I knew this Pre-1970 list would be interesting as I’ve not watched nearly enough classic horror. So I’ve listed all I could think of that I’ve seen. It’s embarrassing as I’m missing ALL the classic “monster” movies like Dracula, Frankenstein, etc etc (most of which will be on the Horror Channel this weekend in the U.K. FYI! I badly want to watch them all but no way will the family let me watch movies all weekend). I’ve seen one Vincent Price movie and NONE of the Hammer Horror stuff. Pathetic for a movie blogger!!
In my defence, though, I didn’t catch this stuff while growing up for some strange reason & I now have no disposable income to support this hobby. And I’m very against stealing movies so I slowly watch what I can if it becomes available to me at no extra cost. I need to get off the boring mainstream streaming services – They have a terrible selection, especially when it comes to horror or anything more than ten years old. So that’s my excuse!
So here’s my ranked list counting down to My Top Ten Pre-1970 Horror Movies:
Some I Need To Rewatch:
Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? (as mentioned above)
Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (this too)
Village Of The Damned
Spider Baby
Gaslight
The Bad Seed
I’m re-posting this now so that I can post my Army Of The Dead review tomorrow.
This is a review I did as a guest on another blog a long time ago. I’ve sadly lost contact with the people running a lot of the blogs I wrote for in the past, so I’ll be re-posting some of my favorite guest reviews here before the blogs also disappear. As this is a favorite film of mine & as I often tweet this review, it made sense to finally re-post it here after the release of Zack Snyder’s Army Of The Dead.
This was originally written for Mike at Screenkicker for the Screenkicker Olympics, a great blogathon in which people discussed something movie-related from where they grew up or where they now live. So I chose Zack Snyder’s Dawn Of The Dead to represent Wisconsin. You can read the original post HERE, which contains an intro as well but I’ll get straight to the review below…
Dawn Of The Dead (2004)
Directed by Zack Snyder
Screenplay by James Gunn
Based on Dawn of the Dead by George A Romero
Starring: Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Jake Weber, Ty Burrell, Kevin Zegers, Mekhi Phifer
Plot Synopsis: (via Wikipedia) Dawn of the Dead is a remake of George A Romero’s 1978 film of the same name. The film depicts a handful of human survivors living in a shopping mall located in the fictional town of Everett, Wisconsin surrounded by swarms of zombies.
My Opinion:
I love zombies. I loved zombies before they were cool, dammit! It’s like those Grateful Dead fans who became fans after Touch Of Grey – What do they call them? Touch Heads? Where am I going with this – I don’t even like The Grateful Dead. Well… I like that “Drivin’ that train, high on cocaine” song! And Touch Of Grey. 😉 And I’ve loved zombies since I first watched Romero’s amazing Night Of The Living Dead and then Dawn Of The Dead (1978), which is just as amazing in a different way and is now one of my all-time favorite movies. Then, in 2004, it was remade. Those who know me may have seen me ranting about how much remakes piss me off! Especially of my favorite movies. So how do I feel about Wisconsin boy Zack Snyder’s Dawn Of The Dead remake…?
I love it! There’s a shopping mall and, of course, zombies. But otherwise this feels like a whole new movie – A reimagining as opposed to an inferior copy (like the 2013 Carrie remake – it wasn’t horrible but was completely pointless). 2004’s Dawn Of The Dead gave us lots of varied characters, zombies we couldn’t outrun, a cool spot-the-celebrity-lookalike-zombie game, Disturbed, and a very different feel from the Romero zombie flicks.
