Night of the Animated Dead (2021)

OCTOBER 4, 2021

GENRE: ANIMATED, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the DVD I reviewed in this Blog Post. The opinions I share are my own.

Several million years ago, I spent a week of HMAD reviews on Night of the Living Dead and its many incarnations (the 30th anniversary, the Savini remake, etc.), and while it wasn't the "best" the most interesting was NOTLD Re-Animated, which took the audio from the film but replaced all the imagery with a variety of animated scenes: traditional animation, stop motion, 8-bit video game style, etc. It wasn't the greatest thing in the world by any means, but it was interesting to see how the film could be reinterpreted; even with the same dialogue and music we've heard a million times, scenes would have a different tone just from the aesthetic. It's a strong contrast to Night of the Animated Dead, which is basically a shot for shot remake (the script is about 95% identical, more on that soon) but with one animation style throughout, so after five minutes (if that) you'll know whether or not you're going to like it.

...I did not like it.

The credits list a lot of animators, so I'll refrain from critiquing that aspect of it - I didn't particularly care for the style, but others may find it great, and that is the hallmark of animation. There are people who absolutely love pixel-art type animation; I find it to be an eyesore. There's no right or wrong, so beyond saying it wasn't for me, there's no real point in going on and on about that aspect of it. You can watch the trailer and decide for yourself if it's something you'd enjoy. That said, there are some inventive gore gags that are the invention of this film (obviously not something that could have been done in the 1968 original); I particularly liked what actually kills Tom when the truck explodes.

I WILL, however, take the creative team to task, because there are two unforgivable things about it that would leave me cold on the film whether it was stick figures or the greatest 3D animation ever produced by mankind. The first is that this is literally just the same script from the original live action film; they snip some dialogue here and there or speed up some of the action (much less boarding up of windows, for example), but apart from the film's final minute every line of dialogue, every action, every character motivation, etc are all taken word for word from John Russo and George Romero's script. On the making of (the disc's lone extra), the director says "Once we had the script locked down..." (prefacing how they approached the animation) and I had to wonder what exactly he had to "lock down" beyond taking a sharpie and crossing out a few things here and there, generously assuming they made those snips that early in the process and not when editing the animated picture together.

And yes, this means it's not even modernized, which seems to be the only reason to remake a movie like this in the first place (besides money, of course). As hard as it may be to swallow, we're actually further away from the "modern" version Savini made than he was when updating Romero (it's been 31 years since that one; Savini's was only 22 years after the original), so there's obviously lots of new things they bring to the table even if it was in live action, even more when given the freedom of animation (as they intermittently prove with the gore gags, which obviously don't have the same kind of impact in cel-based animation as they would on actual actors). When Barb and Johnny pull up to the cemetery and the radio broadcast once again crackles back to life, I was kind of aghast - what purpose does it have to stay in 1968, when new technology could open up possibilities of how they get their information (or misinformation; think of how an actual zombie outbreak would be handled on twitter!).

That leads me to the other red flag: Romero, Russo, etc are not credited anywhere on the film, not even with a token special thanks. The credits skip over a screenplay credit of any sort, just the director and a bunch of producers, so we can assume that not only is the Romero estate not being paid for the very ideas they are recreating (seriously, the characters even all wear the same clothes), but they don't even acknowledge the creators with the bare minimum. It's an incredibly gross realization, and honestly if the credits were at the top of the film I wouldn't have even bothered to watch the rest of it. It's only after an hour of their weird recreation that the viewer can discover (through very slow credits that bring the film up to a still laughable 70 minutes) no one involved bothered to credit the people who created the story in the first place. It's one thing when you're making a sequel and forget to credit the people who made the original when you might be bringing back one or two of their characters, it's another thing entirely to take their dialogue and actions verbatim and not even give them a "thank you" (the making of even has clips of the original, but still no one utters Romero's name).

So who, exactly, is this for? I mean, any horror fan knows that NOTLD's public domain status means anyone can make a buck off of it, but the other remakes - even the 3D one with Sid Haig - all put their own spin on the narrative, something that does not occur here. There are exactly two creative moves of note here: one is actually showing Ben's flashback to the diner and truck explosion instead of just hearing him tell the story, and the other is at the very end we listen to the posse make idle chit chat about the houses in the area ("That house has three chimneys!") instead of the still photographs that ended the original film. But those are hardly substantial enough to believe anyone would go to the trouble of remaking the entire film to "fix" two minor issues some people may have when watching it, and since the animation style isn't exactly revolutionary or unique, I have to assume that despite the lengthy animator credits, this was very cheap to make and was easy to profit from once they had distribution, and that was the extent of their creative ambition. Cool.

At least they put some effort into hiring a recognizable voice cast. The generally likable/leading man type Josh Duhamel is a left-field choice for the awful Mr Cooper, but he puts in a good performance, as does Dulé Hill as Ben. The women are all wasted though; Katie Isabelle would have been great for Barbara if they were going for the asskicker version seen in Savini's version (which impressively started off identical but then switched gears for a very different third act), but as anyone knows she doesn't exactly say much once she's at the house (here I will mock the animation to say they seemingly loved her turning boderline comatose, allowing them to "animate" entire shots where she doesn't move at all), and Nancy Travis as Mrs. Cooper sees some of the character's already limited amount of dialogue excised, making me wonder why they bothered hiring a name for her at all.

But, shocking as it may seem, a few good vocal performances and some amusing gore gags are not enough to recommend a movie that tells the exact same story we've seen before before slapping you in the face by not even crediting the people who actually wrote it. If you absolutely love the animation style (sadly nothing like the one on the cover, which seems like false advertising when it comes to animation; it'd be like if Disney showcased 3D models of their characters on the Blu-ray reissues of their cel-based classics) then I guess it can provide 60 minutes of background viewing amusement, but even then I'm sure any reasonable viewer would constantly wonder why it is they were half-watching the story like this when even a colorized version of the original on 1.5x speed would be a better and more respectful use of their time.

What say you?

P.S. Since WB does not release unrated movies, there's an MPAA R rating at the top, rare for a DTV release. Since the language says "Under 17 requires accompanying parent or guardian" I had a mental image of a 15 year old trying to watch this by themselves only to be stopped by a door to door carder. *KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK* "Open up! Movie police - where are your parents?!?" It was more amusing than the film, that's for sure.

Tweet

PLEASE, GO ON...

Seoul Station (2016)

SEPTEMBER 25, 2020

GENRE: ANIMATED, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: STREAMING (SHUDDER)

I enjoyed Train to Busan, but I thought the frequent claims of it being one of the best zombie movies ever made were, at the very least, overblown. It was, you know, pretty good! But so were things like Warm Bodies and The Rezort - where's the love for those equally serviceable/enjoyable movies? The awkward pacing (that train sure stopped a lot) and removal of the film's best character barely over the halfway point kept it out of top 10 contention in my house, but I was still happy to see it find success, though it took me nearly four years to finally get around to watching its animated prequel film Seoul Station (Korean: Seoulyeok), and I will admit it's partly because the sequel (Peninsula) is now hitting the US and I wanted to be all caught up should I get the chance to see it.

I was also kind of unsure how exciting a prequel would be, because Train to Busan didn't have much going on at the beginning. Like Night of the Living Dead, we didn't see the exact start of it, but it was far from a major outbreak - things were still continuing as normal with just the odd thing happening in the background for a bit (let's not forget that Busan's characters were mostly people going to work or school). So in my head, a prequel would be what is usually the least interesting thing about any zombie movie that bothers to include it: how it specifically started. Funnily enough, the night before at horror trivia there was a round on that very thing - they would name a movie (i.e. "Zombieland") and we'd have to identify the cause for the zombie outbreak ("Mad Cow disease"), and for at least half of them my initial reply was "Who cares?" Romero never fully explained it, just follow his lead!

