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Hell Is Full (2010)
Hell is Full is full of good intentions
Not a bad little micro-budget zombie flick. This one is pretty original, in that it starts kind of at the end, and then leap-frogs back to the beginning (kind of like Memento, or Irreversible). Now that would get quickly confusing in most of these micro-budget fares, but in Hell is Full, each part of the story focuses on a different character, and their story lines only overlap a little, although they do all interconnect. Each story begins with the characters doing what they're doing in their everyday life, and at the end, they encounter a zombie and get bit. The movie then leap-frogs (usually) to the person that did the biting, and shows how *they* got turned into a zombie.
And that's great for this flick, because otherwise, it's a straight- forward zombie flick: zombies come and slowly eat a small town's inhabitants, one by one. There's a bit of explanation about a fireball in the sky, but we don't really care about that (although it is cool when a couple of the characters actually find the landed, smoking rock- thing and it's all squishy and slimy).
My only really huge complaint (given that it's basically a homemade, cuz-I-wanna-do-it zombie movie, I'm overlooking stuff like acting, lighting, etc, none of which were awful anyway) is the editing. It just needed more of it. There's one scene in the beginning, where it just shows a guy walking up to a house. For several minutes. The running time isn't extremely long at 97 minutes, but I think maybe the filmmaker didn't want to cut anything since he loved every minute of his creation. Which is understandable, but ya gotta be tough and let some parts go. It could've easily been 85 minutes, I think.
I got this on eBay for around $6 I think, and the cover and disc are signed by the director. I know that doesn't increase its worth (unless Steve Hudgins gets famous in the future), but it still gives it a little personal flair that goes hand-in-hand with a micro-budget zombie flick of this type. I'd suggest seeking it out on eBay, or go to BigBitingPigProductions.com, and check it out. 7/10 from me as a zombie movie (loses a point for the massive editing issue), and 5/10 as a regular movie. I'll look forward to more from Mr. Hudgins.
Blood Moon Rising (2009)
Horrible audio problems
Blood Moon Rising's a fun enough flick, if not packed with a few too many elements. Zombies are only part of the horror-creatures here: we also have werewolves, vampires, Satan, Satan's minions.. even skeleton-alien-zombies. It gets a bit confusing.
As does the plot. From what I can gather, Satan's great-great-great-great granddaughter has to save Earth from Satan's daughter, Lucy. Lucy wants to destroy Earth (for some reason), and.. might need a book bound in human skin to do so? I'm not sure, but only a virgin - comic-book nerd Darrell - can save the day. Oddly enough, only a virgin can help Lucy obtain the book as well. Along the way, there's zombies and biker gangs and vampires and werewolves (though it's difficult to distinguish the last two), all in a glorious cluster**** of a movie.
It doesn't help that the audio is extremely out of whack. I was continually turning the volume waaay up to hear some of the dialogue, then, seconds later, waaay back down when the loud music track kicked back in. Very annoying. Also, it's shot in a grindhouse-style, with artificial dirt and lines on the film. That's all right, I guess, since the movie takes place (mostly) in 1969, but they could've gone farther to really get a grindhouse feel. There's a few - blessedly few - shots of pisspoor CGI, which of course, runs counter to making it feel like a grindhouse flick.
The movie is definitely a character-driven piece and there's nothing if not.. rememberable characters. The geek inside me could relate to the on screen-geek saying, in reference to a zombie apocalypse, "I've been waiting my whole life for this," as he all-too-seriously mows down zombies. Oh, and speaking of characters, Ron Jeremy has a very small role, maybe 30 seconds of screen time. Not that his name gave the movie added cred or something though.
Even with all its faults, it's simply a good time. It's almost a spoof of zombie-Satan-vampire-werewolf movies.
Life, the Universe and Douglas Adams (2005)
No atheism..?
I love Douglas Adams, and Hitchhiker's of course; and being narrated by Neil Gaiman, who also wrote "Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Companion," was a splendid bonus, in this documentary that went through all aspects of Douglas's life, from his love for technology, to his books, to his environmental passion.. except for one: his atheism.
