As If the Subway System Wasn't Horrible Enough, Now There's ...

If you’ve followed news in the horror world last summer, you may recall the release drama of The Midnight Meat Train. Produced by Lions Gate and based on a Clive Barker short story, this film was intended for a full theatrical release before being yanked for less-than-desired showings in a handful of dollar theaters across the States. Barker barked and horror devotees complained. Saw V and The Strangers took the blame. Was this another case of shafting original horror to showcase easy money sequels and remakes?


It pains me to say this, but The Midnight Meat Train is not the long lost gem we hoped for. It’s skillfully made by director Ryuhei Kitamura, with clean visuals and more than adequate performances. The basic plot and setting offer oodles of potential. And yet, for the entire running time, I found myself becoming more and more frustrated with everything that was and wasn’t onscreen.


Quick Plot: In an unnamed city, struggling vegetarian photographer Leon (Bradley Cooper) learns from the wisdom of famed art dealer Brooke Shields that in order to break out, he needs to take pictures of truly disturbing content without turning away. She knows this, of course, because of her early experiences with the famed Basquiat (we knew Shields was a child star and went to Princeton, but did you also know she also discovered one of NY’s greatest street artists when she was an adventurous 14 year old?).

Leon takes her advice and hits the streets, focusing mainly on the immaculately clean subway. As luck would have it, a few thugs are attempting to rape a pretty young woman right in perfect view of Leon’s non digital camera (and the very conveniently placed security CCTV). Leon has his shot and the woman is on her way to a conveniently patient late night train. The next day, Leon discovers a newspaper story chronicling her disappearance. A visit to the cops involves weird double speak and somehow inspires Leon on a vigilante mission to uncover this mystery, much to the chagrin of his far too understanding girlfriend.

Enter the Forrest Gumpish Vinnie Jones as the best dressed serial killer in mass transit. Sadly, he’s also the blandest, wearing a dull scowl that couldn’t be farther from the charismatic psychopath of The Condemned or even his supporting work in X-Men 3.

Deep sigh.


The Midnight Meat Train is not the worst film you’ll see, but I found it to be an incredibly disheartening film experience. 103 minutes isn’t long, but when extended stretches are devoted to empty montages, it feels like eternity (sort of the difference between an express and local train). The title calls back to something gritty and mean, like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but the film’s primary problem is just how clean it is. I’ve never seen a subway that shines with such regularly applied stainless steel cleaner and the digitalized gore is so noticeably unreal, none of the violence lands until the very last scene. By then, it’s a little too late to reinvest.


High Points
Surprisingly enough, the romance between Cooper and Leslie Bibb is quite believable and affectionate, providing a solid emotional base for the finale to land

Low Points
...but the fully clothed sex scene is supposed to do what exactly?



Cooper is fine enough as Leon, but his insanely fast slide into insanity? obsession? paranoia? is so messily done that it’s hard to really want to follow him on his increasingly dumb endeavors underground

Early in the film, Leon talks about how he pulls so much inspiration from the big bad city. That’s fine and mood-setting, but it would certainly help if the city WE see wasn’t drenched in shiny blue coloring. Of course, we could also SEE the city rather than the ridiculously clean metro and one friendly steakhouse


Until the last act, there is nothing actually frightening happening. We don’t know any of the victims, so seeing an extra or two sitting on a train and then get chopped up by a computer effect simply has no emotional impact

Lessons Learned
The only way to survive an encounter with Vinnie Jones is to first sell him candy


Searching for keywords on microfiche is much easier and faster than using Google


Never assist your friends in breaking into a rundown motel where a homicidal butcher allegedly lives; the consequences are just not fun

Bloody floors are incredibly slippery


Rent/Bury/Buy
I really wanted to like this movie but as seen in my extensive low points, that’s far too difficult to do. The performances are better than average and the final scene does start to get interesting, but the coldly empty blood and story inanity is just not enjoyable. How, for example, would any city’s subway system still be functioning if multiple straphangers disappear EVERY SINGLE NIGHT? I’m not one to nitpick plot details, but when the core concept seems so unruly, it just makes everything else that much more glaringly careless. That being said, those of you with a genuine interest in visual design of modern horror may find this particular approach interesting. It’s different and definitely made by someone with artistic vision; I just don’t think that style fits the nature of this film in the least.