Plus I remember that there was quite a bit of the other film devoted to the hero's work troubles, as they had some kind of connection to what was going on, so I was also worried we'd spend half the movie with an animated version of him at work while his bosses did shady shit. Long story short: I didn't want a prequel! But I'm on the HMAD clock, so whatever. And thankfully I was wrong; it starts a few hours before Busan did and the final 15 minutes are actually overlapping the timeframe, albeit with different characters (best as I can tell, no one from Busan is featured here). I still feel some of its events should have been enough for things to be in more of a panic mode in Busan, but it's forgivable, because honestly - for the most part I think I actually prefer this to its bigger budgeted, live action sibling.

I mention the budget because honestly, the only thing holding this one back is the presentation. The art style itself is fine, but the animation itself is very stiff, and whenever there's a crowd they don't even try to hide how often they are reusing the same zombie (and human) "extras", which is fine for a video game* but doesn't quite pass the smell test in a feature film. It's very distracting for starters, and if you think about it, it's completely unnecessary - as a prequel, they should be keeping mobs of either side of the war to a minimum, because again this is all leading up to a film that is pretty calm when it starts. If this was the prequel to something that kicked off like Dawn of the Dead (i.e. panic, people abandoning their normal lives in droves, etc.) then fine, but when you see the events of the back half of the movie it makes Busan's characters all look like clueless morons.

Otherwise, I found this more compelling and less "stock" (hat tip to Lars Ulrich) than Busan. Smartly, it focuses on a few people as opposed to just a standard absentee dad (I still shake my head that they doubled down on "movie dad" cliches with that guy, missing a recital AND buying a lame gift), and I was a bit stunned to see it focus on grimmer issues than I would expect from an animated movie. Perhaps this is the norm, as I don't watch a lot of animated films for adults, but over 90 minutes the movie tackled prostitution, homelessness, rape, and class struggles - hardly what I was expecting, especially since the live-action counterpart kept things pretty light. Like, if I told you that there's a live action movie and an animated one about the same event, and had you guess which one had a pimp beating one of his girls up and then trying to rape her, would you guess the latter? Because you'd be right.

The opening scenes feature a homeless man struggling to find medical help for his brother, who seems to be patient zero for the whole thing, but it's not long into the movie that it basically cuts back and forth between Hye-sun, a runaway who has been trying to escape her life of prostitution, and Ki-woong, her boyfriend who is fine with her continuing that lifestyle if it means they can pay rent. After a fight they get separated just as things start becoming crazy, and the film is more or less their attempts to reunite as the world around them starts falling apart. Ki-woong is joined by her father, who I kept expecting to feed him to the zombies since he can't stand him, but the two eventually work together and the guy even saves the young man's life at one point. Hye-sun, on the other hand, is joined by another homeless man who helps her get across the city via the subway tunnels and other means.

Naturally, zombies attack on the regular, and it never stops being suspenseful thanks to the back and forth structure. The homeless man could go any minute, leaving Hye-sun alone, and then in the other scenes since both men are trying to find her, there would still be momentum if one of them happened to perish. Plus, being a zombie movie, you're of course just waiting for some human to turn out to be evil, which also adds to the tension (and when it happens, it's actually a solid surprise). And through it all, there's the heartbreaking element that these characters are all disposable in the "normal" world. Hye-sun says she just wants to get home, and her partner weeps that he just wants to have a home at all - it's a pretty sobering moment, especially now as millions of my fellow Americans are going to end up like him if Covid can't get under control. None of these people are bad, they're just the unfortunate reality of a world where the rich jerks in charge simply do not care about anyone but themselves, and that's something we can certainly identify with now. Indeed, in the wake of hearing how much our "billionaire" President pays in taxes, how much of your $1,200 stimulus do you have left in your account? And don't forget we have to pay taxes on it next year!

I haven't seen Peninsula yet, though from what I hear it was a letdown (then again that's from the people who loved Busan so maybe I'll be the opposite on that too). But if you ask me, it's best to just ignore the connection to the films when watching this one. Again, there are no shared characters, and the spectacle of the third act doesn't quite jive with Busan's opening scenes (it reminded me in a way of trying to watch Fulci's Zombie as a sequel to Dawn of the Dead). Just take it as a standalone film that wanted to shine a light on the poor and underrepresented people who will be the first to get killed and forgotten in a plague like this, and - janky animation aside - you'll hopefully agree that it's one of the better zombie films of the past decade.

What say you?

*Funnily enough, I just finally started playing Dead Rising 2 and was again kind of blown away, as I was in the original, at the variety of zombies you can see at once in any given crowd scene. The first game is what made me want to buy a 360 after playing a bit of it at E3 in 2006 - my mind kind of reels at what they can accomplish with the upcoming Series X if the series is revived.

Tweet

PLEASE, GO ON...

Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation (2018)

JULY 14, 2018

GENRE: ANIMATED, MONSTER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

My son Will turned 4 in May, and a few weeks later we dubbed him old enough to try taking him to a movie (Incredibles 2, for the record). He was mostly perfect - he forgot to use his whisper voice once or twice and got a little restless in the middle when it hit a long stretch without any action, but otherwise I was very impressed with how well he behaved, considering he rarely sits through an entire movie at home. So I felt comfortable taking him to see Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, since it was about 30 minutes shorter and not as likely to be bogged down with plot (plus, even if it did, it'd be monsters talking instead of boring humans). And as an added bonus, I could finally see one of them without feeling like a creepy weirdo, watching a kids' movie by myself because it qualified enough as "horror" for me to write it up.

Which I guess makes this his first horror movie? He hasn't seen the others, far as I know, but he seemed to enjoy it. He liked Blobby, and was bizarrely fascinated about the Invisible Man - every time he appeared (via floating glasses) Will felt compelled to announce "He's invisible!" to everyone in earshot, prompting another reminder that he had to whisper (luckily some other kids around us were chatty too so it's not like he was the only disruption, but still. MY SON WILL RESPECT THE THEATER!). He told me later that he was scared at one point, but I'm not sure where because he didn't say so at the time, but it was a few days ago and he hasn't reported any nightmares, so woo! If you're worried about your own kids, I would say it's the least "scary" of the trio, thanks in part to the new setting - a sunny cruise ship as opposed to the dark hotel. There's a big squid monster near the end, and an opening chase on a train that's a bit relatively intense, but otherwise it's mostly just Dracula and his pals having fun on the ship and also Drac falling in love with the cruise director. If they can handle the others, they should be more than OK for this one (and if they haven't seen them this would be the easiest to recommend for their first attempt; in fact, it's the first one to not have "scary images" in its MPAA rating).

OK now that the parents guide is done with, what did I think? It was pretty fun; I liked the second one better though, as this took a step back with regards to giving the other monsters anything to do, which was my main issue with the first film. So once again the other guys - Frank, the Wolfman, Invisible Man, etc - are just kind of there for the most part, having very little to do with the main plot and also not getting any significant little subplots of their own. The only exception is Wayne (Steve Buscemi) and his wife, who have like a hundred little werewolf babies and discover the cruise has a daycare (it prompts the best joke for adults in the movie; when the daycare director says they get the kids back at the end of the day, Wayne mutters that it's "better than nothing"). I thought this would prompt a "life lesson" kinda thing about them going off on dates and such only to realize they missed the kids, but no - instead, the villain knocks them out a little while later and they're forgotten for the rest of the film. No one even notices they're gone, and they just kind of reappear at the end unceremoniously. It's like the writers forgot to follow up and didn't bother to fix it.

