28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026)

JANUARY 16, 2026

GENRE: ZOMBIE
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

Despite not loving 28 Years Later, I worked my morning schedule around making sure I could see its sequel, simply titled The Bone Temple on screen, on opening day. It's a busy month for the genre, with a new wide release every week, and since I can only get to one movie a weekend (at most!), this one would get lost in the shuffle if I wasn't proactive. Plus the word of mouth was strong, with many even naming it their favorite of the franchise, so I was quite curious to see how it played for me, someone whose favorite entry is the one most people don't even remember at all, let alone laud.

Anyway, Bone Temple is an improvement on its predecessor, thanks to a more focused narrative and better use of the key assets of the previous film, namely Ralph Fiennes' doctor Ian Kelson and his excellent taste in music. In a move that would make "Dr Frankenstein" proud, Kelson figures out a way to communicate with one of the zombies (and yes, the Z-word is used again) and perhaps even reverse the infection, which allows him to bond with Samson, the oft-naked "Alpha" we met in the last movie. Their scenes are the best in the film, and honestly I could happily just watch the two of them form their strange, wonderful friendship over the course of these two (and maybe three) films.

But we spend the other half of the runtime with the "Jimmies", a group of thugs led by Sir Jimmy Crystal, played by Jack O'Connell. We met them at the end of Years, and now Spike (the young protagonist of the previous film) is, through happenstance, part of their gang, though he certainly isn't fond of the predicament. These scenes, alas, grew tiresome for me - there's never any sense that Spike is being corrupted by Sir Jimmy or even in any serious danger from the other "Jimmies", and as with the last movie, it feels like this stuff would play best to someone who hadn't seen a single zombie movie since the original 28 Days in 2002. I mean, if seeing yet another evil human use the ongoing zombie threat as an excuse to invade someone's home before killing them for their supplies is still somehow novel to you, enjoy! But I've seen this sort of thing too many times, and considering how engaging the Kelson material was to me, every time it cut back to this group I found myself losing interest.

As with the last one, the last reel or so is where the movie really shines, because that's when Spike's two would-be father figures finally come face to face (his actual dad, played by Aaron Taylor Johnson, isn't seen this time around). It's a bit unfortunate that Kelson doesn't realize Spike is among their number until the very last moments of their encounter, but it's more than made up for with how Kelson introduces himself to the group. I won't spoil the particulars (though social media posts with a song attached have almost certainly clued you in to one aspect), but it's an electrifying sequence on par with the musical interlude in Sinners (which also co-starred Jack O'Connell, incidentally).

Oh, it reprises John Murphy's iconic "In The House" during the credits, so that made me happy as it was absent from Years.

It's also a better LOOKING movie, so that was a relief. I couldn't stand the iPhone photography (I cannot use the word "CINEMAtography" in that context without feeling some of my soul die) in Years, but this was thankfully shot with normal (digital) cameras, allowing the striking production design of its titular setting to shine through. And yes, this means you get better looks at the dongs on display - it's not just Samson that bares all for the audience this time around! (I know Samson's is a prosthetic, but semantics aside: what was the last major studio movie to offer lengthy shots of TWO male penises? In a movie with no female nudity of any sort, to boot? Like some alt-Bechdel test up in here.) There isn't a lot of action, but at least when there is, it's easier to follow thanks to the improved imagery it offers.

I also liked that it was hopeful. This genre, more than any other in horror, is often used as a subtle (or not subtle) commentary on what's going on in the world, and given the state of things now, it'd be easy to make something truly nihilistic and grim. But no; Kelson keeps hope alive for the good in the world (thanks in part to his music collection; the man has good taste) and the final line is worth cheering for, not just because it's a good character moment for the person saying it, but also because it's an attitude we need more of in the real world, where innocent people are being murdered by a fake police force for merely trying to stand up for their neighbors.

Basically, it's a really good movie that is burdened mainly by being a direct followup to one that I felt was uneven (and ugly!), leaving me less enticed about returning to its world. Even the ho-hum Jimmy stuff isn't BAD, per se - it just lacks the compelling and less common nature of the scenes with Samson and Ian, because even a casual fan could probably tell you how it will end up. Perhaps if Spike was able to convince his fellow "Jimmies" to rise up against their tyrannical (and full of crap) leader, there would be more gravy to these scenes, but Spike mostly just silently follows them around for most of his scenes, only becoming (slightly) proactive near the very end. O'Connell is great, but there's only so much that good acting can do with such an overused character archetype in this sort of thing.

As for the promised third part of this trilogy, I am curious what it will be like. Without spoiling things, it seems that the next entry will be a bit of an outlier for a trilogy closer, as a few of the plot threads from these two are pretty much tied up at the end of this one, and the setup for the next movie seems like it will be more tied into the very first film than these two. And then Bone Temple didn't open all that well, so with stiff genre competition over the next few weeks (Silent Hill, Send Help, The Bride!, etc.) there's no guarantee it'll be made anyway. If Sony decides not to pursue it any further, at least the setup isn't exactly a major cliffhanger; we've certainly been left hanging in worse situations (the Divergent series, perhaps even the last Fast & Furious, not to mention all the go-nowhere plot threads of the Halloween, Friday the 13th, and Texas Chain Saw franchises). But it'd be a shame for them not to see it through. Even though neither of them were exactly my favorite films of the year (well, I HOPE this doesn't end up being one of them for 2026), there's certainly enough good in both to warrant seeing how it all turns out.

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Blu-Ray Review: Night of the Living Dead (1990)

OCTOBER 13, 2025

GENRE: ZOMBIE
SOURCE: 4K UHD (OWN COLLECTION)

A while back during the glory days of HMAD, I spent a week on different versions of Night of the Living Dead, including this 1990 remake. (The others were the 3D one with Sid Haig, an animated one, and the godless "30th anniversary" recut version.) In my review of the original DVD, I noted that it surprisingly had some bonus features, considering the film was a flop and, being a library title, meant new features would have to be created (as opposed to modern films, which have EPK crews and commentaries recorded before the film is even released, so if it tanks, the stuff all exists already so they might as well put it on there). And thankfully, Sony has seen fit to carry them all over to this new 4K UHD set, along with other ones that were created for a standard Blu-ray in 2016.