The Truest Test of Endurance

.Last week, I considered the lack of obesity in horror films. Despite their tendencies to consume heavy amounts of calorie laden beer and hungry inspiring drugs, most victims in standard releases still maintain a striking physical resemblance to catalog models. At the same time--and much more realistically--most lack the endurance to last long against giant madmen, black magic enhanced hunters, or highly infectious carnivores. 

Hence, this week I look at a few films that cleverly cast characters with the physical aptitude to fight off your typical horror villains. Not all survive and not all the films are any good, but each deserves a little credit for amassing some worthy warriors. 

Mulberry Street

This surprisingly good After Dark series entry brings the fast vampiric zombie sub-genre into the streets of Manhattan. Not the most revolutionary premise, but Mulberry Street does earn some innovative points for the diversity--both in age and ethnicity--of its featured cast. Middle aged immigrants, elderly hermits, and a few believable teens make a refreshingly real cast, but it’s the skillful integration of physical fitness into everyday New Yorkers that gives some impressive action. Credit goes to writers Nick Damici and Jim Mickle for finding creative ways to smoothly squeeze athletic characters into the story. A retired boxer, recent Iraq war veteran, and beefy bouncer can hold their own against rat-bitten barflies. And while it’s always fun to watch regular folks torn apart by infected cannibals, seeing the victims put up a kickass fight is far more rewarding.

Jeepers Creepers 2

Dead teenager films are more common than me getting angry at Emmy snubs, but rarely do the adolescent victim bodies prove to be worth more than their Gap provided wardrobe. Victor Salva’s followup to the surprisingly spry Jeepers Creepers strands a busload of high school basketball players and the least perky cheerleading squad in cinema history on a dusty mountain road, where a very hungry monster is busy cramming in his supper before a 23 year hibernation. While the premise sets up the possibility of teamwork and game plans, the endgame is far less interesting as the kids would rather squabble with thinly veiled racism than apply court lessons to a man-eating creature. 

Tremors

Don’t let the fluffy haired era of Kevin Bacon’s early career fool you. Whether it’s a strict Baptist city council or the power of Meryl Streep, America’s most ubiquitous actor is a force to be reckoned with. When backed by NRA poster couple Michael Gross and Reba MacEntire, Alcatraz ex-con Fred Ward, and surprisingly adept practical pole vaulter Finn Carter, gigantic prehistoric earthworms don’t stand a chance. 

Dog Soldiers, The Descent, Doomsday

Does Neil Marshall get partial financing from Bally’s Total Fitness or that guy outside my subway that hands out postcards every morning for a three week bootcamp? From highly trained soldiers to fully ripped spelunkers to plague surviving action heroes, each of his genre films has featured a fully fit cast ready to fight back against any threat, whether it comes in the form of werewolves, cavemen, or cannibalistic punks. Sure, the body count is high in all three films, but nobody goes down without first inflicting serious damage. 

Nightmare on Elm Street Part 4

When it comes to teenagers, Freddy Krueger has predictable tastes. He likes ‘em young, pretty, and generally ectomorphic. Occasionally, he takes a break from Seventeencover girls and slim pretty boys to hunt tougher prey, such as the dive team champ of Part 5. In Renny Harlin’s fourth installment, Freddy hits the gym and zeros in on some of the fittest adolescents ever seen in 1990s cinema. There’s the muscleman Kincaid, whose clearly been bulking up after nearly losing his life in Part 3, and a karate kid wannabe with a sadly inadequate training regime, plus a Kafka-esque kill which I regularly use to justify my aversion to toning. Sure, Freddy also cheats his diet a bit to eat some pizza and a few weaker pickings (like the asthmatic science nerd and 90 pound weakling that can’t even beat up a water bed), but all that filler ultimately leads up to a showdown with a physically/mentally/spiritually empowered wallflower who finds her inner Karate Kid Part III. Hilary Swank salutes you.

Resident Evil

Some filmgoers can only watch so many decaying corpses feed on helpless living creatures before it just gets old. In this era of Z-Day Awareness, we horror fans want our living dead to be challenged and our survivors to be smart. Thankfully, Raccoon City is fully equipped with resourceful SWAT teams able to navigate (somewhat) Cube-esque slicing traps and hordes of hungry zombies. By the sequel, heroine Alice gets enough biogenetic enhancements to conquer a newly bred man-beast with power that would make Mark Maguire strike out with envy. The third film does one better by turning Alice into such a machine that no fast running flesh eater or post-apocalyptic hillbilly stands a chance. More importantly, Alice gets her own posse in the form of a battle scarred caravan. None are particularly badass (nor is the film particularly good), but at least they fight well enough to convince us why they’ve survived a few rounds of good old fashioned noshing.

