sharp rocks. I'll accept that AK47 or turn my government-issued pot lid into a neck-slicing apparatus if it means surviving in place of the irresponsible cyclist with a 10-speed standing on my foot.

The challenge here is twofold: 1) how do I survive when unarmed and wearing heels and 2) who's my real competition? Look around that car. Judge your fellow passengers. That skinny housewife may seem like a mouse, but imagine her fighting to defend the two kids she has in tow. Then size up the rugrats for further competition. For all you know, that fat college kid has no soul while the body builder's smoking habit will blast his endurance. Think hard. Just don't stare. Remember, the less people that believe the game is real, the higher your chances are for fictionally killing them without a fight. Plus, it’s rude.

Jason Takes Manhattan (or whatever metropolis you may inhabit)

Anyone who's seen the terrible/awesome eighth installment of Friday the 13th knows that Mr. Voorhees has no qualms about jumping a turnstile. Problem is, how can you possibly thwart him once the doors are closed? It's easy enough to use innocent bystanders as human shields in this scenario, providing your conscience can handle it. During rush hour, a machete can hack its way through quite a few grumpy suits, many of whom may prefer a fast death to another day at the office. Really, you’d be doing the a favor.

Eventually, however, you'll probably be forced to confront Crystal Lake’s number one hockey fan. Depending on which installment you consider to be genuine canon, the method of putting old JV out for a while may include a little electricity. One possible escape from certain death would be to lure Jason onto the third rail, but this is an ambitious plan that requires you to stay alive long enough to disembark the train and hope for the right chance to push. Too ambitious? Would you rather focus on saving your skin and leaving the dirty work to the pretty virgin you have befriended?

Sorry, but that's just as good as suicide. Nobody survives Jason; you die or kill him temporarily until the next series’ entry or your contract expires. Still, if you truly doubt your potential for ending a 90 minute massacre yourself, you could focus on escape.

My plan would be to run through the cars until an MTA policeman, seeing an easy ticket to fill his quota, takes action. By the time Jason catches up, I should be able to rile the law enforcer enough to merit a backup call. If nothing else, a few of NY's Finest will buy me time to cross the platform and hop on the express.

Urban Vampire Slayage

Subways--at least the ones that remain underground--seem like the perfect place for a blood-sucking night prowler to get his hunt on, what with the artificial lighting and a constant flow of diverse meals-in-heels. I doubt the more experienced vampires would feast during such high profile times as rush hour, but every group has its showoff. 

Your mission is to identify the carnivorous commuter and plan the much-harder-than-it-sounds disposal of said fiend. Remember the totally kickass subway fight between Spike and the 1970s slayer during Buffy’s fifth season? 

You probably won’t have that (unless you’re imbued with super strength, at which point you should have a better job than one that requires you to ride a death trap on tracks five days a week). Part of the game here is angles and tools. First, locate a weapon. A stray cane could work as a stake, or perhaps your odds are better of grabbing a schoolgirl’s pencil box and hoping she recently used her sharpener. From there, it’s all about locating the heart and finding the space to put enough force behind your stabbing. I’m sure physics has something to do with it.

Did I forget an important step? One that Sunnydale’s own heroine never mastered in seven years? The actual identification process is, of course, its own challenge. How do you spot a vampire at the start or end of your day, when your eyes are barely open enough to see the living things in front of you? Do you look for the palest person in your car, or is that just plain racist? Decide what makes a vampire and cautiously go from there.

I suppose you could transfer this game to other filmic villains as well. Any unibrowed figures hiding from the full moon, their necks absent of silver jewelry? Body snatching pod people lacking any sense of human emotion in their eyes? Henry-esque sociopaths trying to blend in or a separated conjoined twin clutching his basket/briefcase/backpack a little too closely, as if it may be housing a raging claymation Belial? New York City boasts an average of 5 million people riding the subway on any given weekday; the odds are pretty high that at least one of them is either a monstrous killer or misunderstood murderer you’ve seen the likes of before.

and of course, when all else fails, the Classic Zombie Contingency Commute

When a guy squeezes into the seat next to you smelling like the undead, you're rarely pleased, but if you're a zombie fan tired of reading the same ad for 20 minutes, you can at least be inspired. Forget, for a moment, the fact that the poor man hasn't showered since George Romero made a good movie and pretend instead that his rotting odor is the result of a crashed satellite, voodoo inspired resurrection or nuclear waste spillage. How much time do you have before his eyes open wide in search of a high protein snack?