I think what works for me, more than anything, are the characters in the film. They feel real. Sure you have a couple of assholes but even they feel like your typical every day assholes as opposed to the psychotic murdering rapist types you get in other post-apocalyptic movies. Okay – things have only just begun (I mean, the world goes to hell in this in just a few hours!) but I like to think we wouldn’t all turn into complete assholes quite so quickly after an apocalypse. The characters help each other and you find yourself liking a lot of them. They’re as developed as they need to be for a horror movie (actually, they’re very well developed as far as horror movies go, where we usually just get a bunch of idiotic girls with big tits dying in various ways). Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, and Jake Weber are the highlights for me (I had a crush on Jake Weber in this – I’d totally hook up with him in a zombie apocalypse). But even all the lesser characters in this are memorable, such as tough old lady Norma & father/daughter Lindy Booth and… Max Headroom! (Does anyone younger than me know Max Headroom?). Michael Kelly is perfect for his character as he has such a “hey, it’s that guy!” look about him. And I especially love gun-store Andy and all the interaction with him on the rooftop – those are probably my favorite bits of the movie.
I’ll wrap this up but first I have to make a mention of the music & the cameos. I loved the great cameos from original Dawn Of The Dead stars Scott H. Reiniger, Tom Savini (giving yet another Oscar-worthy performance) & especially Ken Foree as a televangelist. And it was nice seeing the “Gaylen Ross” store in the mall. Finally, they did a great job choosing the music in the film. I read at IMDb that Snyder personally chose most of the music, including The Man Comes Around by Johnny Cash & Richard Cheese’s cover of Down With The Sickness so… Good job, Snyder! Those worked perfectly. Also loved the elevator music such as Don’t Worry, Be Happy and Have A Nice Day by Stereophonics was a perfect way to start the movie. And the proper Disturbed version of Down With The Sickness at the end is fine by me as I think that’s one of the best songs of the past 15 years. (*2021 update: That song is much more than 15 years old now and man I feel old having to type this*)
All in all, there’s not really anything that I don’t like about this movie. I’m not sure how I feel about the very end (through the credits) but I find that most horror films don’t know how to end. As far as horror movies go, this is a hell of a lot better than most. And as far as zombie movies go, this was definitely a worthy addition and, more importantly, respectful to the original.
My Rating: 8.5/10
I was going to end this post with a clip of Disturbed’s Down With The Sickness but decided to go with Johnny Cash’s fantastic The Man Comes Around instead. And this will be the only time you will find country music on this blog…
**And I apologise in advance for when I re-post my review of Brian Yuzna’s brilliant body horror Society, which I posted on another old blog HERE.
I was very sad to hear of George A. Romero’s passing. He’s a true master of horror and his Dead films have never been topped, although many have tried to copy them.
I’ve always wanted to review Night, Dawn & Day Of The Dead but never have as I always struggle to write about my all-time favorite films. Dawn Of The Dead is one of a very small handful of horrors that I consider to be all around favorite films despite being within the horror genre. I’m sad now that the only Romero film I’ve reviewed is Monkey Shines (which was a lot of fun to review!). It’s certainly no Dawn Of The Dead, though, which has topped many top ten lists that I’ve posted (such as My Top Ten Horror Movies & My Top Ten Horror Movie Quotes). Heck, I even managed to review the Dawn Of The Deadremake for Mike over at Screenkicker. Yet no review of the original. The best. I’ve never reviewed Romero’s TRUE ZOMBIE CLASSICS Night Of The Living Dead & Dawn Of The Dead. Or Day Of The Dead! Also love Day. And now we’re stuck watching the inferior The Walking Dead while humanity turns into a Romero mall zombie. The horror legends are dying. It sucks.
Rest in peace George Andrew Romero February 4, 1940 – July 16, 2017
Oh, here’s an odd recommendation but Stephen King’s son, Joe Hill, has a great short story in his collection 20th Century Ghosts called Bobby Conroy Comes Back From The Dead. It’s a love story, of sorts, between two extras on the set of Romero’s Dawn Of The Dead. Loved it! I highly recommend the entire book – it’s a fantastic short story collection.
**Seriously? I just finish this post then read that Martin Landau has died as well. I must admit that I didn’t know him from much but did love him as Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood. His Oscar for that was well deserved!