But the main draw is that the film is presented in Tom Savini's preferred director's cut form, restoring the gore that the MPAA made him cut and also offering the first few minutes in black & white; an homage to the original that the studio wouldn't let him do at the time. So when Barbara (Patricia Tallman) and Johnny (Bill Moseley) are driving to the cemetery and doing the whole "They're coming to get you!" sequence, it's all in B&W like the original, with the color only showing up when the first zombie attacks Barbara few minutes later. It's a fun little gimmick, and I'm glad Savini was finally able to show us all how it would look (though I must admit I did momentarily worry that the entire film would be stripped of its color, a trend I do not have much patience for).

Unfortunately, if you're expecting other major changes, that's pretty much it - everything else is just a little bit of gore here and there. Apparently even in its "X rated" form, the film was pretty tame in that department, and I am willing to bet that if the film were shown to the censors even a few years later, it would have passed with an R easily as they got more lenient after their overly conservative approach to the '80s horror fare. The most overt restoration occurs when Barbara is trying to prove to the others (mostly the hysterical Judy) that the things attacking them are not human, shooting a zombie a few times in the chest before taking him out with the standard shot to the head. In the cut version we've had for 35 years, he is shot and goes down quick without any real splatter, but now a nice little geyser of blood explodes up from the top of his head before he drops. Again, if you just saw this uncut version for your first viewing, you'd never guess the MPAA ever had a problem with it, but for those who have watched it a bunch, it's sadly the highlight of such re-insertions.

The 4K transfer looks spectacular though, and for those who had the Twilight Time Blu, you can be relieved that the weird recoloring that they gave it for that release has been undone, and it looks like it should again. I know it's an overly bright film at times (even at night), but I never minded it all that much, and I'd take that look over the bizarre recoloring that we had to deal with if we wanted the film in high def. Even the B&W sequence (which, to be clear, was a normally filmed scene that had its color removed in post) looks really good to my eyes, and I had to chuckle that one scene actually made more sense to me now, as I never realized Sarah was laying on one of the doors that Ben wanted to board stuff up with, as the image was always too murky to really tell what she was laying on. When Harry says "You want this one too?" I always thought he was referring to the girl herself, like that Ben wanted to bring her up to the main floor as he did Tom and Judy Rose! I will happily junk my DVD, now.

As for bonus features, again Sony has brought back pretty much everything of note that I could find (thanks, DVDCompare.net!), including Savini's commentary and a retrospective documentary called "The Dead Walk!" from the DVD. They also included everything from the 2016 special edition Blu-ray, which mostly consists of new interviews with Tallman, the Optic Nerve FX guys, and Savini himself. That actually would have been plenty, but they really went all out and offer a bunch of brand new bonus features on top of the already generous assortment, making this a true ultimate edition.

The big one is a new commentary with Savini, moderated by Michael Felsher (whose Red Shirt Pictures produced all of the new features). I actually noted when I watched his original commentary that he might be better off with a partner, as he often went silent and just watched the movie, so I'm glad they listened! Felsher keeps him talking, with the only silences most likely being edits (Sony is notoriously cautious about potential "dirt" being spilled on their tracks). He also seems to remember the film better than its director; more than once Savini will say "OK now watch this" and then Felsher will have to remind him that the moment won't be coming for several more seconds. At any rate, it's a much better track than the older one.

Then there are several new interviews with Moseley, Bill Butler (Tom), McKee Anderson (Helen) and Heather Mazur (Sarah), who has the funniest recollection in that the FX team kept getting annoyed with her showing up in full "pretty girl" makeup (she was 13 and boy crazy at the time) because they had to spend time cleaning it all off before applying her zombie look. There's also one with editor Tom Dubensky, two of the guys who played zombies, and (sigh) John Russo along with Russ Streiner, who shouldn't be allowed within 50 yards of anything involving this franchise after their godawful 30th anniversary thing, but oh well. At least they have nice things to say about it. It's unfortunate that they couldn't have gotten this going before Tony Todd (or Tom Towles for that matter) passed away, as their absence is notable when it has thoughts from pretty much everyone else involved (sans Romero, but as it wasn't really his thing, it's not essential to hear from him and several of the interviews note that he did show up on set a few times and gave the editor some notes).

But really, while all the bonus features and the restored images are great, the best thing about rewatching this particular take on the story in the year 2025 is that it actually has a message of how we all need to calm down and listen to our fellow man. While Cooper is an even bigger jerk here than he was in the OG, at the end of the day he was not only right about the basement being safer, but if Ben had at least taken a few minutes to go down and see it for himself, he might have found the key to the gas that would have saved them all. Ben is also quick to assume Harry is stealing the TV, and throughout the movie Barbara has good ideas that are ignored. I feel a number of the problems in the world right now (both on a macro and micro level) are the result of everyone thinking they are right and everyone else is wrong, and this is a movie that could have had a much happier ending if people just took the time to hear someone else's perspective instead of stubbornly accepting only their own. Something to consider!

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28 Years Later (2025)

JUNE 29, 2025

GENRE: ZOMBIE
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

For a while there, it seemed like the 28 (something) Later franchise was done; Alex Garland and Danny Boyle seemed less enthused as time went on, while also noting that there were some issues with the rights holders (independent of the fact that they were put out by Fox, who no longer exists). But for whatever reason, the stars aligned to give us 28 Years Later (from Sony), which is kicking off a new trilogy of films, with the second due next year. Why they skipped 28 *Months* Later is a mystery, however, because the movie could have taken place simultaneously with Days for all it mattered.