To anyone educated in Adams, they'll know he called himself a "radical atheist," and had very strong beliefs on the matter. This important aspect of his life, surely something that helped shaped his outlook on, and joy of, being alive, is all too noticeably absent in this otherwise smooth and funny documentary. It's like watching a movie about Lou Reed that doesn't mention heroin, because it may be controversial. Despite this glaring, blinding hole though, the film trotted along at just the right pace, briefly examining all other aspects of his life, in a somewhat light-hearted manner. I can only guess the filmmakers thought mentioning Douglas's (non)religious views would make the film too heavy.
I almost dropped my rating a star, due to the negligence, but I just don't have the heart. 8/10 from me.
Terror at Blood Fart Lake (2008)
Friggin' Hilarious! A Great Micro-Budget Flick
Well I was very pleasantly surprised with this movie. I had no idea what to expect, knowing only that it was a micro-budget movie and was going to be silly. All the characters are certainly unique from each other, pretty exaggerated and original. Yet most are stereotypes - we've got the fat goth chick, the d-bag guy from Jersey (who wears a Britny Fox shirt with cut-off sleeves!), and the close-minded redneck, to name a few. The Caspian character is especially a riot with his facial expressions, accent and vocal inflection. There's so many random lines of quirckily outrageous dialogue (most of it dirty) that that fact alone keeps you tuned in. I laughed out loud at least a dozen times.
Now, the plot isn't very thick, in fact, it barely exists (but who cares): Some kids go up to a cabin for the weekend and begin getting attacked by a guy in a mask. The description on the Low Budget Pictures webpage even says "Witness deaths the likes of which you have TOTALLY seen before and better! One part Friday the 13th, one part Ernest goes to camp and 3 parts cream cheese." The special effects are crap, though decent by micro-budget standards. There's a little nudity, when one skinny gothy-girl takes off her top.. though I would've liked to see Ashley Sawyer (played by Nichole LaRoche) do it instead.
All in all, this movie's a riot, and I recommend it to anyone wanting a good laugh.
The Video Dead (1987)
It's a shame this isn't on DVD
I gotta say I was pleasantly surprised by this movie.
The plot is simple enough: a possessed television set finds its way to a household. When watching the movie played on the TV (kinda like The Ring), the movie infiltrates real life - which means zombies try to eat you.
I wish there was a little more explanation of the TV set's origins but that's a small complaint considering it's a zombie flick. The pacing is a little slow in the middle (and at what I thought was the climax) but picks up shortly thereafter. The zombie make-up is consistent and well done throughout the film, as is the few really gory scenes. It's also pretty cool to see zombies getting shot by arrows (!) for a change.
There's a slight tongue-in-cheek factor with this movie as well.. the first watcher of the zombie flick in the movie (titled "Zombie Blood Nightmare") says something to the affect of "aw, what is this s***" and turns it off - implying zombie movies are automatically beneath him. The next viewer (main character Jeff) later watches the same movie, but he's stoned (only a minute after smoking half a joint..) and finds the movie comical, which it probably is. The characters watching "Zombie Blood Nightmare" on TV and then experiencing a real zombie attack makes their situation more "real," somehow. The slight cheesiness of The Video Dead is acceptable because we've just been told that zombie flicks are cheesy and usually only ironically enjoyable when unsober.
I'd say this is almost a must-see for the zombie-movie lover (as in, that guy that's trying to see all the zombie flicks worth seeing).
I gave it a 7/10 as a zombie flick, and 6/10 (here on IMDb) as a regular movie.
Un cazador de zombis (2008)
The filmmakers need to learn to work within their limitations
This is really down there with the worst of the worst. There were just so many things to take you out of the movie, and everything else was so weak that the numerous bad aspects stood out like my dad on Viagra. Now, I don't mind no-budget zombie flicks; in fact I watch all of 'em that I can and have found some real diamonds in the rough.. but if I didn't have to write a review for it I would've turned it off, or, at least "watch" it while doing something else. But I hunkered down and sucked it up.