Rest in peace Martin Landau June 20, 1928 – July 15, 2017
These movies not worthy of full-length reviews are: Repo! The Genetic Opera, Let’s Scare Jessica To Death, The Quiet Ones, The Crazies, & The Victim.
I always do this – I plan to do horror movie reviews all of October then get bored halfway through. Unfortunately, I’ve watched a lot of bad movies in preparation this year and don’t have enough to say about them to do full reviews. So, I’m doing the worst five all together (leaving me with nothing to review the final week of October, unless I get time to watch some more. Oops!). This is because I only do movies I can watch on TV or Netflix so maybe next year I’ll actually spend out on some decent older films instead of reviewing whatever crap happens to be available to me at no extra cost.
Here we go! I’ll do these from “best” to worst (to be fair, the first one isn’t actually bad – it’s better than both Mama & The Sacrament, which I did review in full)…
The Crazies (2010)
Directed by Breck Eisner
Based on The Crazies by George A. Romero
Starring: Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell, Joe Anderson, Danielle Panabaker
Plot Synopsis: (via Wikipedia) The Crazies takes place in the fictional town of Ogden Marsh, Pierce County, Iowa, “friendliest place on Earth,” whose town water supply is accidentally infected with the “Trixie” virus. After an incubation period of 48 hours, this virus gradually transforms the mental state of the infected into that of cold, calculating, depraved, bloodthirsty killers, who then prey on family and neighbors alike.
My Opinion:
Sorry lovers of The Crazies – I just don’t have much to say about this one although I did think it was pretty decent for a modern horror movie & can see why it has its fans. I love Romero’s zombie films so did try to watch the original of this one years ago. I don’t remember much now but it started out very slow and, for whatever reason, I never finished it. It was no Dead film! I’ll give it another try if it pops up on the Horror Channel or something as I do like the concept of a virus making people go crazy. So… it’s not a lot different from the zombie thing anyway. This remake is really just 28 Days Later but not as good.
As you can see by that picture, this one is pretty bloody. It was a bit too violent for my taste (I hated one bit with a pitchfork but found that scene pretty tense so I guess it did its job in that regard). I thought the movie almost got the balance right, though, in focusing on a small set of characters in small-town-Midwest-America and making us like them in between scenes of pitchfork nastiness. I’m always kind of fond of movies set in small-town-Midwest-America as I can still relate to that having grown up in a town so similar to this movie’s Ogden Marsh. I’m not sure why I didn’t like The Crazies more than I did as it had the perfect set-up (for me) and, at first, seemed like the type of movie I was really going to enjoy. Had they focused on the character development a little more and the violence a little less, I’d have rated this more highly. Plus, there’s a big explosion at one point that looked so dodgy that I couldn’t help but laugh even though I don’t normally notice that kind of thing.
I think I was just too distracted while watching this because, like with most movies I watch at home these days, I’m sure I was getting a blog post ready while it was on as I don’t have time to do just one or the other. That’s why I’ll be cutting way back on my number of posts once October is over – I want to enjoy movies again when I actually make the time to watch them. Sorry for the little tangent but I’m just trying to explain why I maybe didn’t fully appreciate The Crazies. If I ever watch the original, I may revisit the remake again as well and see if my opinion changes. I wanted to like it more. I’ve certainly seen worse! (Like, the four movies below….).
My Rating: 6/10
Let’s Scare Jessica To Death (1971)
Directed by John Hancock (I wonder what his signature looks like?)
Starring:Zohra Lampert, Barton Heyman, Kevin O’Connor, Gretchen Corbett, Alan Manson, Mariclare Costello
Plot Synopsis: (via IMDB) A recently institutionalized woman has bizarre experiences after moving into a supposedly haunted country farmhouse and fears she may be losing her sanity once again.