As Max Brooks has pointed out, straphangers are pretty much the equivalent of canned sardines if stuck underground during an uprising--except, of course, these canned sardines taste really really good. Emergency exits don't provide much in the way of realistic refuge, but no zombie fan worth his or her weight in edible brains would give up so quickly; if nothing else, suicide must be improvised to minimize pain. That in itself is no easy task.

For those with stronger fighting spirit, however, the Zombie Survival Game is never more challenging than when played on the Metro. Can you swing that briefcase with enough force to successfully bash in every stench's head before they corner you? Should you spend time trying to free up a pole for pointed attacks, or is it better to just use it for leverage in getting a nice running kick at the right angle? Your chances are fairly slim, but daily brainstorming may very well prepare you to at least last long enough to make it to the next stop for a transfer. 

So what do you think, fellow commuting time killers with slightly psychotic tendencies? Is it wrong to imagine the guy holding open the automatic doors decapitated by his own sense of entitlement, or do morals evaporate when you’re stuck under the armpit of a fellow traveler in inexplicable train traffic while a bebop group sings out of tune?

Friday Festivus!

Palavr!

Say it loud and there's music playing. Say it soft and it's like quieter music playing. But type it in your browser and it's a kickass party so epic, the police were called...to bring more beer.

Many of you remember the virtual hangout that was Pop Syndicate, home to popping podcasts, my Friday column, and some of the best forum discussions on the 'net (ouch. sorry, I just watched Survival of the Dead and my lingo may be a little...old). Due to some unpleasantness, The Powers That Be have since launched Palavr, a new virtual playground now open all day and night.


What you'll find at this jumpin' joint:

-Podcasts, podcasts, and more podcasts, including Outside the Cinema, the Gentlemen's Guide to Midnite Cinema, ShowShow, Night of the Living Podcast, Chinstroker vs. Punter, the me-visiting Girls On Film Radio, and the me co-hosted GleeKast, plus oodles more audio pleasure


-Forums, forums, and more forums, both for above listed podcasts and general topics. I don't lie when I say the people at Palavr are some of the funnest, sharpest, and welcoming Internet identities out there and trading movie recommendations, America's Next Top Model predictions and sandwich recipes with them is truly a joy. Best of all, you get email notifications when your posts are responded to, meaning you can stay current without all the work involved in favoriting a page. Yes, I'm normally that lazy


-More stuff coming, including more polls and blogs and frogs and dogs and bears and chickens and...whatever (yes, direct quote from The Muppets Take Manhattan) so sign up and stay in the loop!

Also new this week:

The September issue of Rogue Cinema , an indie-filmcentric webzine that features my latest reviews of four films:


-Aliens vs. homeless vs. archeologists vs.Tom Savini in the action/sci-fi/horror Unearthed 

-Evil twin/sleazy science teacher slashing in Sage Bannick's The Absent 

and two shorts:


-Davide Melini's visually striking The Sweet Hand of the White Rose 

-Todd Miro's effective little haunted house yarn, Enter the Dark 

Did I forget something? I DID.


Before you head to the beach to fight piranhas, Eli Roth and the heat on this holiday weekend, allow me to announce the winner of my way-back contest. To start, I loved reading each and every recommendation. I can't thank my contributors enough for insisting--all with great reason--I watch some classic and not-so-classic (Alone In the Dark, here we come!) films immediately. As promised, I will be reviewing every film recommended, complete with publishing your responses. Some may take a little longer to find, but rest assured, September and October will see them all viewed and reviewed!


As for the winner(s), I can honestly say I've never had to do anything harder in my life. Sure, crossing over a roller coaster track in a closing Korean amusement park when the exit was locked was intimidating, but this was just cruel. How could I choose when all these responses made me smile, laugh, and feel terribly inadequate for not watching more movies?


Hence, I'm declaring two winners, a pair that made me feel as though I was missing out on one of the true genre classics. 

To Shiftless Jeff and Ghoul Friday (writer/artist of http://www.ghoulfriday.com/ )  I salute you. A care package will be sent your way once I find the appropriate goodies and figure out what days the nearest post office is open after my work hours.


And as for a preview of upcoming reviews, the following films are coming up:


House By the Cemetery
Psycho II
Terror Train
The Eye AND The Eye 2 (thanks Barb)
Street Trash
The Omega Man
Sugar Hill
Silent Running
Riki-Oh
Tenebrae
Alone In the Dark (the Tara Reid with a bun one)
The Abominable Dr. Phibes
Blood Feast
The Wolfman
Ringu
Wrong Turn 2
Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance


Deep breath folks! We've a long road ahead of us.