Despite including some footage from Years in a montage, the movie’s ending of the virus spreading to Paris (and thus, presumably all of Europe, at the very least) is ignored – it’s still confined to the UK and the survivors all live on an island. And no one that survived the previous entries shows up, though apparently Cillian Murphy (who is listed as an executive producer here) will be in the next one. Instead, we focus on a kid named Spike, whose dad (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is basically the leader of their small island community and is eager to take his son to the mainland to find supplies, which is of course a dangerous mission that will involve him killing his first "infected." Through this process he realizes his dad is kind of a tool, and doesn't even seem to really want to help his sick wife/Spike's mom (Jodie Comer), so Spike takes it upon himself to seek aid for her sickness. So it's kind of a coming of age movie woith zombies, which is admirable!

But... you know, I was kind of excited to see the series continue getting bigger, and if anything this feels smaller and more contained than the original. And while they are free to ignore as much of the existing canon as they please to ignore Weeks' implications of a. further spread and b. a possible cure, they can *not* get around the fact that 28 Days was a breath of fresh air at the time for a mostly forgotten sub-genre, but in the 20+ years since, we’ve been inundated with zombie stuff. (And don’t give me crap about the use of “zombie” – they even refer to the “infected” with the Z-word *in the film.* They are and always have been zombie movies, despite pedantric claims to the contrary.) And so while the movie is perfectly fine, even great for a stretch in its final act, it’s also… not particularly interesting?

I mean, maybe I’m putting too much stock into the fact that Boyle and Garland returned after mostly sitting Weeks out (Garland took a pass at the script and Boyle directed a few sequences), assuming that their expanded filmographies since would have them bringing those bigger ideas to their old playground. But instead it’s mostly kind of anonymous, with the first hour or so feeling much like any number of undead movies (or episodes of Walking Dead and its infinite spinoffs) we’ve seen in the past two decades. There’s the religious nut who sees the whole thing as some kind of rapture, the supply runs that turn deadly, the should-be nailbiting scene where someone has to convince the person on the other side of a locked door that they’re not infected… we’ve seen all this stuff over and over, and there’s nothing to really distinguish it apart from (waves a hand at the “zombie” section on Shudder).

That is, except for the film’s photography, which is mostly trash. They shot the whole thing on iPhones, and at times it manages to actually look worse than the first film did. When they're outside and it's well lit, it looks fine, with the occasional image even striking depending on what's in it (the pile of skulls you've see in the poster is even more alluring in context), but whenever it switches to nighttime it's downright horrible to look at. There’s a scene where our hero Spike is talking to a village elder type in their dark kitchen, and I swear it’s the ugliest looking thing I’ve ever seen on a big screen. For the first film they said it had to be digital because they needed to get in and out of some of the locations quickly (using film would slow things down), but as this entire story is set in the woods and other isolated locales, I’m not sure what the excuse was. Digital photography has certainly gotten a lot better over the years, but you’d barely ever be able to know that from the evidence here.

So it’s pretty ho-hum and not much to look at for a while (unless you like zombie dong - by law I am required to mention that yes, this film has zombie dongs), with the scattered action seeming more obligatory than organic (a mid-film scene with a soldier unit comes in so abruptly I momentarily wondered if I had blacked out), but then Ralph Fiennes finally enters the narrative and things turn around. Without spoiling the particulars, he’s also a bit of a stock character for these things (the guy who turned his back on the group and went off to be alone/maybe go crazy) but the details – and Fiennes' performance – elevate it to the point that I stopped minding how meh the journey was to get to his sequence. It’s like those TV shows that take a few episodes to get going; you just need to sit through some pretty average (at best) stuff to get to the good stuff.

Of course that sucks for a reviewer, because the only thing really worth talking about is the movie’s third act, which I naturally do not want to spoil. And if you’re in the theater you probably aren’t going to just get up and leave – it’s not BAD, just not very interesting or involving if you’ve even kept half an eye on the genre since 2003. But if you’re reading this while watching it on streaming: stay the course! It gets better! And also sets up the next film, for which the people who survived this one will be returning along with Jim (the kids who supposedly held the key to a vaccine or cure from Weeks will presumably not be showing up). That one’s directed by Nia DaCosta, but thanks to the returning cast there will be some story continuity for the first time in this series, which is enough reason to seek it out. That said, for my money, Weeks remains the series’ high point. You can call it heresy; I know I'm in the minority there. But the first film's first act was its best before it petered out, and this one took forever to get to the part that I found most interesting. Weeks may be a little more "generic", but at least its tense (and better looking) all the way through, and consistency is always better to me than a series of highs and lows.

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Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021)

NOVEMBER 24, 2021

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

One thing about covid that's interesting is that it's given movies a new possible reason to be underwhelming, as the logistics of mounting a production under these circumstances can be pretty daunting on top of the usual hurdles filmmaking must entail. So when you add in the fact that there has been and possibly will never be a foolproof formula for adapting a video game into a successful movie, it's almost a miracle that Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City is even watchable, let alone "OK" and even kind of fun at times. But I could never shake the feeling that it could have been closer to "genuinely good" if it was produced in 2019, or (hopefully?) a year or two down the road.

Literally from the start, something seemed off about the film. It opens on a flashback of our eventual heroes, Claire and Chris Redfield (I'm going to assume you have at least passing familiarity with the games, just fair warning) at an orphanage, with the former being woken up - seemingly not for the first time - by a mysterious figure no one else thinks exists. The scene seems to last twice as long as any opening flashback of its type should, and there are other examples throughout the film that had me wondering if these scenes weren't supposed to take up as much screentime as they do, but merely had to be padded out in order to get the film into acceptable runtime (which, nowadays, means over 100 minutes, as anything shorter suggests it was compromised) as there were other scenes that had to be scrapped because there was no way to do them right under covid restrictions.

Similarly, there are at least two occasions in the movie where it felt like a scene was dropped, with characters appearing in new locations when they were far away the last time we saw them (in one instance, the character seemingly abandoned their spoken plan entirely and went in the opposite direction). There are also some dropped subplots, like armed mercenary types from Umbrella who are seen executing townsfolk, only to never appear again, let alone be a continual threat to our heroes. It's possible these scenes were indeed filmed and merely dropped for pacing or whatever, but when you consider the aforementioned scenes that go on for so long or simply have no followup, only an 11th hour hack job on par with the "glory years" of Dimension could explain these gaps.