So hit the gym, drink your protein shakes, and add a few of your own well-trained horror casts that make those bad guys work for their dinner. 

Death By Disco (& Blue Sunshine)

In twenty years, I imagine my generation will be suffering from poor ipod damaged hearing, widespread carpel tunnel syndrome, a terribly warped Michael Bayesque interpretation of physics, and a grab bag of other physical impediments brought about by the current daily doings of the 21st century.


That may be a pretty dim view of the future, but at least we won’t have to deal with the after effects of Blue Sunshine.


Made in 1976 by Squirm director Jeff Lieberman, Blue Sunshine is a product of its time and for once, that’s a good thing. The 60s were over. Joplin, Hendrix, and Morrison were dead. Love beads were crushed and made into disco balls (right?). Peace and love looked antique and drugs were now about escape rather than freedom. Since Reefer Madness proved to be more a great movie to get high to than a warning about drugs, it was time for a real horror about the consequences of doing illegal drugs.


Quick Plot: A swinging cabin party comes to a halt when Fran the Man’s hair is revealed to be...gone! The sudden baldness unleashes a fury in the smooth-voiced photographer, who promptly tosses a few wallflowers into the fireplace. Poor Jerry (Zalman King, the future maestro behind Showtime's late night The Red Shoe Diaries), an underachieving, quickly aging Cornell alumnus, is a little too slow to save the ladies and too fast to kill Fran without seeming guilty of the rest of the murders (because running away sometimes can do that). Jerry goes on the lam with a little help from his girlfriend and doctor pal. Meanwhile, a few other thirtysomethings of varying economic and professional status display signs of anger mismanagement and Rogaine prescriptions.

As Jerry attempts to find some evidence clearing his name, he slowly unearths a weird little mystery involving Stanford, LSD, politicians, baldness, and rage. This is where Blue Sunshine both shines and gets cloudy. The opening scenes are effectively staged, with the initial killing so manic, you can’t help but feel unsettled. As more characters are slowly introduced with foreshadowing symptoms--a pining castoff wife in need of Pantene, a parrot owning policeman with a tense wife and pudding stealing kdis--we get the sense that something very bad will befall this bevy. Unfortunately, the film is far more concerned with the fugitive aspect of the story, following Jerry’s mission and barely skimming the surface of what’s happening to these people as they descend into manic fits of homicidal rage.

It’s a little bit of Romero’s The Crazies, but slicker and with an added detective angle that never quite takes the film where it needs to go. The idea of these now powerful former recreational drug users becoming ticking time bombs is frightening, especially when we see just how insane they will eventually become. I enjoyed Blue Sunshine quite a bit, which is probably why it feels more of a letdown in the end. A strong opening, a great concept, and some true skill makes it worth a watch, just not the true cult classic I was hoping to find.


High Points
The instrumental score utilizes everything from bells to trombones, and all of it is incredibly effective


I’m no doctor, but I imagine surgery is something that should be carried out by well-rested professionals in a relaxed and ‘indoor voiced’ kind of mood. Hence, the tense operation scene, in which we as the audience are just waiting for another bald rampage, is truly suspenseful


The steady build of bratty babysitting charges taunting the slowly unwinding Wendy is wonderfully built up and even better delivered

Low Points
The abrupt ending followed by fake epilogue text feels rushed and stunted, especially when there are too many characters’ whose fates are left hanging


Zalman King’s performance is far too moodily odd to be the likable leading man we follow and cheer for, something Lieberman acknowledges in his critique of his own directing choices in the commentary track. It’s not that every film needs a vanilla intentioned Will Smith type, but it’s just too hard to root for a character too awkward to like (and I swear my taste has nothing to do with my aversion to men in Christmas reindeer sweaters)

Lessons Learned
When you’re feeling lonely, desperate, and bald, have some coffee

Nothing says senatorial fundraiser like a Frank Sinatra and Barbara Streisand marionette performance


When trying to dress incognito, avoid wearing cowgirl hats, dangly earrings, pinstriped coats, and gigantic sunglasses. Not only will you NOT blend in; you’ll also look rather stupid (except to bodyguards, who will be inexplicably turned on)

