Isolation

Mad Cow, Frightened People

An Irish farmer allows a local scientist to do experiments on his cows, with horrifying results! Don't let the premise fool you, this film is anything but silly. Isolation (2006) is a serious horror film that is surprisingly good.

When I popped the DVD into the player, I was expecting a campy, fun horror movie. Boy was I ever wrong.

Set entirely on one man's farm with a small group of characters, the title of the film is quite apt. The feeling of isolation is strong throughout the film. Also, the feeling of claustrophobia is present (especially in the water scenes). A farm can be a vast, expansive place; but inside the barn and inside the small stalls, everything feels up-close-and-personal. The atmosphere and pacing reminded me of the classic lowbudget masterpiece, Halloween (1978).

There were no frills, quick editing, or CGI; just a straightforward, solid, well crafted horror film. Sometimes that's all you can ask for.

Well, there was one more thing that I would've asked for from this movie: a light moment. Isolation was so dark and serious that it became sort of a detraction. Not one smile was cracked, not one moment of joy was had. In one of my favorite horror movies, The Exorcist (1973), there was a scene with some playful banter between a detective and a priest. That scene eased some tension before building the tension up again in the next scene. It's kind of like a rollercoaster, and most good horror movies know that there has to be some lighter scenes to offput the tense and dark scenes.

Despite all of the tension and darkness, Isolation left me with a good feeling. A feeling that not every modern horror film is bottom-of-the-barrel junk.

My Rating
ABOVE AVERAGE

Diary Of The Dead

Return of the Living Legend

George Romero has been making zombie movies since his 1968 release of "Night Of The Living Dead." I can remember watching NotLD when I was around twelve years old. The experience made a lasting impression on me; I was horrified and had to turn it off right at the scene in which the zombies were munching on Tom and Judy's toasty carcasses.

Now that I am at the ripe old age of 24, and I have seen lots of onscreen munching, the scares are not as effective on me. However, the new George Romero film,"Diary Of The Dead," was more than just scares and setups for scares. The social commentary contained in "Diary Of The Dead" was obviously just as important to Romero as the gore.

Just as Romero saw racism and violence as a problem in the sixties when he made "Night", he now sees the importance of technology and the media as a problem and has infused that message into "Diary." One of the most powerful moments in the movie is a scene in which a young woman pleaded for a man with a video camera to put down the camera and come save her from the undead, and, of course, he just keeps on shooting instead of helping.

One of the main problems I have with "Diary Of The Dead" is the use of computer graphics. Call me old fashioned, but I consider squibs and other practical effects to be much more visually believable than cgi. Computer graphics, to me, are only believable if they are used minimally and professionally. "Diary" had too low of a budget to pull off the big gory computer graphics.

Legendary George Romero may still be putting powerful social commentary in his zombie movies, but, for me, the scares and the effects fall flat.

--Average

House By The Cemetery

Gory Gory Hallelujah

All you really need to know is that an evil murderer is in the cellar. The rest of the story is erratic, confusing, and worst of all boring.

Lucio Fulci is an Italian director known for having gruesome killings in his movies, and "House By The Cemetery" is no different. Yet, this movie somehow managed to be ghastly boring. There were several bloody deaths that peppered the tedium, including a scissors through the head, a scissors through the heart, a throat being sliced open with a knife, and many more. The entire time I was watching, I was either checking my watch or wincing from the onscreen brutality.

The music sounded so eighties, and the dubbing was hilariously bad. Whenever the young boy spoke, I couldn't help but chuckle. It didn't have that b-movie charm that has drawn me to many other old horror movies, mostly because it seemed like there was a fairly big budget.

The Italian horror genre has a lot of hype behind it, and recently I decided to see what the hype is about. "House By The Cemetery" has been my first foray into Italian horror, and I'm hoping that this was not one of the better movies of the genre. I plan on watching Italian horror standards "Zombi" and "Suspiria" in the future. Hopefully those will fair better.


--Below Average