My Opinion:
Let’s bore Jessica to death by making her watch this movie. Apparently this is a cult classic? Well, that’s said about lots of old horror movies so I don’t know if that’s true or not. Don’t get me wrong – there are elements of this movie that I did like and I’d always choose to watch some old moody & atmospheric 70’s horror movie like this, bad clothing and hairstyles and all, over the crap that gets made nowadays. But this one really is just too damn boring, even for an older person like me who has a fair bit of patience and can appreciate a slow build-up. I thought nothing was ever going to happen in this thing. Luckily, the last twenty minutes or so are pretty good. Well, compared to the rest of the film anyway. Or maybe I was just happy that something finally happened?!
So, Jessica is nuts and her husband moves her to a secluded farmhouse to recover after she’s been released from the hospital. But all this weird stuff starts happening and, through Jessica’s rather annoying thoughts (which we can hear out loud during the whole movie), we don’t know whether she’s once again going mad, if her husband and all the creepy locals are playing games and trying to drive her insane, or if there really is some ghostly shit going on. Jessica becomes obsessed with an old photograph in the farmhouse showing the family who once lived there & is told by the local antiques dealer that the young woman in the photo drowned and that she now haunts the area as a vampire.
So what’s really going on?!?! I have no idea because I lost interest! Which is too bad since this movie was almost cool at the end – it had a real Rosemary’s Baby feel for a few minutes there with some eerie old small town locals (in that picture up there). Well, I suppose that’s an insult to the far superior Rosemary’s Baby. If you really REALLY love low-budget 70’s horror that’s more about mood & atmosphere than actual gore & violence, you might like this okay. It’s the type of thing I normally like but this one just didn’t work for me. It probably didn’t help that Jessica was annoying as hell.
My Rating: 5/10
The Quiet Ones (2014)
Directed by John Pogue
Starring: Jared Harris, Sam Claflin, Olivia Cooke, Erin Richards
Plot Synopsis: (via Wikipedia) The Quiet Ones is a 2014 British supernatural horror starring Jared Harris as a college professor attempting to prove poltergeists are manifestations of the human psyche and not supernatural beings. The film is loosely based on the Philip experiment, a 1972 parapsychology experiment conducted in Toronto.
My Opinion:
Good lord – this was as boring as Let’s Scare Jessica To Death! But this one doesn’t have the advantage of actually being made in the Seventies like that one (although it’s set in 1970-something), so therefore it’s not groovy in any way. Fake Seventies grooviness just doesn’t work in the same way – American Hustle is proof of that! This is just a boring movie made in 2014 in which the characters wear ugly clothes & listen to Slade’s Cum On Feel The Noize over & over. (Although I’m not gonna lie – I totally like that song because I’m old & thoroughly uncool).
So there’s paranormal stuff and experiments on a crazy girl with a doll and Slade and the chick I couldn’t stand in Gotham (Barbara) which I stopped watching along with most every TV series I’ve attempted to watch in the last five years and, hey, the crazy girl with the doll is the girl in Me And Earl And The Dying Girl which I kind of wanted to go see but couldn’t talk the hubby into and my god they play that Slade song a lot in this (just in case you forgot it was 1970-something!!!) and the Me And Earl’s Dying Girl spits a lot of black shit out and most everyone gets killed and I really was paying no attention by the end and was questioning why I watch shit like this just to have something to “review” in October.
My Rating: 4/10
Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)
Directed by Darren Lynn Bousman
Based on The Necromerchant’s Debt by Terrance Zdunich & Darren Smith
Starring: Alexa Vega, Paul Sorvino, Anthony Stewart Head, Sarah Brightman, Paris Hilton, Bill Moseley, Ogre, Terrance Zdunich
Plot Synopsis: (via IMDB) A worldwide epidemic encourages a biotech company to launch an organ-financing program similar in nature to a standard car loan. The repossession clause is a killer, however.
My Opinion:
What the fuck? No, seriously – what the fuck?!? No, really – can someone explain this thing to me?? I’d never even heard of this one until someone mentioned it somewhere on my blog recently (I don’t know who or where but I think they said something favorable about this movie. Here’s hoping whoever it was doesn’t read my review. If whoever you are is reading this, I apologize). 😉 Because I hated this stupid piece of shit!!!!!!!