“If you jerk, it won’t work.” Sound advice for firing a gun and everything else in life


Stray Observation
If a man ever asked me out on a first date to a marionette emceed discotech called Big Daddy’s and located in a shopping mall, I would probably marry him

Rent/Bury/Buy
As I compiled my High Points, I realized what worked and what didn’t: individual scenes of transformations scored to unique sound design = great. The overall story that limps with the lead and ends without addressing the main issue? Not so much. Blue Sunshine is a fascinating film, with a great premise that should have been seized upon more in the 70s. There are some aspects, such as the score and infamous disco climax, that are truly well done and/or incredibly entertaining. At the same time, the films is certainly lacking a strong focus as it loses its footing towards the second half. Still, it’s worth a watch for its uniqueness alone. The DVD includes a very self-critical commentary track and interview with Lieberman, along with a short film I didn’t get a chance to watch. Give it a try and share your thoughts. Just don't lick the box or anything. Your hair looks great the way it is.

Unhealthy Horror

At a recent Shadow Box performance of Repo! The Genetic Opera (chalk it up to research/ my addiction to seeing Anthony Stuart Head in leather on the big screen) I noticed the general unhealth of the genre fans around me. Perhaps it’s the unflattering fit of pleather, fishnets, and pre-shrunk t-shirts, but glance at any midnight movie or convention line and it’s hard to feel confident in the event of a surprise field day (though conversely, it does give you quite the edge in a surprise Battle Royale tournament). 

For a genre whose fanbase is often less than athletic (not to make any sweeping generalizations; I’m basing this on the unexplainable fact that nachos, beer, and chocolate covered anything tastes better when watching people eat or kill each other), you’d think that a few filmmakers would have tried their hands at addressing this issue. But despite their insatiable appetites and reluctance to exercise with any enthusiasm, zombies are generally reserved to symbolize human cruelty, apathy, societal breakdown, and stupidity, while slashers focus their lessons on premarital sex participants and users of illegal substances. Onscreen, such a definition has yet to include trans fats.

In any genre, the overweight are generally cast as comfortable furniture. In horror, they can be used to showcase creative killing (like the gluttonous spaghetti massacre of Se7en), comic relief (Dawn of the Dead’s Big & Tall swim trunks model), or to emphasize the grotesque in villains (the latest round of Texas Chainsaw Massacres). Even that perennial holiday favorite, Silent Night Deadly Night features a trim psycho killer, and that’s a film about Santa Clause, a character who has himself been accused of setting a bad example when it comes to eating habits.

I accept the whole escapist fantasy of film and television and wouldn’t expect to see a Lane Bryant model playing Friday the 13th’s next final girl. What surprises me is that, to my knowledge, there are few films that delve into obesity or the culture of weight with the same intellectual and/or horrific energy as, say, Cronenberg’s studies of the sexual body or even Ginger Snaps’ lycanthropic menstrual analogy. We like our struggles with religion, suburban psychology, and alcoholism metaphors just fine, but an ubiquitous health crisis, not so much. 

Perhaps the most obvious example of “fat horror” is Stephen King’s little loved Thinner. Sure, that film gave us a donut devouring stereotype of an antihero, but for all its incredible shrinking waistline, the horror was more focused on the diabolical power of Gypsies than the potential fright of diabetes. The recent Drag Me to Hell gave heroine Allison Lohman an interesting character history as a formerly chubby farm girl (because apparently Gypsies have some sort of vendetta against the overweight). While one message board posting I read insisted the entire demonic hunt was a representation of Lohman’s discomfort with her past, you’d have to find some pretty incredible spandex to stretch that metaphor over the whole story. 

One of the best genre pictures about dieting--and America’s obsession with making it look cook, in particular--is Larry Cohen’s quirkily genius 1985 The Stuff. Pre-dating the Atkins Diet popularity explosion by a good 18 years, this satirical riot of a horror-comedy targets American consumerism with a product eerily packaged with a logo similar to Target. Once again, the real subject is corporate advertising and our inability to resist it, but it does a decent--and thoroughly entertaining--job of considering one sector of the weight issue on camera.

So does cinema need to pork up, or am I missing a few delicious treats that explore or exploit the rotundity of the modern age? 