No, I suspect covid and/or perhaps a reduced budget had writer/director Johannes Roberts forced into the unenviable position of having to streamline his ideas into something that could still be coherent and offer up the requisite number of scares and thrills. The movie's heart is clearly in the right place, something that will be very apparent to fans of the games who were left cold by Paul Anderson's dismissal of most of its canon. His films had pretty much all of the franchises' main players show up in some capacity, but the plots never really even came close to the storylines from the games (not surprising since they all revolved around Milla Jovovich's Alice, who has no game counterpart).

In contrast, Roberts definitely dives into the first two games, with Chris and Jill heading to the mansion to investigate what happened to a previous team, while Leon and Claire are out in the city as the latter searches for her brother. The movie presents these narratives as occurring simultaneously (the games were a couple months apart, if memory serves), which works just fine in some cases, but also keeps the two leads apart for far too much of the runtime. With Roberts using the Carpenter font and setting up a big chunk of the film's first half in a police station, it's not hard to think about a potential Assault on Precinct 13 style narrative, where you'd have all these characters with different motives all having to band together to fight zombies and monsters (either at the station or the more famous Spencer Mansion), but the movie is almost over by the time Claire and Leon finally meet up with the others.

(Speaking of Leon, the guy playing him is awful and grating. However you feel about how the character was used in the 5th entry in the previous franchise, at least that actor looked and felt like the actual Leon. This guy's like obvious cannon fodder you have to put up with for the whole movie, and seemingly ends every one of his scenes on some variation of "What the f___?" Maybe non gamers won't notice/care, but considering how much of the rest of the movie seems designed to please them, it's a really bizarre choice.)

Instead, we just keep going back and forth between the two groups, which means there are a couple of good sequences on their own (love the bit of a Licker making its presence known by lumbering on the floor above, making the hanging lights sway in succession until it's obviously right above our hero), but a noted lack of tension. Every time we switch to the other team, it's like hitting a soft reset, and by the time things start getting going with their story, it's time to check in with the others again. Plus, two small teams means there's entirely too much "safe" action - there's a noted lack of non-game characters who are around for more than a scene or two, and you don't have to be a game fan to know that the Redfields, Leon, and Jill are not going to die in this would-be franchise (re)starter, so apart from a few well done jolt moments, there's not a lot of terror to be found. There are bits in that first game - some recreated here! - that can still get a little yelp out of me, but too much of this film felt more like the 5th and 6th games, where action took precedence over horror. People say these movies are as fun as watching someone else play a game, but this goes further - it's like watching someone *expertly* play these games, robbing the viewer of true carnage.

I also couldn't understand the point of the 1998 setting apart from being faithul to the games. Umbrella seemingly controls every aspect of this town, so a simple "no cell phones" excuse doesn't work - they just would have blocked them anyway. It's actually kind of ironically funny when a character is given a Palm Pilot and has no idea what it is; if the movie was set in 2021, anyone under like 35 (as the character is) would be just as confused anyway. Roberts tosses in some '90s pop songs (no Steinman though, so Strangers 2 remains his peak in that department), but otherwise there isn't much point to the setting; for the most part you're likely to forget that it's supposed to be set nearly 25 years ago. And really, given its covid-era production (it was shot in late 2020) it almost seems like a missed opportunity to not draw on it for their plot about a virus spiraling out of control.

The good news is, unless you are simply Pavlovian with your reaction to Easter eggs and references to the games (I admit to laughing out loud at a "Jill sandwich" gag), you don't need to be a fan of the games to get as much enjoyment out of it as you can - I suspect newcomers and hardcore fans alike will agree that it misses the mark. It's certainly a decent enough timekiller, but never really rises above its straightforward goal of "being more faithful." Yeah, sure, you nailed that - but most if not all of Anderson's movies are more engaging and exciting, regardless of how they "ruined" this or that character. So in my book, that's not really an improvement; I'd rather a filmmaker tossed everything and made a movie that stands alone rather than watch one where more time was spent on matching the floor plan of a building than thinking of interesting things for the characters to DO in that building.

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Blu-Ray Review: Demons & Demons 2

NOVEMBER 2, 2021

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

Technically I saw Phenomena (as Creepers) and Zombie (as "Zombie 2" aka "Dawn of the Dead 2") first, but Lamberto Bava's Demons was the first time I watched a movie specifically to watch "an Italian horror movie", borrowed on VHS from a friend who was a little more cultured than I was at that point in my life (16 or 17?). So hundreds of gialli and zombie and whatever the hell those "La Casa" sequels are later, it's fun to go back to what more or less started my affinity for their brand of horror. Synapse has remastered the first film along with Demons 2 and packaged them as one, with lots of bonus features old and new, giving me a fine excuse to revisit them for a rare home viewing. Since they both tend to show relatively often around here, I can't even remember the last time I watched the first one at home - it might have been the Anchor Bay DVD sometime in college? And Demons 2 was a HMAD review from the first few months!

Needless to say the films look the best I've seen. There's a 4K UHD release as well, which is what I requested for review, but they sent me the standard Blu-ray set, which doesn't have as many bonus features and, obviously, lacks the Ultra High Def image I was looking forward to. But suffice to say even the regular Blu looks pretty great for both films, minus the occasional damage to the master print that isn't any fault of theirs (a few exterior shots in Demons 2 look like they are... vibrating? I don't know how to describe it), allowing Sergio Stivaletti's makeup effects to truly shine. The man loves having teeth fall out and get replaced with bigger, gnarlier teeth, and those shots display his practical mastery in all their glory. Italian and English audio is available for both films as well, so long story short it's safe to say these will be the definitive editions for these oft-released films.

And they hold up well! It's been a while since I've seen either of them, and I was pleased to discover that after all these years, Demons remains a favorite when it comes to Italian horror, placing only under a couple of Argento's films if I were to rank the whole lot of them. The opening sequence on the subway still plays great, the pacing is strong, the supporting cast is entertaining... everything is pretty entertaining even before the damn demons show up. And yes, I know I called it a zombie movie when they're demons, but as with 28 Days Later, they function the same way (get bitten and change, swarms attacking, etc) so I feel the label is fair. The key difference is that the more overt supernatural elements allow Bava, Stivaletti, etc. to have a little more fun and imagination with their gore/horror scenes - there's a sort of Evil Dead-esque kitchen sink attitude to the proceedings that keeps you on your toes.