Speaking of the writers, it's kind of amusing that (in my opinion) the best of the three films - the 2nd one - is the only one that has a writing credit from Adam Sandler. That one DID give the other guys something to do, and had the most laughs, so for all the shit he takes from his critics it's interesting that these films could seemingly benefit from his writing talents. The plot this time around is pretty fun in theory - Van Helsing's granddaughter Ericka wants to live up to her family legacy and kill Dracula (and all the other monsters) but finds herself falling for him. Van Helsing is also around, but he's basically a monster too; a head on a robot thing (his body mangled from so many encounters with Dracula). But there's only so much they can do with just that, and the other subplots either die out like the aforementioned Wayne one, or just aren't all that interesting or funny, such as the ongoing gags concerning Drac's grandson bringing his giant "puppy" on board and passing him off as a monster named Bob.

So it just kind of gets by on the strength of its occasional setpieces, such as when Drac and Ericka have a sort of tango around various booby traps (most of which hit him anyway; he's immortal so it doesn't matter), or when the gang plays volleyball with a ball that can apparently feel pain and fear, screaming the entire time. I also quite liked the flight to the cruise, which was run by Gremlins, in a plane that was falling apart as it flew - can we get a spinoff movie about these things? Director Genndy Tartakovsky doesn't throw in as many sight gags as I seem to remember from the others, though it's still a trip to just let your eyes wander around the frame during the big crowd scenes and enjoy all the various monster designs, and the animation itself continues to improve. I caught some of the first movie on FX or one of those the other day, and it's kind of striking how much the designs have changed over the three films, as they look more cartoonish (in a good way) than their original incarnations. The script may not have been up to snuff, but the animators were bringing their A-game, at least.

Oh, if you're more of a fan of Andy Samberg than Sandler, don't even bother - Johnny is barely in it, and I doubt Samberg took more than 2-3 hours tops to record his lines, most of which come in the climax. Selena Gomez as Dracula's daughter Mavis gets a lot of screentime, but otherwise it's pretty much all just Sandler and Kathryn Hahn (Ericka), with some added occasional fun courtesy of the great Chris Parnell, who plays the fish that staff the cruise ship (he voices all of them). It's kind of a bummer that Sandler has assembled such a great cast (Mel Brooks also returns, for I think three lines) and wastes most of them, but I'm sure the kids won't care much. And there is nary a Rob Schneider or Nick Swardson in sight, so let's take the good with the bad.

But hey, all that matters in the end is if the kids have fun, as there's no law that they need to appeal to the adults (though it would be nice since we're the one buying the tickets and popcorn). I promised myself I wouldn't push my love of horror on my kid like some other parents do, and I'm already seeing signs that he's not naturally inclined to love it anyway (he seemed more into Incredibles, for sure). But if he wants to watch "Daddy movies" I'm glad there's gateway stuff like this that I can get him started with, familiarizing him with the various kinds of monsters and also showing him that they're not always scary. Plus, even if it wasn't up to the relative highs of the 2nd film (or maybe even the first), it held my attention and amused me, which is more than I can say about the likes of Cars or pretty much any Dreamworks movie I've seen, so there's something. And I can still hold out hope for the TV series I wanted it to be in the first place!

What say you?

Tweet

PLEASE, GO ON...

Hotel Transylvania 2 (2015)

SEPTEMBER 25, 2015

GENRE: ANIMATED, MONSTER, VAMPIRE
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

I shrugged off the original Hotel Transylvania, finding most of the humor to be beneath me (lots of fart jokes) and the narrative not taking advantage of the setting and its characters (as the title suggests, a hotel in Transylvania, owned and frequented by monsters). Knowing it was for kids I didn't care much, though the same season offered the superior Paranorman and Frankenweenie, proving that there was a way to make a solid film for kids that adults could enjoy, so over time I just kind of forgot about it. So when I say that I saw Hotel Transylvania 2 on opening night, I want to stress that it wasn't out of undying excitement for it - merely a matter of scheduling, as my Saturday was busy and I was on baby duty Sunday night - and there was no way I'd go see a kid's movie during the day. So an 8:45 Friday night option made the most sense, as it would likely be kind of empty save for the other curious adults*, right?

Alas. I barely even got a seat, and sure enough it was pretty packed with noisy kids up way later than I ever got to stay up on a Friday when I was their age (let alone go to the movies). Now that I'm a dad I've gotten less intolerant of the little brats talking during the movie, though I still can't condone seat-kicking. Thankfully, a few seats to my right remained empty (I know they were sold due to the seat-picking screen, so I hope they were some kids buying for this and going to see Green Inferno) and I was able to mostly focus on the film - which I am happy to say is a big improvement on the original. I know it's hip to hate on Adam Sandler these days, but I credit him and frequent collaborator Allen Covert for the increase in quality - it's the same director, same co-writer (Robert Smigel, an SNL vet who otherwise has never written a film with Sandler, or at least credited as such), etc - so who else can we thank for getting it right this time, since Sandler didn't get writing credit on the first and Covert only supplied a couple voices?

For starters, they give the other monsters more to do. The plot concerns Dracula's grandson, who is the spawn of his vampire daughter (Selena Gomez) and her human husband Johnny (Andy Samberg, surprisingly given almost no funny lines - though his dad is Nick Offerman so that more than makes up for it) and thus no one knows if he'll be human or a vampire. Dracula, obviously, wants him to be a vampire, and thus him and his pals (Wolfman, "Frankenstein" (grr), Mummy, Invisible Man, a green blob thing) go out on an adventure to try to bring out his monster side. So the others get a chance to do something on their own - Frankenstein will show him how to scare people, Mummy will show him how to inflict curses, etc. They all go horribly wrong, of course, but at least they are actually embracing what these characters are this time instead of just using them for fart gags.

They also take some shots at modern day "Everyone's a winner!" hand-holding, when Dracula takes the tyke to the camp where he learned the ropes of being a vampire - flying, catching rats, etc. There he is horrified to see that the little vampire children no longer hunt rats but merely pick them up off a T-ball post, and learn to "fly" by jumping off a 2 foot high ledge onto a safety net (with a harness), instead of diving off the 1000 foot high rickety tower as he did. Hell they could have used this as the focus for the entire movie and made the message "Stop babying your kids" instead of "It's OK if you're _____ (gay, weird, a vampire, whatever you want to plug in) because your family will love you anyway", but I appreciated the detour. There are also some good background gags for adults, something that I don't recall being in the original (favorite: an ad for a tour that will take you to all the best mythical locales: The Bermuda Triangle, Atlantis, and Detroit). There's even a Count Chocula reference!

And as a new dad (SORRY) I got a kick out of the earlier stuff, before the kid gets older (he's 5 for most of the movie, but we track him from birth to his first words and all that). Baby-proofing the castle was particularly fun, with one of those impossible baby gates being placed in front of what seems like a bottomless pit - it's not exactly genius comedy, but again - it was using the idea that these things are in fact monsters for more than just an inventive set design and color scheme. It even has a villain of sorts, a demon named Bela who terrorizes the kid and Drac's daughter Mavis during the finale, with all the monsters (and Johnny's human relatives) banding together to fight them off. It's not exactly scary, and Bela should have been introduced earlier, but it's still more in line with the finale I'd want from a movie about monsters than a rom-com-y race to the airport like the original.