Potato Sack Slaughter

I’m not a spiritual person, but if there’s one thing I firmly believe, it’s that every holiday--whether it be national, religious, historical, or commercial--deserves its own horror film. Nary an Xmas has passed in my life without a hot chocolaty viewing of Jack Frost or any of the Silent Night Deadly Night films (part 2 is my favorite, since it’s really two-for-the-price-of-one in flashbacks PLUS Garbage Day, my favorite non-holiday holiday). While I’m still waiting for a Severance-like take on Secretary Appreciation Day, it does bring me patriotic pleasure to report back from the Larry Cohen penned, William Lustig directed 1997 Uncle Sam.


In case the holographic cover art didn’t give it away, this is no Saving Private Ryan. If anything, Uncle Sam is like the grouchy old guy at the family reunion who sits in the corner and complains about kids today. Then he shoves garden shears into their eye sockets.


Quick Plot: When the news of Sergeant Sam Harper’s Desert Storm death reaches his sunny hometown, most of his family and those that knew the violent soldier with a mean sadistic streak are relieved. The exception is his America, Fuck Yeah nephew Jodi, a young boy seemingly poised to follow in Sam’s army booted footprints.


Of course, Sam isn’t quite dead (although that doesn’t stop the military from leaving his coffin in the widow’s living room, blocking the television and probably making dinner parties a tad awkward). All it takes is one gang of teens and their darned flag-burning ways to raise his rotting corpse from the dead. Before you can say George Washington, our undead soldier has commandeered a red, white, and blue Sam-suit from a peeping tom to bring back patriotism and slaughter those who stand in its way.

Draft dodgers, corrupt politicians, and even recreational drug users, be warned. This is not the kindly Uncle Sam that made you feel special by pointing in your face and demanding you die for the United States. Like some sort of distant relative to Angela Baker, this Uncle Sam wants to dispose of any and every citizen unworthy of celebrating July 4th with illegal fireworks or the apparently very complicated Star Spangled Banner. What Sleepaway Camp did for summer, Uncle Sam does for Independence Day.


Which basically means makes a fairly unscary, occasionally funny 88 minute movie that’s generally forgettable save for one major conceit (SC’s shocking WTF finale and the very presence of a homicidal undead Uncle Sam).


High Points
Sure, most of the deaths are predictable, but I’m not complaining when a flagpole is utilized in not one but two fairly deserved kills

A brief conversation about the human Sam’s brutal nature hints at a darker and almost intriguing aspect to the rather one-dimensional villain


Low Points
As direct-to-DVD (or video, as this was probably one of the last VHS stalwarts) horror goes, Uncle Sam is well made enough, but that doesn’t hold up when a name like Larry Cohen is attached. While there may be some underlying themes about U.S. military violence, the deeper intelligence of films like It’s Alive and The Stuff is nowhere to be found


The supporting cast is well-stocked with names like P.J. Soles, Isaac Hayes, and Robert Forster, but no one gets much of anything to do that’s worthy of their thespian or personality skills. The exception? Timothy Bottoms, the former Bush of That’s My Bush!, with an, in hindsight, ironic role as a former hippie-turned-unpopular schoolteacher

Lessons Learned
Playing with fireworks will blind, scar, and cripple you; other side effects include inspiring your mother to dress like Miss Piggy attending a 1950s tea party

Nobody can sing the national anthem without making a mistake


When mapping out the route for a potato sack race, locating the final bend around a steep cliff is probably not the best idea


Rent/Bury/Buy
Though it features a fallen soldier, Uncle Sam ain’t Martyrs. This is a breezily goofy B-horror that flies by without offensiveness. It doesn’t have the super creative charm of, say, Killer Klowns From Outer Space, but from its behind the scenes pedigree to the finished product, it’s more watchable than other fare like Rumplestiltskin or your average backyard filmed zombie flick. The DVD includes not one but two commentaries, with discussions by Hayes, Lustig, and the always entertaining Cohen. If you enjoy cheesily slick, nowhere near scary horror, then Uncle Sam is worth a guilt-free rental but it will most likely leave a less lasting impression than a temporary tattoo forced onto you by a five-year-old at a family barbeque or the hangover you woke up with July 5th.