This is even more evident in the second film, where a demon literally comes out of the TV (in an effect that looks like CGI before they had access to such a thing! They figured it out!) and another little Gremlin-y kinda puppet demon runs around for a while. Plus there's an evil dog out of The Thing for good measure. The sequel as a whole isn't as good as the first, and I don't recommend watching them back to back due to the sameyness (it's amusing that of the two returning cast members, one seems like he's playing the same guy while the other is a total 180 from his previous character), but it's good fun all the same, and (spoiler for 35 year old movie ahead) I like that it ends hopefully, instead of the out of nowhere downer end of the first in which our heroine suddenly becomes a demon and is nonchalantly dispatched in a world being overrun. The do-over approach in the sequel doesn't extend to its denouement; our survivors walk out into a bright sunny day and there's no indication that things are about to get worse. Yay!

As mentioned, the Blu-ray version doesn't have as many bonus features as the 4K set, but based on my research it seems everything that got left out are legacy bonus features a fan might have on previous releases anyway. The handful of new features are present on both versions, including a historian commentary for each film. The first movie is blessed with the usually fun track from Kat Ellinger, who is joined by Heather Drain, and the pair do the usual historian stuff but frequently pause their own insightful observations or history lesson by noting a particularly amusing gore effect or line reading, keeping things from getting too dry. This is sadly not the case for the second film, which is a solo track by Travis Crawford that can be a bit of a snoozer at times, as he rarely addresses the film at all and occasionally even seems to be forgetting he's doing the sequel, as he gives a history of movie-theater set horror films that seems ill-fitting for a film that does not take place in a movie theater. He also bizarrely ends it on a downer note about Asia Argento (who made her debut here), discussing her assault by Harvey W, her own sexual assault accusations from a younger actor, and the suicide of her partner - all over scenes long after her character had exited! It's weird, and once again had me thinking that these things need two people conversing over them to stay engaging.

The other new features are visual essays. On Demons 2, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas contributes "Together and Apart", a look at both films and how they use space and their respect locations (and mediums) to tell their stories, noting things like Cheryl going from a crowded subway car to an empty, gothic looking subway station, and how the climax of Demons 2 has the heroes have their final showdown in a television studio, a fitting visual metaphor since TV was the source of all the carnage in the film. If you're not a fan of the films you'll find it ludicrous that anyone involved put that much thought into it, but Alexandra makes a strong case that the films are smarter than they appear on the surface. On the first film, Michael Mackenzie runs through Argento's career as a producer, which naturally means it's not particularly Demons-centric (if anything he seems to have more to say about everything else, in particular Michele Soavi's later Church and Sect films) but if you're an Argento fan you won't mind much; it's not often you get to hear anyone exploring his work outside of his own directorial efforts.

That said, it would have been nice to hear more about the films' actual director, Lamberto Bava. The UHD version has an interview with Bava ("Carnage at the Cinema") but it didn't make the cut for this stripped down release. Instead we get TWO interviews with Argento himself where he says a lot of the same things, though amusingly he says in one he probably won't work with Bava again and in the other says he would love to do that, plus a lengthy chat with Claudio Simonetti (in English; Argento's are in Italian) where he talks about his work on this film and, of course, his other collaborations with the maestro, and an interview with stuntman Ottaviano Dell’Acqua, which is fun until he depressingly notes that Italy only produces about 25 films a year now, down from hundreds as was the case at the time of these films.

Bava thankfully gets to pop up on Demons 2's own set of bonus features, a lengthy chat (also in Italian) where he notes some of the story issues and also that most of the script for The Church (which began life as Demons 3) is his, even if his name was removed from the credits. This is backed up by his son Roy (aka Fabrizio) Bava, who offers his own look back at the work he did with his father over the years, even alluding to being jealous of his relationship with Soavi at one point. Stivaletti also gets to discuss his work on the two films, and finally composer Simon Boswell talks about HIS unintentional career as a composer (he basically fell into it and never really left), which kicked off with Demons 2. It's curious that none of the actors from either film are on hand; I've seen a couple of them at conventions and screenings, so it's not like they're not willing to discuss them (or hard to find), but based on what I can tell from the listing on the 4K UHD version, they don't show up on there either. Also, not surprising, but worth noting - the original commentary for Demons that was on the Anchor Bay DVD remains MIA, as it has for a while now. I was hoping to hear it again because the moderator asks Bava what is happening when the helicopter crashes through the roof, prompting Bava to say "I don't know" - so good. Alas, as with a lot of AB bonus features, it seems to be unavailable for other labels to include, which is a shame.

These remasters are only available together, which might be frustrating for fans who only want the original and have to pay extra for the unwanted sequel, but for those who enjoy both, I really can't see them ever being improved (beyond somehow acquiring those legacy features). Yes, it's a shame that only the 4HD set includes all of the bonus features (on the UHD disc itself; there's none of that obnoxious "movie only and the supplements are on a separate blu-ray" here), but even the stripped down 1080p set has hours of extras in addition to the excellent transfers, so you can't really go wrong with either of them (my guess is that anyone who truly cares about bonus features anymore is also the kind of person who will have upgraded to 4K by now). And if you've somehow never seen the films, there's no better time than the present to enjoy a film about someone who hesitantly goes to a movie theater only for some kind of awful disease to spread throughout the crowd! Wait.

What say you?

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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.

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Fantastic Fest: Day 2

SEPTEMBER 24, 2021

GENRE: KILLER KID, POSSESSION, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: FANTASTIC FEST!

This was the first year I was able to attend the opening night of the festival, so it was nice to not have to rush for once. In years' past, when I'd always be arriving on day 2, I'd sometimes have to go from the airport straight to the theater (dumping luggage into a generous pal's car) before I miss any more of it, but this time around it was kind of lovely to head into Friday with a piece already written. But as others WERE arriving on this day, today felt a little more like a typical day at the fest, albeit still with more empty seats than I'm used to seeing and much less revelry/chaos in the surrounding area.