Oh, and they toned down the fart/poop/etc jokes. There are a couple, and the kids ate up one of the demons being hit in the groin, but I go in expecting that sort of shit and I don't really care. It's not the focus - that's what's important, and while his other movies of late leave much to be desired I must laud Sandler for giving a little something for everyone this time around while also diving head first into the concept this time. Indeed, my biggest complaint about the original was that it seemed like a long set up for something better later, and here we are! I can't forgive them for not bringing back the weird sponge thing from the first movie though; they should have made him a primary character.

Don't get me wrong, if you downright HATED the first there's little here to change your mind, but if you're like me, who thought the first movie was infinitely better on paper than in execution, you will probably agree they got a lot closer to getting it right this time, and if you're a parent taking your kids to see it, I think you'll find yourself enjoying it to a degree. I mean I was by myself and really only going to get a new review up, and I was still laughing fairly frequently and not at all embarrassed to be there. When Will is old enough in a couple years, I won't dread him watching this one.

What say you?

*Even though it was almost entirely kids and their parents, my assigned seat was between a couple of college kids and another adult (she looked a few years younger than me) who was also by herself - and believe me if I was single I definitely would have chatted up the like-minded woman who would go to a movie by herself on a Friday night just to enjoy some monster jokes. But anyway - I like that us "old people" all had the same idea, to sit near the front and hope for the best. You know how they offer "Mommy & Me" screenings? They should do the opposite for kids' movies, have special adults only ones for us weirdos.

Tweet

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Amazing Adventures of the Living Corpse (2012)

JUNE 10, 2013

GENRE: ANIMATED, MAD SCIENTIST, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

If I was a guy who called the shots on anything, I'd have a weekly animated series based on The Amazing Adventures of the Living Corpse on the air ASAP. The concept is fun, I loved the animation style, and lord knows there needs to be more animated genre fare... but the movie ultimately disappoints, because it seems Justin Paul Ritter (whose name appears in the credits more times than I can count, so let's just sum up and say he's behind it all) tried to cram far too much material from the source comic into his 88 minute feature. With room to breathe and time to flesh out the world created by Ken Haeser and Buz Hasson in their comic, this could be kind of awesome.

Instead, it's just something I'd throw on in the background for a Halloween party; it's frenetic and colorful enough to draw the eye, but never engaging enough to actually distract someone away from conversation (though if they were talking to me, I'd probably just be talking about underwhelming horror movies I saw, natch). The jumps in the narrative are incredibly jarring - at one point (the end of the second act, basically) they just skip ahead 15 years as if it was only an hour or so, and even individual sequences suffer from the same "and now we're over here!" issue. Our hero zombie and villain are seemingly trapped in a lab, but suddenly they're in what appears to be a church. A seemingly important character named Asteroth disappears for the last 20 minutes or so, and even the end is obnoxiously abrupt, as if they were supposed to put in an epilogue but forgot. Having not read the comic, I can only assume that they were trying to adapt an arc that lasted several issues and highlighted their favorite parts?

Another way to look at it would be the cut-scenes from a video game strung together without the gameplay (and "codex" style entries) that would actually give it some context and structure. It's hard not to think about games - some of Ritter's angles seem to be specifically recalling the over the shoulder approach of your Mass Effects and Dead Spaces, while more than once there's a long zoom into a character's back that reminded me of any big open world type game where the first big cutscene transitions to gameplay. The music frequently has that repetitive "boss battle" looping feel to it, and even some of the plot and art style was reminiscent of the Splatterhouse reboot from a few years back. I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad approach - I certainly love games and, as with the animated format, feel that there aren't enough of them that appeal to horror fans - but with the disjointed approach to the narrative, it doesn't work as well as it could.

Which is a shame, because again, the animation style is kind of awesome. No one will mistake the CGI for Pixar or whatever, but the character designs strike a great blend between being appropriately horrific and also "heroic" (it's the sort of thing where most of the good guys are monster and the bad guys are human), and even in the human world there's an appropriately colorful but dark look to everything that I quite liked - sort of Paranorman meets the art of Clayton Crain, I guess. The backgrounds can be sparse, but that's fine - this was an independently made production and quite an impressive one for the most part, so things like that are not unexpected. I was a little more disappointed with the vocal work; not sure if the mix wasn't great or what, but it felt very disconnected, and I had trouble distinguishing voices when I couldn't actually see who was talking.

And it got me interested in reading the comic, so on that level it's a success. The story involves a man who becomes a zombie and turns good when recognizing his son as a would-be victim (his wife and daughter - too late!), and how he lives with the curse (still needs to eat folks to live!) while hoping to protect his son from bullies and mad scientists alike. Not quite sure what the mad scientist villain was up to since it involves a bunch of gobbledygook, but I DO know that in the 3rd act he has an exposed brain in a glass bowl like Bill Moseley in Silent Night, Deadly Night 3, so there's something. Again, the story jumps around a lot, so I had trouble following it on more than one occasion, but assuming the comics make sense, it seems like a fun "good vs. evil" yarn where the sides are swapped - I mean, the movie's most endearing character is a little troll demon named Worthless Merk. I'd totally read an issue about him.

The Blu doesn't have a single goddamn bonus feature, which surprised me - they had a premiere at Comic Con, it's an indie production, and it's based on a comic book - surely there is a wealth of "built-in" supplements, and they don't even give us a trailer? What gives, Anchor Bay? They could at least show us some art from the comic and how it compares with the 3D animated version, or some animatics or whatever. So that plus the underwhelming narrative makes this a tough sell, but they have the elements - let's see about doing a web series or something! I'd even toss in a couple bucks on Kickstarter.

What say you?

Tweet

PLEASE, GO ON...

Frankenweenie (2012)

OCTOBER 13, 2012

GENRE: ANIMATED, MAD SCIENTIST, MONSTER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

You know I'm too busy when I can't find the time for a HMAD-ready wide theatrical release until its 2nd weekend, but with Shriekfest and a work week that had me on the late shift (why don't theaters open at 9 am?), I just couldn't get to Frankenweenie until now. And honestly, I might have waited longer (I haven't seen Argo yet - seeing a late period Tim Burton movie before the new film from one of my heroes* is not sitting well with me), but the market for stop-motion horror movies for kids apparently dried up with Paranorman, and I suspect that Sparky's adventures in reanimation won't be around in too many theaters by the time I have a free weekend or weeknight again.

And that's a shame, because I think it's just as good as Paranorman, and in some ways better. While that film hit closer to home for me (as the horror loving kid from New England without a lot of friends growing up), the story was uneven (adios ghosts, hello zombies; adios zombies, hello random little sad girl!) and - I know this is a weird thing to "complain" about, but bear with me - the animation was a bit TOO clean; at times it looked more like CGI animated toons instead of traditional stop-motion puppets running across its lavish sets. Frankenweenie doesn't have that problem - it's got quite a few of the little "glitches" (displaced grass around characters feet, for example) that I actually really love to see in stop motion - it somehow *proves* that its a difficult, time-consuming process that requires hands-on manipulation to work (as opposed to a computer doing what you tell it to once the design is out of the way).

See, as I've mentioned before, I used to make little stop-motion pieces for various school projects and such, and grew to really love the process and truly admire the work that goes into professional pieces like this. So when I see that little smudged fingerprint on a puppet's chest, it actually warms me a little - being taken out of the movie for a second is worth the reassurance that in this day and age of lazy filmmaking, there are still some ass-busters out there who will do things the "old" way in order to sell the overall tone and feel of their concepts; a far cry from say, Michael Mann, using the world's shittiest digital technology to tell a story that took place in 1930.