Oedipal Ground & Typos of Terror

Oh, Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror. How does one even begin to tackle such a perfect bacchanal of a film? Do I start with the casting of little person (and possible mini-me clone of Dario Argento) Peter Bark as cinema’s most persistent mama’s boy? How about the precariously placed bear trap resting amid a lovely mowed lawn? Or how about a random quote showing the easy 70sness of the characters: “You’re getting a raise from me all right, but it has nothing to do with money.”


With no real intro, let me offer a quick helping of photographic evidence:

Moving on...

Quick Plot: Three couples travel to a country house to visit an old, already eaten professor friend. Tossed in to much memorable effect is Bark's Michael, a turtleneck wearing preadolescent who resembles a grown up Stewie Griffin if all that trying-to-kill-his-mom business is just really intense foreplay. The opening ten minutes or so are devoted to separating each pair (useful when save for a mustache or lack of mustache, there’s not a whole lot to decipher each character) as they break off for varying levels of cuddling. Copious amounts of necking is put on hold when a gang of hungry and quite crusty zombies crash the fun, chomping their way through one poorly dubbed Italian after the next.

Is there more? Not really, but that’s what makes Burial Ground such a lasting film. Director Andrea Bianchi wastes little time in cutting through some fast nudity (I think there was an Italian law in 1981 that at least one minute of every film must contain some sort of breast) to give us the goods: shamblers, pure and simple. Sure, they break a little ground by picking up a few simple hand tools for extra power, but these are old school undead in a film that knows that’s what its audience wants.


Make no mistake: Burial Ground is not a good film. It’s terrible by 97% of most ranking criteria, from the acting to script and just about everything else. It does, however, expel all the virtues of any bad horror film with incredible watchability. Generous, creative, and sometimes well-done gore plus dialogue and character actions so dumb you almost want to develop a Human Intelligence Hormone and inject it into your DVD player make this a film you can’t help but love. While it doesn’t have any of the actual fright potential as something like Fulci’s Zombie, it does boast enough sleaze to make for a thoroughly entertaining time.


High Points
One of my biggest pet peeves in modern horror cinema is its reluctance to show anything during daylight. Compare the pure shock of seeing Leatherface bash a guy’s head in under the Texas sun with Jessica Biel’s barely lit getaway and you’ll see how well the AM hours can work when used correctly. Despite it’s title (more about that below), the heart of Burial Ground takes place with plenty of light, allowing full view of the grindhousey gore

With maggots squiggling out of holes and skin that resembles my cats’ well-used scratching post, these zombies are pleasantly rank


Low Points
The copy editor in me canot forgive two glaring errors:


1, If you’re planning on including a poetic endquote over the final still, would it kill you to give it a quick lookover to say, I don’t know, ensure the last word is spelled correctly? These nigths of terror foretold by profecies don’t proofread themselves


2. Speaking of that title: Unless you count the blink-and-you-miss-it prologue, the entire film begins around brunch and ends sometime before the next morning’s breakfast. Granted, math ain’t my forte and I’ve never been to Italy, but doesn’t an under 24 hour time frame consist of one nigth?

Lessons Learned
Wearing the antique lingerie you find somewhere in the closet of your vacation house will make you look like a little whore, but most men seem to like that


Next to zombies, the biggest danger in the Italian countryside seems to be bears


When your son walks in on you having sex with his stepfather, avoid the urge to scuttle out of bed and stand half naked for an extended time period, thus showing off your fabulous breasts. By doing so, you risk a) seriously warping an already warped child’s fetishes and b) planting an instinctive target for anything undead to chew on

Rent/Bury/Buy
Anybody with a love of zombie cinema--particularly from that rustily fabulous era spanning the 70s to early 80s--will get a genuine kick out of Burial Ground. This is not a turn-the-lights-off and watch in respectful silence kinda film; this is a movie made for Halloween parties, late nights avoiding work assignments, and background sleaze when cleaning the house. Who needs character, story, or class when you've got creatively done kills, Suspiria rip-off kills, and toupee wearing little people with fantastically vivid memories of nursing?


When this was named the July pick for Final Girl’s Film Club, I was actually quite scared (much more so than by anything in this actual film, natch). How could I begin to deliver any sort of critique or loving tribute to a film that so entertains by itself? The result: I probably didn’t, but thankfully, Stacie Ponder’s circle o’blogs surely have some other wonderful observations on the subject. Head over the the best horror blog on the web and follow some more contributers. It’s like a big virtual gang of writers that, should they all be gathered in one place, could annihilate zombies...with their words.