Melissa George Has a Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day

I love a film like Triangle. Loopy, mind-bending, refreshingly ambitious and well made. I want you to watch it, plain and simple. And for that reason, what follows will be a spoiler-free (save for my Low Point) review.

Don’t say I never give you nothing.

Quick Plot: Single mom waitress (is there any other kind when it comes to indie films?) Jess (Melissa George) heads to a Florida harbor to spend a warm afternoon on a boat with a prospective laid-back rich boy beau (think Noah from the latter seasons of Beverly Hills 90210) and his small assortment of richer friends. The birds are flying, the sun’s as bright as a baked potata and it sure seems like a shaboinkle day.

Cue the sudden drop of wind and entrance of some very angry clouds. A storm quickly rages, capsizing the vacationing crew and leaving them stranded in the middle of a very blue ocean. Things look grim until a giant cruiser cruises by. The gang board but quickly sense something is very off...mainly the fact that nobody seems to be anywhere.

Triangle is a smart film but not, as some would have you think, a total mind trip intent on driving you insane. I imagine those who call it such are the same people who claim Inception doesn’t make sense on its first viewing. It leaves you with a boatful of questions, both moral and logical, but at the same time, the storytelling is intense enough to keep your mind in gear. We don’t always know exactly what’s going on, but we’re involved enough with Jess to follow her as she figures it out. 

Most excitedly, Triangle is kind of scary. This isn’t a necessarily movie designed to give you nightmares, but there are plenty of earned jumps and since you’re so focused on trying unraveling the mystery, they genuinely do grab you. Maybe it’s just the natural offness of the creepy Town That Dreaded Sundown baghead mask.

Writer/director Christopher Smith is probably best known for the horror comedy Severance,  a film I thoroughly enjoyed even if it never quite reached Shaun of the Dead heights. With Triangle, he goes in a very different direction, offering a Twilight Zone-esque story with interesting moral implications. At times, it’s frustrating, but the script holds up through the end and proves to be tighter and more provocative than we’re led to belive.

Also, it must be said, Triangle is a gorgeous, gorgeous film. The early scenes on the water build a grand picture of being stuck at sea, while the set design and photography of the ship offer an interesting and almost ironically claustrophobic feel so fitting to the actual plot. Smith was clearly making some nods to The Shining, and while some references are a tad too cute (Room 237, for instance) the idea works well to establish a place that just isn’t right.

High Points

While I always liked the fact that Melissa George worked a lot in the horror genre, I’ve never really had a reason to think much of her acting abilities. In Triangle, she’s pretty fantastic, believably inhabiting a role that proves far more complicated than we initially think

I’ve grown rather tired of the old single-mom-with-special-needs-child ploy to instantly grab some sympathy for a female lead, but Triangle manages to make this cliche work, both due to George’s performance and some of the minor plot kinks. We genuinely want Jess to get home and pick up poor Tommy at the bus stop

Yes I loved the visuals of Triangle and while I don’t want to just gush at every major feature of the film, I’ll also throw out a compliment to the haunting piano score

Low Points

This is the only part of this post where I’ll delve into spoiler territory, so close your eyes, jump down one, and I’ll be there:

One of my biggest pet peeves in cinema is the irresponsible driver, the character--more often than not, a parent--who continuously turns his or her head at an obtuse angle to speak to whatever passenger (usually a child) is sitting comfortably in the back. Every single time this happens on camera, I throw up my hands and expect, without any doubt, to see a mack truck in the foreground speed towards our supposed protagonist’s windshield. Every. Single. Time. Not too surprisingly, Triangle is guilty of such a crime, odd considering how tense and alert Jess should be at this point in the story

END OF SPOILERS

Lessons Learned

When planning on fixing up two of your friends, you should probably confirm that one half of the prospective couple isn’t planning on bringing his own date to the communal event

Florida is home to quite a few almost Australians

Wedge heels can be quite inconvenient, particularly when your day will, without almost any doubt, include a whole lot of running

Rent/Bury/Buy 

I was prompted to watch by the ominous red front warning from Netflix that Triangle will no longer be streaming, plus a year’s worth of quiet hype the film had built in the genre community. Boy am I glad I listened. Triangle is the kind of film I love, one that takes a familiar premise but gives it a fresh spin. It’s an engrossing, challenging, and highly entertaining watch that most genre and in general, film fans will at least respect. A definite rental, and considering its complexity, an easy rewatch that warrants a buy.