Plus it started with one of the character's own stop-motion home movies, which was just awesome as it showed the difference between a kid doing it for a hobby and what happens when a big team of experts are behind the magic (it's the same process, basically - they're moving stuff a bit and shooting one frame at a time, same as the kid in the movie). It kind of reminded me of Team America, starting on a puppet show before panning out to reveal... a puppet show. But way to win me over right off the bat, as we see little mistakes in his movie (props falling over, the occasional hand) that sent me back to 1995 or so, trying to make my Odysseus (some generic wrestling figure) enter the cave (shoebox) of Polyphemus (a lump of play-dough).

Except the star of this movie is Sparky (né Frankenweenie), playing a heroic dinosaur who saves this makeshift city from a rampaging pterodactyl. And since I knew the plot of the movie, I actually started crying, not two minutes after it began. The animation and design for Sparky is just incredible, and seeing the little mutt happily running around in the movie (and then after, cheerfully following hero Victor around as he prepared to make his next film) just wrecked me, because I knew he wouldn't be around long since the plot revolved around his death and reanimation. It's like in ARMAGEDDON, when Bruce promises Liv Tyler that he'll come back - it's fine the first time, but now when I watch it I get all sad because I know he doesn't. The actual death is handled well (even if they twist the knife a bit by letting him safely cross the street only to get hit by a car on the way back), and while some of the kids in the crowd were successfully killing the tension by asking stupid questions at full volume, I think if they could handle the old lady in Up, or Bambi's mom in Bambi (which gets a shoutout for this very reason, I suspect), they should be fine.

Especially since, obviously, Sparky is brought back in a Frankenstein-esque experiment, inspired by Victor's new science teacher, who gives the most ridiculous/hilarious explanation of lightning ever uttered on-screen or off. The number of scars and body parts that keep falling off suggest that the car really did a number on the poor guy, but he's just as silly and playful as he was when he was alive, which should help alleviate any trauma among the kiddies. But I wouldn't show this to a kid who actually lost his own pet; not only will it give the wrong idea, but the ending (SPOILER) doesn't quite teach us about the consequences of playing God the way its namesake text does. Obviously it makes for a happier ending so we're not soaking our 3D glasses in tears all over again, but still, I think ol' Sparky should have wagged his tail goodbye and let young Victor actually grieve instead of doing what we mournful pet owners can't. I guess it hammers home the film's pro-science slant (the teacher gives a great speech about how we wouldn't be here if not for people experimenting the way Victor does), but come on. Big difference between discovering a way to prevent diseases and stitching together a dog and bringing him back to life to avoid learning about death.

Otherwise, no complaints at all. The black and white style is perfect, as there are a number of references to classic horror (Bride of Frankenstein, Hunchback, Invisible Man, etc) and thus feels just right when Victor's pulling off his experiment, charmingly put together out of household items and makeshift "equipment" - it's one of the best "It's alive!" scenes since the original, I think. And his fellow classmates - all weirdos - are given distinct personalities and designs, which works out perfectly as they are somewhat sidelined for a while and then gradually weeded back into the plot as they catch on to Victor's secret and begin raising their own pets from the grave. Naturally, things don't go as well as they did with Sparky, so the third act is just a treasure trove of monster action as the pets mutate and attack the town during their annual parade.

And the villains have just as much variety as the kids - there's a Gremlins-esque batch of mutant sea monkeys, a cat/bat hybrid , a mummy hamster named Colossus, and the giant turtle taking the place of Gamera. I was actually impressed by the amount of carnage - even factoring in the difficulty of such scale with stop-motion, I just wasn't expecting it to get this crazy. Naturally, things end with an angry torch-wielding mob and our monsters battling at a burning windmill, which is the best kind of reference - I was giggling like a fool, but the kids in the crowd who have never seen a Frankenstein film won't even notice that they're "missing" a joke. Hell even some of the more blatant references still worked on the youngsters - one kid who couldn't have been more than 4 or 5 laughed hysterically when a dog got zapped and was left with a Bride of Frankenstein 'do - there's no way he was laughing at the homage, he just found it to be a funny sight.

It's also a fine return to form for Burton, who has mostly disappointed since... well, Ed Wood, his last black and white film. Maybe color's not his thing (the only one in between I've really liked is Sweeney Todd, which was practically black and white save for the blood and that one fantasy scene), and it's interesting that like Ed Wood, the film is about a relationship between best friends, one of whom appears in the other one's movies. And the town of New Holland is very much like the North Hollywood/Burbank locales that Burton used in that film (he grew up in Burbank and has drawn from it in a number of his films), so the two would make a fine double feature someday. And it's certainly better than Corpse Bride, which was just dull and in no way lived up to Nightmare Before Christmas (which it was aiming for, unlike this which is a more traditional (song-free) tale that just happens to use the format). Needless to say, the (native) 3D is also better than his last foray, which remains the low point for conversions.

The film's middling box office is a bummer, but not too surprising - Burton killed a lot of his goodwill on Alice and Dark Shadows, the black and white look is probably a turn off for many, and again, Paranorman probably stole a lot of its thunder. It's a shame that his best work as a director in ages is going unnoticed by the masses, but then again, so did Ed Wood. Hopefully this won't scare him back into adaptation territory, but if so, at least we know he's still got some of that old spark in him somewhere.

What say you?

*Affleck came out of Boston to star in ARMAGEDDON and become a respected filmmaker. I came out of Boston to tweet about ARMAGEDDON and watch Puppet Master movies. Obviously, he's someone I look up to and would pattern myself after if I had a shred of his talent. Hell, dude even grows a better beard than me.

Tweet

PLEASE, GO ON...

Hotel Transylvania (2012)

SEPTEMBER 28, 2012

GENRE: ANIMATED, MONSTER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

I could have just gone to a neighborhood theater for a midnight Hotel Transylvania, but I have come to really like the 3D presentation at the Rave 18, which is like 25-30 minutes from my house (and longer tonight as there was an accident on the freeway). For a good 3D film, it's worth the gas (and 2 dollar parking - my other theaters are free), but alas the 3D for this particular entry in the growing "animated kids horror movie" genre was among the weakest I've seen - even some of the trailers beforehand were more impressive. Being that I'm not the target audience for the film, feel free to disregard everything else I say below, but I know 3D and this wasn't even remotely worth the extra 3 bucks (especially if you're bringing your kids).

The movie itself was fine. Again, it's aimed at folks who are at least 20 years younger than me, and there's no law that says every animated film has to appeal to the adults as well. If your kid likes fart jokes and the like, he/she will find plenty to enjoy here, but if you want something that works on "all ages" I would suggest opting for Paranorman or waiting for Frankenweenie (which I haven't seen, but have heard plenty of good things from folks I trust). For adults, there's only a handful of gags that might go over the 6-7 year olds' heads - the random jab at Twilight was a delight (even if this film is just as guilty at reducing the iconic nature of a vampire), and I particularly loved the strange bit where a sentient sponge seemed to be getting off as it was used to clean up a puddle of wolf pee.

In fact, that's kind of my weird issue with the movie - it's Adam Sandler and a bunch of his usual pals (Steve Buscemi, Kevin James, David Spade, and new cohort Andy Samberg), but precious little of their trademark scatological humor. I was hoping we'd get the Sandler who would see imaginary penguins and hang out with guys who are obsessed with touching people's feet, but it seems they didn't bring much to the table beyond showing up and recording their voices. None of his usual collaborators are among the five (!) people credited with the script, unless you count Robert Smigel, who probably did some work with him at SNL (this is his first writing credit on a Sandler film). In other words, despite the influx of familiar co-stars, this is not an animated Adam Sandler film - it's an animated film that happens to feature him.