That’s Sarah Fucking Brightman of, like, famous musicals fame & shit. In this fucking movie! WTF?
So this was some actual opera several years before the movie, I guess. I didn’t do much research into it as I disliked the movie so much but, as far as I can tell, this has a following in the same way that The Rocky Horror Picture Show does?? I saw plenty of cosplay photos when looking up images for this post. Okay, fine – I can understand that. This movie is clearly about “image” and I can see why girls would want to dress up as Brightman’s Blind Mag or Shilo, the movie’s young heroine:
According to Wikipedia, this movie is a “splatterpunk, rock opera, musical comedy, horror film“. Splatterpunk?? I’d not heard that phrase before but it sounds like the perfect way to describe this one. Splatter indeed! Of these five movies, this one is the goriest & most blood-splattered by far. As you can see from the poster, it’s from the producers of Saw. Barf! I hate the Saw films (well, the first was okay). I didn’t know this before sticking the movie on when I saw it was on the Horror Channel. Just like I didn’t know that Paris Hilton had a big role in this. Paris fucking Hilton! She plays a spoiled rich bitch addicted to plastic surgery. At least her face falls off:
I think what annoyed me so much is that this movie sounded kind of cool and I was excited when I saw that I’d be able to watch it. And it started out okay and had the potential to be a bit of fun. Plus the repo man himself looked pretty rad:
This movie is a Goth Sado-Masochist’s wet dream. If that’s your sort of thing, rush out and watch this movie immediately. No, really – you’ll love it! I’m not being a smart ass – I totally understand why this movie has a fan base. That’s why I’ve included all the pictures as it’ll give you an idea of what this movie is like. But, goddamn, the movie is a fucking mess. It’s just really bad. It looks good, yes! The visuals and the costumes and the set and the comic book imagery scattered throughout the film are all pretty impressive but they don’t make up for the godawful acting or the fact that half the actors can’t sing for shit (not that it really matters with such unmemorable, mediocre songs). Plus, the constant singing with the constant, obnoxious, “heavy metal” guitar noise drove me mad. MAD! I wanted to repo the cast’s fucking vocal chords!
Hey, though, Anthony Head is in this monstrosity. Remember when he had that “coffee romance” over a series of several Taster’s Choice commercials? I loved those! I always thought they should do more commercials that told a story like those. And I found out a few years ago that the woman in those commercials is Alice Eve’s mother. “Alice Eve hot” is one of my top search terms so, awesome, I just managed to mention her again in a wonderfully obscure & roundabout way!
Anyway, those Taster’s Choice commercials were a million times better than Repo! The Genetic Opera. I think the main problem is that this movie tries too damn hard and ends up feeling completely forced, desperate, and pathetic. Basically, this movie is a 40-year-old stripper. Get off the damn pole and look for a new career! Speaking of strippers, let’s move onto the worst movie I’ve watched in the three-year history of my blog…
My Rating: 3/10
The Victim (2011)
Directed, written by & starring Michael Biehn
Starring: Michael Biehn, Jennifer Blanc, Ryan Honey, Denny Kirkwood, Danielle Harris
Plot Synopsis: (via me) The slutty brunette stripper (who we find out in flashbacks is actually a sweet slutty brunette stripper), gets killed. Michael Biehn fucks the blonde stripper. I don’t know what happens after that as I only saw the first half of this movie & that was more than enough for me.
My Opinion:
I’ve mentioned my love for Michael Biehn’s Kyle Reese several times on this blog. So, one day, Filmnerdblog’s Laura tweeted me about a movie on The Horror Channel that was directed by, written by, and starring my beloved Kyle Reese. Er. Um. Ugh. (Do you think there’s any chance that Michael Biehn might read this?? I better keep it short as I actually still find him pretty hot).