Anyway:

MOVIE #3: THE INNOCENTS

An evil child movie out of Norway, I reviewed this one properly for WhatToWatch if you want to head there and read my full thoughts. For those who don't want to click over, I'll sum up by saying it was very good (if a touch long) and featured terrific child performances, which is the sort of thing that can sink this type of film, so: well done, casting folks!

MOVIE #4: AGNES

I reviewed this one too, but I realized later I should have added that the very thing that turned me off might be what makes others most excited about the film. I forget that due to my relatively late arrival to the Exorcist table, I tend to enjoy demonic possession movies more than my peers, who are often scarred by adolescent Exorcist viewings and walk out of similar films feeling like they were complete crap, unable to even come close to matching Blatty/Friedkin's power. So by abandoning the exorcism angle halfway through, such folks might be relieved by Agnes' switcheroo. Alas, ultimately this was a "not for me" after an engaging first forty minutes.

MOVIE #5: BLACK FRIDAY

I had a ticket to see Let The Wrong One In at this time, and it turned out to be an apt title, as I myself let the wrong *theater* in to my schedule - the film was playing a half hour away at a different Alamo Drafthouse (normally the fest is entirely set at the South Lamar location, but thanks to covid nonsense this year forced them to spread it out across three venues). Since I had no car and didn't want to rely on Lyft or friends to get me elsewhere (and then back), I opted to just flat out ignore the non-Lamar entries on the schedule, but somehow I got mixed up with this thankfully one exception. Luckily, there were seats available for Black Friday, which I wanted to see anyway, so it all worked out in the end.

Alas, the movie itself is kind of disappointing; on paper it sounded like it was delivered straight out of my subconscious: the employees of a toy store (including Devon Sawa and Bruce Campbell) have to take on a zombie outbreak on Black Friday, a ridiculous "event" I happily partake in every year. And it was filmed in Boston for good measure, so this had the potential to be one of my favorite movies of the festival and perhaps something I eagerly revisit every holiday season. But unfortunately, it seems they had to pare down a more ambitious script (financing horror comedies is never going to be easy, so I can't hold it against them), and what was left simply never found a proper groove.

It's not a total waste of time; the zombie makeup work by Robert Kurtzman is solid and the supporting cast is pretty good (Michael Jai White is a highlight), and Sawa is in fine form, but there's just no real ENERGY to the proceedings. Every time it seems like the movie is going to ramp up and kick into higher gear, things slow down again - there's an awful lot of chatter in between action scenes. And while I've never worshiped the man like some of my peers, even Bruce Campbell's most loyal fans should be able to admit that he's kind of on autopilot here, playing a role that doesn't cater to any of his strengths as an actor. Not that I want him tossing out one-liners (honestly, that'd be worse) but the role seems written for someone more nebbish (I kept thinking Mark Proksch would have been a good fit), and rather than dive into the challenge he opted to just kind of become anonymous. And since he likely didn't come cheap, I couldn't help but think that the movie might have been better if they put his salary toward other things.

It also might have helped if the store wasn't so generic (and the Boston setting has no bearing on anything, I don't think they even specifically say it's there and there's only like two exterior shots anyway). I'm sorry, but what exactly were the shoppers so excited about to line up at midnight to obtain? The things we see on the shelves are like, nutcrackers and bouncy balls and things of that nature. The lone licensed product I noticed (besides Wise potato chips, an east coast brand) was an Xbox One (yes, the older model), which wasn't even much a doorbuster option even when it was new, let alone now when it's a generation old. Plus, they shoo pretty much all the shoppers out of the store almost instantly, so there isn't even much in the way of zombie fodder, which had me thinking that they should have just leaned into it - what happens when a crappy store is open on Black Friday and no one shows up? Then they could have a built in excuse for the minimal zombie action AND avoided the impossible to buy premise of dozens of deal hungry customers lining up to buy jump ropes.

(That they do almost nothing with the "Black Friday shoppers are zombies anyway" kind of joke is another disappointment, but luckily we have that one 1978 zombie movie to cover that idea to a degree.)

Again, it's not a complete misfire - there are some good gags and performances in there, and the finale involves something I was certainly not expecting, but it ultimately felt like a movie almost specifically designed for streaming audiences, in that you're fine to look at your phone for most of it, looking up only when something exciting happens, and then tweet that it's "fun!" before forgetting everything about it. For folks who seemingly prefer that their movies not demand too much of their attention, they will love it, I guess.

What say you?

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Army of the Dead (2021)

MAY 22, 2021

GENRE: ZOMBIE
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX)

Having seen all of Zack Snyder's live action movies on the big screen (I STILL haven't seen the owl one), I was excited to learn that Army of the Dead, despite being a Netflix release, would be hitting theaters and thus helping me keep my streak alive. But then I saw the two and a half hour runtime, and started having mixed feelings about it. While the length isn't a dealbreaker on its own (even for zombie movies! My preferred cut of the original Dawn of the Dead is almost as long), it's a lot to ask to take four hours out of my life (with travel and trailers) to pay for something I am already technically paying for at home, making this an unusual situation. So I figured that, for one of the very few times in my life, I'd listen to reviews and make up my mind that way.