However, it does share one trait with those movies - a nonsensical plot that only serves to string the gags together. It's a pretty hit or miss formula (more misses than hits as of late), and this one sadly is much closer to a miss, as the writers seemingly go out of their way to avoid any actual conflict or drive to their story. Any time something interesting is brought up, it's instantly resolved. Basically, Samberg's character is a human who wanders into the hotel one day, which sends Dracula (Sandler) into a panic because he has convinced his daughter that all humans want to do is kill them. So he has Samberg pretend to be a monster like his buddy Frankenstein (yep, it's a movie where they confuse the Monster for the doctor), but the kid falls for the daughter and thus threatens to expose his human nature, and that's pretty much it. There's no ACTUAL human villain, the daughter isn't in any real danger, and even Dracula doesn't seem particularly engaged in his own drama - within minutes he's basically Samberg's best friend, "surfing" through the castle on magic tables.

It also fails to give the other monsters anything to do. "Frank", the Wolfman, the Invisible Man, and the Mummy are in nearly every scene, but most of the time are just sitting around doing nothing beyond offering the occasional one-liner. When everyone arrives it seems like they'll have their own subplots - the Wolfman is being driven batty by his giant litter, Frank's wife nags him, etc, but these things never stretch beyond their initial setup, and serve just to give the actors something to do - you could cut them all out of the movie and it wouldn't make much of a difference until the climax, where they each get to do one little thing as they all make their way to try to stop Samberg from leaving. But the "Hotel" aspect, and even their monstrous nature, are completely wasted as the movie focuses on the generic love story and Dracula's realization that his little girl has grown up - why even risk losing some of the audience when you can just do the same exact story with, I dunno, a hotel for primates or something? Drac can be a baboon, Frank can be a gorilla, Mummy can be an ape... basically it feels like an extended pilot for a TV show about a hotel for monsters, where we're just learning who everyone is and setting up the world, before the series really begins and gets interesting.

From what I understand, this movie went through SIX directors, and it's worth noting that the three guys credited with the film's story aren't either of the ones credited with its screenplay, so this is clearly a movie that has been retooled and revised beyond any hope of being truly memorable. I don't mean to be a Pixar snob, but they are the only animation outfit who are consistently delivering something that you'll want to show your own kids someday - Sony, Dreamworks, FOX... their entries are just typical junk you throw on to distract the youngsters during long car rides or something, for the most part (that said, Dreamworks' Rise of the Guardians looks incredible). This is no different - it's cool to see all these monsters together with state of the art animation, and while they're just background characters there's a lot of great design work here to enjoy (the one time the 3D comes to life is during big crowd scenes), but the almost non-existent story and lack of any real laughs makes it a tough sell when there are superior horror-centric family options still out there. It held my attention, nothing more - but someone call me when they make that TV show!

What say you?

Tweet

PLEASE, GO ON...

Paranorman (2012)

JULY 25, 2012

GENRE: ANIMATED, GHOST, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (PRESS SCREENING)

My dad (who incidentally passed away 8 years ago today) was 35 when I was born, but I was also his third child. So I’m starting to feel like I’m “running out of time” when it comes to having kids, as I’m 32 and still on my, er, zero-th kid. Thus, when I see a terrific family movie like Paranorman, I get kind of bummed out – will technology advance to the point where my theoretical kid finds it too “old” by the time he exists for me to show it to him? I’m already terrified he’ll never be able to appreciate things like Legos or whatever.

See, the movie is very much a kids/family film, but it’s also a total joy for horror fans, and thus is exactly the sort of movie I’d want to show my children, assuming they wanted to be like their old man and live a life filled with Fangoria magazines and Dr. Loomis action figures. While it’s “scary” and dips into more mature subject matter at times (the back-story is essentially that of the Salem Witch Trials), I think I’d be OK showing it to a 5 or 6 year old, and an older kid should be able to enjoy it even if he’s already been introduced to Craven and Romero.

Because, as you learn early on, Norman is pretty awesome, and by that I mean he’s like us. He watches silly B- movies whenever he can, he’s got horror posters all over the wall… even his toothbrush has a zombie on it. And, as you might expect, his family and schoolmates think he’s weird and pick on him, but of course when something bad happens he’s the only one that can stop the town from being destroyed. So it’s a terrific moral for kids who might think that they’re different in some way, as it’s that very quality that allows Norman to be the hero. And he’s still a horror nerd at the end, instead of pulling a Grease and ending the movie on “change your ways to fit in!”

It’s also chock full of little references that will mean nothing and won’t distract those who aren’t in a position to understand them. The most overt is the Halloween ringtone gag that you’ve seen in the trailer (along with a Jason mask), but there are some other clever bits as well, like a gas station named Gunnar’s. And I’m not sure if you ever see the entire sign in the movie (it’s partially obscured by someone’s head) but the tavern is named “Bar Gento”, which is just plain awesome. I’m sure there were others in the sets and backgrounds, but I try not to spend my first time seeing a movie looking for Easter eggs.

Though, if I DID, this would certainly be the one to do it with, as I was consistently amazed by the sets and amount of characters that populate them. Save for a few CGI elements here and there, the entire movie was done with stop-motion animation, utilizing dozens of sets and characters that stand nine inches tall and have hundreds of heads for different facial expressions. It’s by far the most advanced of its type I’ve ever seen (topping even the same team’s Coraline), and I honestly can’t wait for the Blu-ray as I assume it will have behind the scenes pieces about the creation of this world. I’ve tried stop-motion myself a few times and have always loved it, but even by primitive, one character/one set (i.e. my bedroom floor) works took hours and hours – I can’t imagine how much manpower it takes to pull off, say, a crowd scene where they’re all waving torches and mucking about.

The 3D is also spectacular; not only can you engulf yourself in these sets, but the shots have a lot of depth to them (as opposed to comin at ya type stuff), fully bringing the world to life. And the slight dimming that occurs from the glasses (it SHOULD be slight, at least – you have to count on the theater knowing what they’re doing) actually adds to the horror feel, as you get a touch more of that cold New England look that the film has, but without losing any of its rich color.

My only minor issue was that the script didn’t quite gel as much as I’d like, particularly with regards to the ghosts. Early on, we see that Norman can see the spirits of pretty much everyone (and everything – a ghost bird!) that had died in the town, but this element never really factors into the rest of the movie – the ghosts are nowhere to be seen once the zombies rise from their graves and begin wreaking havoc. Instead, Norman teams up with some other teens (his pal, his sister, the town bully), and he keeps insisting that he’s the only one who can stop the curse, but the movie no longer shows us how he’s any different than them with regards to how to stop it. The film’s villain is also strangely underutilized – the first time we really see her is when Norman is basically starting the final battle. Not sure if all of this is a way to keep the film from potentially being too scary for kids, but it resulted in some abruptness to the storytelling, which should be the main goal.

But it’s a small complaint, as the movie never stopped entertaining me, and it’s much funnier than I was expecting – the dude trying to hide his weapon during the town meeting killed me, and Norman’s parents (Jeff Garlin and Leslie Mann) cracked me up almost every time they were on screen. Jon Brion’s score is also quite wonderful, and the rest of the cast is pretty great; Anna Kendrick in particular was terrific in her first feature voice role, and I was happy to see McLovin’ was playing a bully instead of his usual obnoxious nerd. I also like that they didn’t model the characters after the people doing their voices, as I find that distracting and weird.

All in all, a terrific “PG horror” entry that showcases the best stop-motion work I’ve seen, giving something for everyone to enjoy. I’d go see it again (with the 3D surcharge!), which is the highest compliment I can give nowadays. Enjoy!

What say you?

Tweet

PLEASE, GO ON...

