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

Tarantula

Thar she grows


When my family first got cable, when I was 13 or 14, I used to watch animal documentaries on the Discovery Channel. The documentaries that featured spiders and scorpions especially intrigued me because the footage creeped me out. Those arachnids moved in a way that was so alien to me, it put chills down my spine.

"Tarantula" (1955) creeps me out in the same way that those Discovery Channel documentaries creeped me out, except on a larger scale. The film used actual footage of a tarantula and blue-screened it into the movie. The effects were so well done, it was easy to imagine that there actually was a 100 foot tarantula walking across the desert plain.

Near the beginning of the film, we learned that scientific experimentation and the destruction of the laboratory cages let loose a giant tarantula. A doctor, a sheriff, and a local journalist tried to discover what was causing mysterious cattle deaths, only to find that it was, of course, a giant tarantula.

I was surprised at how quick the pace of "Tarantula" was, considering most movies from the 1950's drag a bit. The swift pace and excellent effects made for an enjoyable viewing experience, though the version I saw was pan and scan.


Above 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

The Happening

What You Don't Know Can Hurt You


Human extinction is a subject that is worth some thought. A natural disaster is plausible, and a natural disaster can be downright scary if we don't know what is going on.

M. Night Shyamalan wrote and directed "The Happening," a tense sci-fi thriller about a small group of people that are running from an unknown toxin that is being released into the air. Shyamalan directed one of my favorite movies called "Signs." That movie was all about suspense and shadows, while "The Happening" was all about carnage and b-movie style.

Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel gave stiff performances that somehow seemed natural in a movie such as this. John Leguizamo had the hardest role to play, as a father who left his child behind with friends; but he was quite convincing.

Overall, "The Happening" was creepy; and it had one jump-out-of-your-seat moment, which seems to be a requirement for thrillers these days.


--Above Average

Blood Feast

The Birth Of Gore


In 1963, a monumental film was premiered at a drive-in in Peoria, Illinois. This film would break new ground, and become a cult classic.

When I had the chance to watch "Blood Feast," about 45 years later, I was amazed to find out that the very first gore movie premiered in Peoria, about 20 minutes from my home. There's an old saying: "Will it play in Peoria?" "Blood Feast" played in Peoria phenomenally well, due to word of mouth.

What was all the chat about? Explicit Gore. And lots of it. There had never been anything like this, in all of it's full-color glory. By today's standards, "Blood Feast" is unrealistic and tame. But I still enjoyed the film because of the b-movie charm and the buckets of bright red fake blood. There was plenty of over-the-top acting, gooey gross carnage, and the chief of police was reading his lines off of his hand!

Writer/director Herschell Gordon Lewis would go on to make many more bloody, campy, gooey movies (including "The Wizard of Gore" and "The Gore Gore Girls"), but none of them would have the same impact as "Blood Feast."

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