Since I watched it at home after all, so you can guess that the reviews I listened to weren't exactly raves. There were some, of course, but more than one (I only scanned a few, fearing spoilers and the like) mentioned that it was curiously low on action for such a long film, so I figured the big-budget spectacle I was primarily interested in seeing BIG wouldn't be as excessive as I hoped. Long story short, I think I'd be even more disappointed if I took the time and money to hit up a theater for it, so I opted to watch at home to give it a fairer shot. And for the first hour or so, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself enjoying it; Snyder hasn't lost his ability to create a fantastic opening credits sequence, and I enjoyed the off-kilter group of characters that were assembled for the movie's big heist. "Maybe I should have gone to theaters after all!" I thought at one point. But, weirdly enough, when they actually get into the zombie-overrun Las Vegas the movie starts to falter, at a time when it should be really stepping up its game. For starters, the movie has a pretty sizable budget, but none of it went to really playing up its Sin City locale; the opening sequence (showing casinos being overrun, with Snyder's famous slo-mo depicting showgirl zombies attacking Liberace impersonators and the like) pretty much gives us all the Vegas-specific action we'll see, unless you count a "Here's how the heist will go" montage of quick shots (most of which are in the trailer) when they're making their plan, which shouldn't count since it's imaginary. Their target is a vault that's inside a casino/hotel, but once they get there it's pretty anonymous and could have just been a branch bank for all it matters. That great shot from the trailer of Dave Bautista mowing down zombies as he runs over card tables is part of what is a sadly pretty brief sequence, and before long they're in generic hallways and rooms again. Worse, Snyder (acting as his own DP) shoots most of the movie in closeup with tiny focus ranges, so there's not a lot of scope to the proceedings; it's so cramped that even when they ARE outside or in a casino or somewhere equally engaging, you can't really make too much of it out.

And this strange choice ended up kind of crippling the movie for me ultimately, because if a Zack Snyder movie isn't wowing you with its visuals, what is it offering? It certainly isn't its character development; Bautista is great but he's playing an incredibly generic "tough guy with regrets" that was actually done better with noted non tough guy Jake Weber in the Dawn remake, and the role is almost distractingly cobbled together from a few Bruce Willis characters (John McClane in the last two Die Hards, Harry Stamper in Armageddon...), so he never really shines as a memorable character of his own. Snyder and his two (credited) writers steal the rest from Aliens, in particular Vasquez and Burke, the latter of whom is played here by Garret Dillahunt, who (spoiler) is the victim of the movie's much ballyhooed zombie tiger. How is this not even the best movie where Garret Dillahunt is eaten by a tiger?

The human villain plot, so obligatory in these things, never makes a lot of sense, either. Bautista is hired by casino owner Tanaka (Hiroyuki Sanada, completely wasted) to enter the city and retrieve the money from his vault before the city is nuked (somehow the zombie infection is limited to just Vegas - they walled the city up, Escape from New York style, but uh... how did they do it so quickly before any zombies got out? We have to buy that no one was bitten and fleed when the outbreak first began?), and that would have been enough. But it turns out Tanaka doesn't care about the money, and just wants a team of hardasses to create a diversion so that Dillahunt can obtain an "Alpha" zombie head, because some of them are special and naturally, they can be used to make weapons. Why he couldn't just say this was his plan in the first place is beyond me (they're guns for hire and knew they'd have to encounter zombies anyway, and with the nuke coming, it seems they could make it easier for themselves without having to waste time planning a heist), but since it makes the central heist a complete Macguffin, it leaves the movie inert as well. It would have made more sense if Tanaka truly did want the money and Dillahunt's character was merely going rogue. Plus no one seems to care that they were being used, nor do they encounter Tanaka again, so it's a very weightless storyline.

Snyder also tosses in a bunch of nonsense that may or may not pan out in planned sequels, prequels, anime series, and who knows what else. There's some stuff with aliens (the original zombie that starts the outbreak is being transferred in Area 51 territory), and even a bizarre suggestion of a timeloop when the team encounter a previous heist team that is dressed identically to them. Cool ideas to be sure, but without any satisfactory explanation or resolution here, it's merely frustrating - this is a movie, not the pilot of a TV show. And given the film's length, I simply cannot comprehend how no one involved could be bothered to point out something like "Hey Zack, this bit here where they say the zombies come back to life in the rain - it never rains in the movie, so it's moot. How about we cut it and make the movie a little shorter instead of giving it yet another go-nowhere plot point?" Likewise, they spend a bit of time early on with Bautista essentially ripping off his crewmates by lying to them about how much money they're being paid, offering each one a different amount - you'd think this would come back to bite him on the ass later, right? Nope. Never comes up, rendering it a waste of time. There's probably a solid two hour movie here, but it comes perilously close to completely falling apart due to the man's inability to tell a straightforward story anymore and use the power of editing to remove any plot threads that end up going nowhere (having watched his longer Justice League, I was a bit prepared for this, as he opted to shoot a completely new scene that sets up storylines he already knew he wasn't going to get to explore).

To be fair, it's possible some of these weird bits are due to having to digitally replace an actor who was accused of grooming underage girls after the movie was basically finished. Snyder cast the great Tig Notaro to replace the (male) actor, but with Covid running rampant he wasn't able to secure the other actors to reshoot the scenes properly (a la Ridley Scott with Kevin Spacey/Christopher Plummer). So Notaro is always in shots by herself (in an interview, Bautista said he still hasn't even actually met her), or noticeably inserted into wide shots, but I assume there are some shots they simply couldn't fix properly. This comes to a head in the climax, where a major character sits next to Notaro (a pilot) in the front of their escape helicopter and is never really seen again. This person motivates another's entire character arc and (spoiler) is seemingly killed when the chopper crashes, but their near total absence once they get on board is bizarre; I even rewound the sequence thinking I must have missed a quick shot of their death, but nope - there's a quick, blurry, and non-commital shot of their person in the front of the chopper after it crashes, but no indication of what happened to them (someone else survives being thrown from the chopper entirely, and another passenger is clearly impaled), so the only way to know they're dead is because they don't show up alive again. But Notaro had nothing to do with some of the other go-nowhere plot points, so there's only so much leeway I can extend in this department.

Problems like this kept piling up until I simply stopped caring, and that's a shame, because it started off so well. Again, the first act or so is solid, Notaro is hilarious (her first scene is an all timer in the annals of "I got a job for you" type conversations), there's a wonderful quick bonding between the cowardly safe cracker and the team's main tough guy (who has a zombie killing saw straight out of Dead Rising* that he sadly barely uses) that I found charming af, and the zombies themselves look pretty great (so does the tiger, for what it's worth, though as someone else pointed out, a non threatening animal would have been more fun, since regular tigers are scary anyway). It's not a "bad movie" in the usual sense; it's just a very frustrating one, because anyone with some basic editing skill could probably turn it into something tighter and thus better. Some movies are underbaked; this is one where they keep adding ingredients to what probably would have tasted just fine on its own.