Mad Monster Party (1967)

APRIL 23, 2011

GENRE: ANIMATED, MONSTER
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX INSTANT)

It's hard to dislike a movie that has pretty much every classic monster under one roof, and brought to life with awesome stop-motion to boot, but Mad Monster Party (which has a ? at the end of the title for some reason, I refuse to add it until someone can explain it!) is sadly pretty dull for most of its running time. Plus, it's filled with humor aimed at kids, but (spoiler) ends with everyone dying or turning out to be a soulless robot. Not too kid-friendly.

Despite coming from the Rankin/Bass factory, it makes more sense to compare to Nightmare Before Christmas, another monster-filled stop-motion feature length film. Nightmare is 20 minutes shorter and even that feels padded at times (I never quite shined to the Oogie Boogie subplot; it never seemed to gel with the vastly more interesting story of a guy trying to take over another holiday). Here, it's like the entire movie is comprised of padding; we spend a lot of time being introduced to our "hero" at his job at a pharmacy, and then he pretty much disappears for the entire second act of the movie. Each monster is given an introduction and a quick gag, usually with one of the others (I particularly liked the sleeping Mummy using Hunchback's hump as a pillow), but most of them have no real place in the narrative; only Dracula really seems to have a real plot, with Wolfman and Frankenstein's Monster popping up with some frequency compared to the others but still sort of useless. It's like they had a cute idea for a 30 minute special and decided to expand it to feature length (indeed, I had heard of it a few times but always assumed it WAS a TV special like Rudolph and Year Without A Santa Claus).

And again, the hero disappears for so long, I had nearly forgotten about him by the time he showed back up again. He also barely interacts with most of the monsters, which makes it feel like you're watching two entirely different movies grafted together. Even once he finally arrives on the island, he spends most of the time dicking around in the jungle with the villainess/eventual love interest, while most of the monsters are inside the castle. His voice also doesn't seem to match the character; he looks like a younger fella but he sounds like Don Knotts. In short, he's the shittiest hero ever (he also slaps around the love interest, who suddenly finds him attractive almost immediately after - uh...).

After a while I began mainly just amusing myself by checking which monsters they got the design for and which they had to modify. Invisible Man's robe and glasses are spot on, but Creature From The Black Lagoon looks more like the female Gremlin from The New Batch. Wolfman also just looks like a giant dog, which is odd because Frankenstein and Dracula are pretty close to the Universal designs. And the design of King Kong is pretty accurate, but they didn't have the right to his name I guess, because he's called "It". It's funny, I was talking to someone the other day that it's a shame that Universal, New Line, and Dimension/Weinstein couldn't all agree to license their characters for a sort of Mortal Kombat type game with all the classic/modern monsters* (as those three studios pretty much own all of them); rights and clearance stuff has been spoiling our fun forever I guess.

Once Felix finally arrives on the island it picks up a bit, as the monsters (well, Dracula) actually start DOING something instead of just sort of hanging out in the castle, engaged in an endless series of mostly lame gags (the brief food fight seems like a big missed opportunity, as well). It's also at this point where they stop breaking into song out of nowhere; there are only 5-6 songs in the movie, not enough to qualify as a musical, but just more time-killing nonsense (they're also not particularly memorable songs - no "Heat Miser" or "Silver and Gold" here). There's a man eating plant, and King Kong lumbering around... it's not exactly Team America in terms of action, but at least the characters are motivated by something for once.

After a while I just gave up hope in enjoying the movie as an actual narrative and just started focusing on the animation. I'm a huge stop-motion fan (I even did some myself in high school/college), and the work here is terrific. The Invisible Man effects are particularly impressive (probably why he barely, er, appeared), and the sets and backdrops were seemingly huge and well detailed, giving the characters a nice, colorful playground. You can see strings every now and then, but not nearly as often as you might expect given the complexity of some of the "stunts" and the fact that they didn't have computers to remove them back in the 60s. And regardless of their design compared to their live-action counterpart, each monster was wonderfully detailed and very different looking from the others; apart from Frankenstein and his Monster's head (where the similarity sort of makes sense - p.s. Frankenstein is clearly modeled after Boris Karloff, who provides the voice), there doesn't seem to be any examples of making one mold and using that for all of the characters, like in some other stop motion movies; every monster seems designed from scratch.

And, you know, it's harmless. A little long, and with questionable judgment in terms of what its intended audience should be exposed to, but if I had a four or five year old who wanted to watch some of daddy's horror movies, I'd be worried about showing him even Nightmare Before Christmas, which is legitimately scary at times, but I'd feel fine putting this on and letting him enjoy the colorful, non-threatening monsters. I just wish it was something that offered a little more than a series of gags. I'm not exactly one of those nuts who come to the theater dressed up as Jack Skellington, but once the novelty of the animation wears off in that film, I still enjoy the story and songs; here, the appeal of the animation was the only thing keeping me interested at all.

What say you?

*This guy tried to do just that, but as you can see, the studios threw a hissy fit and threatened to sue instead of realizing the potential and bringing this guy in to develop the game for real.

PLEASE, GO ON...

Night Of The Living Dead: Re-Animated (2009)

FEBRUARY 21, 2011

GENRE: ANIMATED, INDEPENDENT, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

Last summer, I realized that there were enough versions of Night Of The Living Dead for me to make an entire week’s worth of content for HMAD, considering the 1990 remake was the only one (besides the 1968 original, obviously) that I had ever seen, and it was so long ago I couldn’t remember much beyond “I liked the new ending”. So I planned a NOTLD-only week, but didn’t get around to it until now. So hopefully you like the story, because that’s pretty much all I’ll be talking about this week, starting with Night Of The Living Dead: Re-Animated, an art gallery in cinematic form.

The concept, and even a good chunk of the execution, is pretty awesome – using the original movie’s soundtrack, the entire film is recreated via a series of edited together animations and drawings from over a hundred different artists. Stop motion, flash, cell based, video game style CGI, puppets, Barbie dolls, even some Furbys are used to tell the story, shot for shot. Due to the film’s unfortunate status as a public domain staple, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone with a passing interest in horror that hasn’t seen the film already, so it lends itself nicely to such abstract interpretation, and free of any potential lawsuits to boot.

Unfortunately, far too much of the film is devoted to still images. Not to critique the art itself – I’m certainly no art critic, and like everyone else in the world, there are certain styles I just don’t care for in general – but a still image is not animation to me. Even when I didn’t care much for a certain artist’s animation (just throwing a bunch of filters over the actual movie – so what?), at least it fit the “Re-Animated” part of the title. It’s really jarring to go from a really interesting animation style (one guy essentially depicted everything with squiggles, sort of like the Tony/Ridley “Scott Free” production company logo) to a series of still frames, sometimes 2-3 for the same shot. While it’s cool to see different interpretations of say, the Bill Hinzman cemetery zombie in rapid succession, I’d much rather something more fluid. Here’s the drive to the cemetery done with miniatures and stop motion; here’s the death of Johnny in flash, here’s Barbara’s run to the house in stick figures, etc. I loved the idea of doing different styles, but they switch far too often and far too randomly. Some animations are only on-screen for a second or two, cutting to still frames or something before you get a chance to fully appreciate it.

The potential of DVD hasn’t been utilized, either. Why not have two cuts of the film – one with genuine animation and another with still frames? That would be far less jarring for the animation, and would allow for more submissions for the still frame artwork. Also, why not provide a subtitle track that informs us which artists’ work we are looking at, at any given moment? There’s an “artists call-in” commentary with about 20 of the artists talking briefly about what they contributed, over still frame examples (even if they provided full blown animation) , and a rapid fire roll call of each artist with a frame of their work (5 seconds each), but it would have made more sense AND been more helpful to have it over the film itself. Say I liked the animation over the scene where Ben and Cooper have their brawl – I’d have to click through every artist to figure out who it was in order to check out his or her other work. But if it was over the movie, I could just cue up that scene and find out instantly. I also would have loved more from the NOTLD “Maniac Mansion” style adventure video game that we see once or twice, as it’s obviously part of a larger whole (instead, we get a random, largely incoherent clip of a Pac-Man style game based on the movie).