Two skanky strippers pick up these two guys (cops if I remember correctly – I can’t be bothered to verify). They go into the woods and the fucking commences. The cute one (Danielle Harris – she’ll be very well known to horror fans. What are you doing in this, Danielle?!?) lets one of the disgusting dudes screw her Game-Of-Thrones-Style (from behind like a dog) while she looks bored & says things like “Why don’t you just come already?”. Charming. So he snaps her neck. Do strippers know how to pick ’em or what? The blonde stripper gets away & ends up at Michael Biehn’s house in the middle of the woods. He’s a hot old recluse. They screw & she says something along the lines of “you may be 54 but you don’t fuck like you’re 54″ (or whatever age he was in this). Really? Oh, Michael Biehn… You were so damn sexy as Kyle Reese but I really question your writing skills.
Anyway, one of the two guys (the actual killer or the other guy – I don’t remember) ends up at Biehn’s house & Biehn ties him up and starts to torture him a bit. At this point I turned it off as I couldn’t be bothered with it anymore. I did, however, plan to finish it another night (while writing a blog post as it played in the background). But when I went to play the recording, it had disappeared off the box! I was devastated! And by “devastated”, I mean “relieved”. I’ve forced myself to finish every single movie I’ve started since I began this blog. It’s, like, my duty as one of a million shitty blog writers! I’ll now never know how this sad stripper tale ends or be able to see more cheesy flashbacks of the two strippers having a girly chat to prove that they’re actually “nice, sweet strippers” who don’t deserve to have their necks broken. Okay, I could read about the ending online but I’m happy to let the rest of the film forever remain a mystery.
Happy October everyone! Let’s kick off this month of horror with a top ten list of my favorite horror movie quotes. 🙂
I fully expect to have missed some with this list (I don’t re-watch horror movies to the degree that I watch favorites from other genres) but I’ve tried to pick the first quotes that popped into my head from my favorites. Oh, and I’ve never considered the Alien films or Jaws to be horror, FYI, so you won’t find “Get away from her, you bitch!” or “You’re gonna need a bigger boat” on this list. Those would top the list.
So here are my mainstream & super obvious Top Ten Horror Movie Quotes:
10. “If it’s in a word, or it’s in a look, you can’t get rid of the Babadook.” As Heard In: The Babadook
I loved The Babadook – it was one of the very few horror films after 1989 that didn’t totally suck. Anyway, nothing is more freaky than that damn book and this is a cool rhyme (even though it doesn’t actually rhyme if you have an American accent…).
9. “The soil in a man’s heart is stonier.” As Heard In: Pet Sematary
This is probably my only choice on this list that’s not totally predictable. I don’t know why but I had a slight obsession with this movie when it came out – it probably helped going & seeing it with a group of friends (I assume it was rated R? I actually wasn’t old enough. Hmm). Plus, one girl would shout out “PASCOW!” at school for months after seeing this. Anyway, “Sometimes dead is better” is probably the more famous line but the above quote, said by two characters, is more important to the story & the one I always liked.
8. “They’re all gonna laugh at you!” As Heard In: Carrie
I also love “I can see your dirty pillows.” Ha! Dirty pillows! Carrie’s mom is such a nutjob. Yeah, I like my Stephen King movies…
7. “You are all my children now.” As Heard In: A Nightmare On Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge
Oh man, there are SO many A Nightmare On Elm Street quotes to choose from! Funny I’ve chosen one from my least favorite & least watched of the series. In fact, I was like “does he say that in number 2??”. It’s just such a well known Freddy line. I was also always fond of “Welcome to prime time, bitch!” and Nancy’s “Whatever you do… don’t fall asleep“. Well, I have another one higher on the list.
6. TIE: “One thing about living in Santa Carla I never could stomach; all the damn vampires.” & “Death by stereo!” & “My own brother, a goddamn, shit-sucking vampire!” As Heard In: The Lost Boys
Dammit, there are also so many quotes in The Lost Boys! I’m also fond of saying “Maggots, Michael. You’re eating maggots.” anytime we have Chinese food. Goddamn I must be shit-sucking annoying to live with.