America, Eff Yeah (or something something)

As my fellow Americans and I prepare to gorge ourselves on hamburgers and s’mores (side note: does a s’more hamburger sound good, or am I just really hungry?), I thought it would be patriotic--or, well, timely--to round up a few installments of my favorite genre that represent some aspect of United States history. A complete timeline wasn’t possible because a) as far as I know, we’re still waiting for the proper Columbus-as-Godzilla analogy of my dreams and b) there aren’t nearly enough (that I know of) films set in the past. 

Still, I did manage to pull a few titles/notable time periods for your movie marathon. No matter what color passport you may keep, feel free to add more below. Based on some of my picks, we need all the help we can to make history not repeat itself.

Puritannia!

Truth be told, I can’t think of any great American horror films that truly capture the restrictiveness of Christian culture. Peter Weir’s brilliantly haunting Picnic At Hanging Rock does an incredible job of exploring the unnatural atmosphere of Victorian society, but, well, that classic is set in the 1900s on another British colony that begins with A. For colonial horror of a more cerebral ilk, one could check out the we’re-the-real-monsters A-list headed The Crucible, starring a horny Winona Ryder, a brooding Daniel Day Lewis, and lots of black magic loving teenagers who scream more than all Jason’s final girls combined or an entire cycle’s worth of America’s Next Top Model contestants. If so-bad-it’s-still-not-good films are your cup of tea, then sit yourself down for an MST3K zinger-ready viewing of Demi Moore’s Oscar-baiting, Razzie winning performance as Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter. It teaches some important national lessons, such as don’t have sex with priests even if they are Gary Goldman and never under any circumstances overestimate your acting ability.

Manifest Destiny

Go west, young man! And if in doubt, eat your fatter travel companions. The infamous Donnor Party of the 1840s ventured into unchartered territory by heading across the country in search of gold and good settling ground, but they’re far more remembered for their survival spirit and taste in good old fashioned American red meat. American citizen meat, that is. Short on supplies and near starvation, these ill-fated pioneers eventually began eating their fellow (dead, I believe) travelers, thus beginning our national tradition of cannibalistic antiheroes. Without them, would Anthony Hopkins have ever won an Oscar? (probably). For totally unfaithful adaptations of this event, see the well-made Ravenous or Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s Tromarrific Cannibal! The Musical. Warning: you will be singing about baked potatoes, snowmen, and trackers for weeks without fail. And you may want to eat people. I honestly don’t know which is worse. 

The Civil War

The bloodiest event in American history pitted brother against brother, North against South, and twangs against Yank speak. In terms of body count, it’s our most devastating war, although oddly enough, you won’t find a large amount of horror films addressing the subject. Near Dark adds an excellently evil layer to Lance Henrickson’s vampire by giving him a Confederate backstory (slavery supporting AND undead? shudders). One of my favorite forgotten horror anthologies, the Vincent Price starring From a Whisper to a Scream (aka The Offspring) sets its final segment during the last days of the Civil War, when a group of children orphaned by the North’s dominance find their own method of Reconstruction (hint: it involves a lot of pieces). The amateur acting is spotty, but the gritty barrenness of a war-torn society (rarely seen in the U.S. but sadly far more common elsewhere) is explored in a truly frightening way.

The 1960s

In 1968, George Romero changed American (and international) cinema with the gore-filled, hero lacking Night of the Living Dead. Aside from introducing the world to unlimited hours of entertainment in planning zombie escape plans, this little black and white horror captured a changing tide in national sentiment. The blatant acknowledgement of unequal treatment of blacks, the inefficiency of government authorities, and the disenchantment with the American heroism by the reality of Vietnam  has aged well in the 40 years since it’s midnight premiere. It won’t make you proud of this country, but it remains one of its most important cinematic milestones.

Getting depressed by the state of the red white and blue? For an all-American palette cleanser, check out 1997’s low budget, high body count Uncle Sam. Yes, it’s pretty much 85 minutes of patriotic kills using every implement you’ll touch this July 4th (flag pole? check; bbq? check; firecrackers? you get the point) and no, it’s not good. But with American heroes Isaac Hayes and Robert Forster on board, plus the most aggressive potato sack race ever put on film, you’ll get much more enjoyment than, say, watching televised fireworks scored to the Last House On the Left-like raping of John Philip Sousa’s legacy by high school marching bands.