This is even more of a bummer when you consider how jam-packed the disc is with stuff that few will care about, such as a promo for one of the websites that was pimping the film, random short films by a couple of the artists that have nothing to do with NOTLD nor do they provide any context (i.e. “This is the short that got (NOTLD:R-A ‘curator’ Mike Schneider’s attention” or something), and a full hour (!) of a generic zombie panel from some con, where you can barely understand anything being said because the audio is so muffled. There’s also a half hour devoted to a guy showing off his collection of NOTLD box art. I mean, yeah, it’s cool to see how many different ways the movie has been packaged over the years, but wouldn’t a still gallery make a lot more sense? Glad the guy’s such a die hard, but I don’t have the patience to listen to him wax nostalgic about each cover, especially when there are so many more interesting things that could have been on the disc. For example, there are some “making of” pieces with a couple select artists, and they explain how they pulled off their animation. At the end of one, they show their animated scene alongside the original footage – this would have been great for the entire movie (via a picture in picture option – use that damn “angle” button for once!). Again, NOTLD is in the public domain – you can do pretty much whatever you want with it, but footage from the film is surprisingly scarce on the disc.

Of most importance are the two commentary tracks: one with Schneider, the guy who runs the distribution company for the DVD, a horror journalist, and author Jon Maberry, who wrote the awesome “Patient Zero”; the other with Schneider again along with a filmmaker and some website guy. Both tracks are kind of arrogant in tone, and poorly recorded to boot (it’s kind of fitting for this particular movie though, I guess), but they do make a good case for the project, and explain part of the process of how it was all put together (apparently there were a lot of flakes). Some of their comments are a bit insulting, however – they take a few shots at the movie and at one point Schneider defends a complex 360 degree shot of the group that does not appear in the original movie, claiming Romero probably would have done the same if he could. Do not assume what a legendary and gifted filmmaker would or wouldn’t do, please (especially one that works as an editor, considering how grating this film’s editing can be). They also allude to art that has been removed or reduced in the film, but Schneider absolves himself of any blame, claiming that anything he removed from the film was based on comments from a few “test screenings” conducted at conventions.

So if you really dig art/animation, you’ll probably enjoy this to some degree. It’s not exactly something you’d want to watch as an actual movie (I expect to see it on a loop at the next hipster bar I go to around Halloween-time), but there’s a lot of great stuff on display. Just a shame the “curator” didn’t think to make it easier to know who was responsible for it. He claims it’s an art gallery – an actual art gallery doesn’t just give you a list of all the artists and ask you to figure out who did what.

Tomorrow: Savini’s 1990 remake!

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Dead Space: Aftermath (2011)

JANUARY 10, 2011

GENRE: ALIEN, PSYCHOLOGICAL, VIDEO GAME
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

OK, I don’t keep up with anime – is this “let’s have 5-6 different animation teams do a single narrative” approach the common thing now? The first Dead Space animated movie, Downfall, had just the one team (at least for the characters), but now the 2nd, Dead Space: Aftermath follows the Dante’s Inferno-style method of knocking you right out of the narrative every 15 minutes or so by changing animation styles. And it’s a shame, because it’s otherwise a pretty good movie, and got me even more pumped to play the game (which is the only reason it exists, I’m sure).

Luckily, it’s not AS jarring as Inferno, because there’s at least some sort of rhyme and reason behind the animation shifts, whereas in Inferno it just happened every now and then without fanfare (sometimes even mid-scene). Aftermath’s narrative employs flashbacks, as the four survivors of a space disaster recount their tale one by one. So one team handles all of the present day stuff, and then each time someone tells their part of the tale, we get a new team. However, it’s still disorienting, and often difficult to tell which character is which at first, especially in the case of the Borges character, who becomes black in one team’s version. If not for the fact that I recognized the actor’s voice (it’s Carlos from Desperate Housewives!), it probably would have led to a lot of confusion as the film went on.

Also, the flashback animations all looked really good, but the “wraparound” stuff (3D CGI) seemed looked a bit too simplistic, like they were barely past the animatic stage – no detail on the faces, bland backgrounds, etc. This makes the shifts even more awkward – you go from a detailed cel-based version of a character to something that looks like a PS1 cut-scene. I understand that animated films require a lot of folks and that these things probably don’t have the biggest budgets, but the first movie didn’t suffer from this problem, and now Dead Space is a proven IP – surely they could have gotten the money required to make the thing visually consistent. But as I said, I don’t follow anime much – maybe this is just how they do things now.

I do follow movies about space monsters though, and this is a pretty good one. The flashback structure actually works quite well – they don’t waste much time on the characters we know didn’t make it, and the journey showing how they got from the beginning of the story (on a planet that’s about to implode) to the end (on a spaceship not unlike the one you were on in the first game) was more complex and interesting than I expected at first. It goes into surprisingly morbid territory too – one guy snaps and kills his wife and baby, and another keeps seeing the ghost of his daughter (who was seemingly hit by a car – another grim moment) wandering around everywhere, which usually causes him to freak out and kill someone.

It also does a good job of fitting into the existing universe without being impenetrable to those who are new to the Dead Space franchise. Game hero Isaac Clarke is only mentioned at the very end of the film, and as far as I can tell, all of the characters we follow are specific to this story (they take a while to explain why one dude is missing an arm though – until that point I figured he was from one of the other stories but he explains about halfway through that it was a mining accident). The Dead Space universe has spanned five games, a comic, two novels, and now two animated films – there’s a lot of backstory and mythology to work with, but even though I’ve only played the first game and seen the other movie, I wasn’t lost or even momentarily puzzled as to what they were referring to. However, the stuff involving the “marker” might be a bit vague to newcomers; I’d suggest at least reading a few Wiki entries to get up to speed on that aspect, if time is short and you don’t have time for the game.

And it has a lot of references! The ship is called the O’Bannon, which better be an obvious reference to anyone watching horror movies set in space. One of the minor characters plays Dante’s Inferno on his space-PSP (and points out that the movie is better – heh), and the ending is pretty much an homage to Armageddon, as someone has to stay behind and press a button manually in order for the mission to succeed. With the animation shifts annoying me, these minor moments of levity helped even things out.

I could have done without the profanity though (I know, ironic). The occasional F-bomb is fine (the movie IS R-rated after all – there’s even some nudity), but it sounded excessive at times; Ricardo Chavira’s character would often drop it twice in one sentence (like, “Stop fucking around or I will fucking kill you!” or whatever). I also wouldn’t have minded another action scene with the monsters; they have less of a presence here than I remember from the first movie.

The DVD and Blu are pretty bare-bones though; the only extra is a trailer for the game, which shows off some of the (awesome) new monsters and reveals that Isaac actually talks this time (he never uttered a word in the first game, even in cut scenes). I didn’t love the first game, due to that and the repetitive nature of the missions, but it looks like those issues have been fixed for this one (there’s also multiplayer), and I never got too tired of shooting up Necromorphs once I had maxed out my weapons. So I’m certainly feeling the itch to play the sequel, and the movie certainly played a part in that. It’s a bit short (only 76 minutes, including lengthy end credits and a full minute or so of “ so and so company presents” at the beginning), but it’s an enjoyable blend of psychological and monster action (shades of Pandorum), and I think animation buffs will enjoy seeing how different teams interpret the characters.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...