5. “They’re here!” As Heard In: Poltergeist
Well, duh. So obvious. But you all immediately knew what it was from!
4. “One, two, Freddy’s coming for you. Three, four, better lock your door. Five, six, grab your crucifix. Seven, eight, gonna stay up late. Nine, ten, never sleep again…” As Heard In: A Nightmare On Elm Street
I’m a sucker for rhymes or creepy lyrics to the tune of some kids’ song. “One, two, buckle my shoe” will only bring the above lyrics to mind for a generation of Freddy fans now. Or, maybe more than one generation – you young kids seem to like this one too!
3. “Heeere’s Johnny!” As Heard In: The Shining
Again, like the Poltergeist quote, this one is super obvious. But The Shining is my favorite horror movie (along with The Omen, the Nightmare On Elm Streets & the series that my top two are a part of) so it’s naturally going to be high on my list. Guess that’s three Stephen King movies on my list (even though he hates this movie).
2. “They’re coming to get you, Barbara!” As Heard In: Night Of The Living Dead
I love Romero’s zombie movies (yes, even Day, Land and Diary. but especially Day!). The Barbara (it’s spelled “Barbra” on IMDB but that just looks weird) line has to be the most famous Romero line & the one I quote the most by far, unlike my number one choice. But number one is just so damn cool…
1. “When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk the Earth.” As Heard In: Dawn Of The Dead
Love it. I don’t find this to be a very “quotable” quote like most of those on the list but it’s just such a great line. And I also love it being said by once again by Ken Foree in the (also totally excellent) 2004 remake. I suppose it’s somewhat quotable – you could say things like “When there’s no more room in hell, the Kardashians will walk the Earth“. Or something. Nah, that doesn’t really work – someone come up with something better! Well, I love these movies & keep saying every year that I’ll review the whole lot in October but never do. Maybe next year! 😉
Texas Chainsaw 3D producers Lati Grobman and Christa Campbell have picked up the rights to George Romero‘s zombie film, Day of the Dead, and they are going to remake it.
Yeah. That’s all I need to know. Click the link if you want to read the whole thing.
Piss off! Piss off, Hollywood, with all your damn remakes. Piss OFF. Leave Romero alone. Go make some inferior zombie movie of your own, dammit – can you not come up with an original idea?!?!?
Francine Parker: What are they doing? Why do they come here? Stephen: Some kind of instinct. Memory of what they used to do. This was an important place in their lives.
I’d been wanting to watch Monkey Shines (also called Monkey Shines: An Experiment In Fear) for a while as it was directed by George A Romero. I’m a big big fan of his zombie movies – Night, Dawn & Day are three of my all-time favorite movies (especially Dawn!). However, I’ve not really watched anything else Romero has done. Based on Monkey Shines, maybe I’m not missing much?
Monkey Shines is about an athletic man (Alan) who, after being hit by a truck while out running, is paralysed from the neck down. He has a friend who has been experimenting with injecting human brain tissue into monkeys and this friend decides to give one of these monkeys (named Ella) to his now paralysed friend. The friend hires a woman named Melanie, who trains monkeys to help quadriplegics, to work with Ella & Alan.
And then, naturally!, Ella the monkey starts to have some weird kind of telepathic connection with Alan. And then Ella gets all jealous and angry as Alan’s feelings of anger at his current condition are manifested in her crazy-ass part-human-brain-tissue monkey noggin. And then, FINALLY, crazy-ass monkey gets all murder-y. But it takes something like an hour and a half for this to happen. Up until that point, not much happens. So you just keep watching and watching knowing that at some point the monkey will go mental!
I’ll sum up the movie here (with MASSIVE SPOILERS – I’m going to tell you what happens in the entire thing…):
– Athletic man (Alan) is hit by truck while out running. In a very boring, slow motion type of way – not in a Final Destination sort of way.
– Alan is operated on (by Stanley Tucci! with an almost full head of hair!). Alan is paralysed from the neck down.