What say you?

P.S. If you want to see the VFX and makeup teams doing their thing, there's a 30 minute making of available on Netflix along with the movie that I recommend. For whatever issues the movie had, its zombies were stellar and the featurette dives deep into how they were created. Also, we learn why half the movie is out of focus, so that's nice.

P.S.S. Comments are moderated, and I'm well aware that this filmmaker has very vocal fans who quickly resort to trolling whenever someone dares speak against their master. So if you plan to reply in a less-than-civil manner don't waste your time, it won't get through.

*Dead Rising 1 was set in a mall, as Snyder's first zombie movie was. Now his second one is set in Las Vegas, just like the 2nd Dead Rising game was. If this is intentional, I love it, and I hope he makes a third one in a hyper-realized Los Angeles.

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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.

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#Alive (2020)

SEPTEMBER 9, 2020

GENRE: ASIAN, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX)

Hopefully someday all social media will be wiped off the planet, because there is simply no argument against the fact that the world was better before the likes of Twitter and Facebook came along. Yes, they have their merits, and I am a frequent user of both, but mostly out of a necessity - everyone is simply expected to be on them now, and staying away from them means being left out of birthday parties, not knowing what's going on with close friends or family since no one picks up a phone anymore, etc. And should that day come, we can look at film titles like #Alive (translated from #Saraitda, if IMDb is correct) as a relic of the past: "Back in the 2010s we used the pound symbol to denote a trend or make a Twitter joke! And Twitter was something we could use to make fun of the President!"

Until then, at least the annoying "timely" title makes sense in the context of the film, which is largely pro-social media for the record (the final shot makes it clear, it's almost uplifting until you remember those same accounts have probably been on one end or both of some kind of reprehensible message). Our hero, Oh Joon-woo, is a Youtube streamer/gamer who pretty much lives his existence online, and uses other hashtags throughout the film, which takes place mostly in his apartment as a zombie virus rages outside. For a while it's a sort of one-man show, as the zombie breakout occurs within seconds of the film's opening and he is home alone in a highrise apartment, so he barricades the door and uses his various tech to communicate with unseen others or post updates to his channel. He doesn't have much food or supplies, and one by one services are cut out, leaving him more isolated and desperate. It's only when he decides to off himself that another survivor makes her presence known - a girl who lives across the street in another apartment, who uses a laser pointer to get his attention and convince him not to give up yet.

And so for a while it's a two person piece, as he uses a drone to attach a rope stretching across their balconies so that she can send food over (she's more fully stocked) and he can send a walkie talkie over for them to talk and warn each other of dangers, since he can see zombies above or below her and vice versa. It's not particularly exciting or unique, but the two leads are charming enough to make up for it, and thanks to zombie movie law, you know that if there's only two people in the movie, one of them is either going to get bit, or sacrifice themselves to save the other, so there's some tension in knowing that an inevitable tragedy is coming just as they're getting to know each other and find a reason to live.

But then, alas, the movie dips into the worst zombie trope: EVIL HUMANS. They decide that their apartments are no longer sustainable and try to get to a safer one together, only to get overrun and then rescued by a third survivor, who takes all of 11 seconds to poison them and try to feed them to his now zombie wife. As these sort of things go it's not the worst example, to be fair, but it doesn't matter - the thing that was making the movie stand out a bit in its overcrowded genre was now lost. Chevy Chase could have shown up to save them while dressed as Snake Plissken and playing the Shocker soundtrack from a boombox and it wouldn't have been able to get me back in its corner after that.

Worse, they actually have some fun ideas for the zombies, making them an above average threat for this sort of thing. Taking a cue from Romero, they retain some of their memories, which comes to a head when a climber type manages to scale the outside of the building up to the girl's balcony. This could have been utilized throughout to present new dangers for them to overcome - the building's super could have the keys, a zombie could (clumsily) drive, whatever the case may be - instead they once again decide that in a world of undead monsters, the REAL THREAT IS YOUR FELLOW MAN. You know, like in 75% of every zombie movie ever made. Is it realistic? Well, yeah - we're seeing it now with the pandemic. But realism isn't a requirement, especially with something as fantastical as zombies, so why so many zombie filmmakers feel the need to resort to this tired trope so often is beyond me. No other sub-genre is constantly undermining its own marquee threat, it'd be like if Quint suddenly put on a mask and tried to murder Brody and Hooper on the Orca, or Jason Voorhees having to compete with that oil slick from Creepshow 2.

At least it's serviceable enough until that point, though I have to insist if you're watching on Netflix that you switch the default English dub over to its original Korean and turn on the subtitles, as the dubbing is not great. The subtitles aren't lazy either; they are pretty good with translating the various notes and on-screen messages so that we can follow along (the title itself is one such example, when he puts it in his video). Ironically though, the best scene in the movie doesn't really require sound at all - it's a scene where his family all walks in, happy to see that he's OK, his mom gently scolding him for not keeping more food in the house as he gives her a giant hug. Then they fade away and we realize it's just a daydream/hallucination of sorts, prompting him to break down and cry as he/we realize that they are in fact, probably all dead. Since he's relatively safe inside his apartment, there isn't as much traditional action in the film, which allows for these kind of moments that are rarer in other zombie films where constant threat/run and gunning is the order of the day.

Years ago there was a similar German movie named Rammbock that, for my money, was better than this one. It was not only a half hour shorter, but it added some levity and even a dash of absurdity to the situation to make up for the rather generic zombie mayhem that we've all seen a million times. If you're starved for new zombie fare, this should more or less do the trick, but given how we're all trapped in our homes and increasingly isolated these days, I'd say track down the funnier version of the same scenario (linked below since this one isn't physically available in the US). Might help your mental health. And if not, well, again, it's 30 minutes shorter. You can get back to Twitter quicker and find out what fresh hells have been unleashed since the movie began.

What say you?

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