Archive for April, 2010
Night of the Hell Hamsters
The Short Review:
I was sold by the title: Night of the Hell Hamsters. It sounds so promising, the mix of hamsters and horror. It’s from these incongruities that greatness is sometimes born. There was a nagging little voice in the back on my head telling me that the title was going to be the best thing about the movie. It was probably shot by two teenagers using their Mommy’s new Flip camcorder, the voice said. It’s going to be five minutes of some kid covered in catsup, running around screaming, with a stuffed toy duct tapped to his neck as heavy metal music blares in the background. It’s going to suck. With a nervous hand, I clicked my mouse and started the movie, wordlessly praying for God to have mercy on my soul.
Plaguers
Pre-ramble:
Imagine this: a movie where zombies meet the crew from Alien, only it’s not the crew from Alien, but a sort of like the crew from Alien. They also have an android Lance Hendriksen Impersonator. Next add in an all-girl crew of beautiful, but murderous, space nurses – in identical miniskirts; then drop in the green orb from Heavy Metal and have all the space ships made of plywood and drywall.
It sounds better than it was.
Survival of the Dead
Pre-ramble:
The world is, as Marsellus Wallace noted in Pulp Fiction, filled to the brim with unrealistic people. I’m paraphrasing, of course. My mother reads this and I don’t want her to think I’d use a word like “muthaf***er.” So I’ll use the word “people” instead. What are people unrealistic about? People are unrealistic about pretty much everything. I could talk about politics and religion to illustrate my point, but I’d rather stick to something that matters – like zombie movies.
Specifically I want to talk about George Romero. He made Night of the Living Dead, which created an entire genre. Later he made Dawn of the Dead which indelibly defined that genre to such a high degree that every zombie movie that came after it is just a variation on his Dawn theme. From then on, every time Romero picked up a camera to make a zombie movie, people expected a total paradigm shift only to bitterly complain when it didn’t happen. Save it for George Lucas.
Blood Creek
Pre-ramble:
It’s a historical fact: Nazis are the world’s worst house guests. If you don’t believe me, just ask Poland. The Nazis came to visit in 1939, and in spite of Poland dropping subtle hints such as yawning or repeatedly saying things like “Oh my, would you look at the time” or “It’s been really great seeing you, but I have to be up early tomorrow” the Nazis stayed until 1945. Rudeness! Murder, destruction, and genocide aren’t good enough for them either. The Nazis also made a big mess in the bathroom!
While the Nazis are terrible guests, they make excellent movie villains, which brings us to Blood Creek. Ancient magic rune stones, sinister occult happenings and a creepy Nazi house guest all come together in this overlooked cautionary tale directed by Joel Schumacher.
Zone of the Dead
Pre-ramble:
I enjoy life’s little incongruities: the image of the Virgin Mary showing up on a tortilla, monkeys dressed as cowboys riding dogs, great big fat guys who lift weights at the gym once and a while as grounds to insist that they are in “pretty good shape” and need to eat double cheese burgers for the protein. That always makes me laugh. No less unexpected is Zone of the Dead, a zombie movie made in, get this, Serbia! I know! How often do you get to see a Serbian made genre film, much less a zombie picture? Good or bad, I knew that had to see it.