– Alan comes back home to a party his annoying overprotective mother has thrown for him and his “new life”. We learn that Alan’s woman (Janine Turner – that chick from Northern Exposure!) has been cheating on him with his surgeon (hairy Stanley Tucci!). Fuckers! So she leaves Alan for the Tucci.
– Alan’s friend (played by the guy who was also the friend in Mad About You! Ira I think? I hated that show!) gives Alan Ella, the experimental monkey he stuck human brain tissue into.
– The friend hires Melanie to train Ella to help Alan
– Alan and Melanie develop a romantic relationship
– Totally forgot about the bitchy nurse who stays with Alan. She hates the monkey. She has an annoying bird that almost pecks Alan’s eyes out. Ella kills the bird for Alan. The first in her murder spree…
– ORAL SEX SCENE! On a WOMAN!!!!
– Ella kills Stanley Tucci & Northern Exposure chick by burning their place down. I can’t remember if this is before or after oral sex scene. Oral sex scene distracted me. I was paying very little attention to this movie until all the murders and oral sex…
– Um, monkey finally goes crazy. The monkey murders start! Monkey kills:
a) Stanley Tucci & Northern Exposure chick b) Alan’s annoying mother by throwing a hairdryer in the bath with her. Not bad. c) the friend from Mad About You by injecting him with something. Oh yeah – and d) the bird…
– Melanie comes over because she’s worried about Alan and knows something is going on. Monkey tries to kill her too. Melanie is knocked unconscious and Ella tries to start her on fire.
– Alan is able to move his hand just enough to play the music Ella likes that has calmed her down before. It’s their “song”. Oh yeah – I forgot to mention that Alan’s hand moved a bit once. After seeing a doctor, he was told his condition MAY be reversible. Yep – I should have mentioned that earlier.
– Okay – this is the good part. MASSIVE SPOILER if you don’t want to know the ending (but if you’ve read this far you know the whole rest of the movie anyway…). 😉 Ella is calmed by the music and cuddles up with Alan. Alan then clamps his jaw into Ella’s throat and flings her back and forth with his head as she flops around like a rag doll a bunch of times & then he tosses her aside, dead. Kind of amusing to watch. Highlight of the movie! Well, that and the oral sex scene…
– Alan has surgery and, yep, the paralysis IS reversible! He gets out of his wheelchair after surgery and heads home with Melanie. And they live happily ever after. I assume.
– Oh yeah – during Alan’s surgery he dreams that Ella pops out of his back in a total “Alien moment” as the surgeon cuts it open. Highlight number three of the movie.
Okay. Well. I’m not sure if I’ve just made this movie sound really horrible or really awesome. 😉 And, to be honest, I’m not completely sure how I felt about it. I was disappointed but, mostly, I was a bit bored. It’s not THAT bad of a movie but I think they had made it sound like more of a horror movie than it actually is. It’s almost more of a drama – it takes the whole story fairly seriously. But I suppose it doesn’t quite work as the story is a bit too “out there” and a bit silly. Or, at least, it was maybe too out there for 1988. As much as I HATE remakes, I think this movie could almost work if the right person remade it now.
In the end, I was actually glad it wasn’t the full-on horror movie I was expecting (I don’t really like horror anyway). But the pace of the whole thing really was too slow and it really did drag at times. I know my attention span is getting shorter in my old age but it’s not THAT bad – I can still manage to pay attention for a two hour movie but my mind wandered A LOT for the first 90 minutes. Mainly, this really felt & looked more like a TV movie. Or… felt like it was at least ten years older than it was (I was surprised it was 1988 when I looked as it seemed more like very early 80s). Also, for some reason I had it in my mind that this movie was going to be more Cronenberg-like (don’t know why – maybe because the story just seemed like that sort of weirdness). Come to think of it… Cronenberg would be the perfect person to remake this! THEN I think this movie could be awesome. (I do still love Romero, though, and all his zombies!).
Cinema Parrot Disco 