The story: Toro gets paid by the Catholic church to kill zombies. A video crops up of him doing nasty things to little boys, and the church is forced to fire him. Toro then goes on a binge of sin and moves to the jungle to get away from society. His replacement quickly gets gobbled up by the zombies, and Toro's old army buddy finds and injects him with some super-drug that makes him a badass zombie hunter once again.
I'm going to get the positive things out of the way right now: it was introduced by Lloyd Kaufmann, there's a couple pairs of bare well-shaped natural breasts, and the "Apocolypse Now" part of the "Zombie Apocalypse Now" title is exactly the same as the original Apocalypse Now - I thought that was neat.
Now then... I hate to dog on a movie that I got for free from a stranger, but this movie leaves me little choice. I don't even know where to start.
From the very beginning the whole thing smacked of amateur, and not in a cute kind of YouTube way. The movie tried to be gross and/or offensive, but, just, failed.. hard. The obviously gratuitous torture scenes came off as silly rather than shocking, since you really need it to look real to be effective, and the special effects fall short (like, the length of Grand Canyon short). The filmmakers need to learn to work within their limitations. The zombies are never explained in any way. It seems like a normal society in which we currently live in, just with an odd zombie cropping up here or there with no bearing on the goings-on of day-to-day living. More background would've fleshed out the story a little at least.
Speaking of the actual zombies, the make-up was absolutely horrible. Some actors were just smeared with green paint, while others wore (what really did look like) paper mache masks, while still others just had bits of artificial skin (I guess?) hanging off their cheek. There was four or five scenes where zombies do the classic "pull guts out of victim while victim lies on the ground," and those looked only a little sub-par for a micro-budget zombie flick.
The camera-work and editing was just lazy. In nearly every inside scene there were huge shadows cast on everything from an obviously unnatural light source. During the stripping scene, the camera pans a little too far to the right and we see she's dancing in front of a blanket hanging on the wall. Also, for seemingly no reason, there was footage of a zombie walk thrown in that had no bearing on the story at all. There wasn't even the slightest attempt to work it into the story. (Incidentally, many of the zombies on that walk had better make-up than the zombies in this film.) One more example: the movie keeps going for two full minutes after the credits stop rolling (so we're staring at a black screen) just to let the song play out.
Sound was equally bad. Many times the sound effects (puking, sawing, punching) were noticeably louder than the recorded sound and, again, came off as silly and repetitive. The soundtrack was the same monotonous guitar variation over and over, but luckily it only got annoying a few times.
All in all, I'm glad I watched it once, to satiate my curiosity, but this particular disc will never again be played in any DVD player. If you want an enjoyable zombie flick from Argentina, check out Plaga Zombie: Mutant Zone instead.
American Music: Off the Record (2008)
And I wasn't even expecting that much
The whole marketing of this documentary is misleading. Noam Chomsky is indeed in it, but he speaks very generally about corporations and capitalism, not the music business specifically. Even the DVD menu has Buckethead on it (the only artist on the DVD menu), when Buckethead is in the film only for 30 seconds, and even then he's just performing on stage. Again, he offers no opinions about the music business.
It didn't say anything that anyone with the slightest bit of interest in music beyond the radio doesn't already know. Noam Chomsky and Douglass Rushkoff were the only two intellectuals, the rest of the talking heads were band members. It reminded me of many conversations I've had with my friends, only a few of which play music, but all, like most people I know, love it. There's nothing new here. I was hoping for the state of the modern music business (the internet was only mentioned once I believe), not how much the old model sucks. It didn't touch on medium-size independent labels like Victory Records or Fueled by Ramen.. in fact, it didn't touch on independent record labels at all.
About half the doc (literally, nearly 45 minutes of the hour and a half) was of people performing music, which would be OK, if it were a "sounds of country, blue grass and blues" documentary. I think the director really likes his blue grass. The constant cutting back-and-forth between the talking heads and musicians was a little distracting, pretty redundant, and got very old very quick. I ended up fast-forwarding all the music parts (I have to be in a certain mood to enjoy blue grass/blues/rockabilly stuff). Again it seemed misleading, like the director thought "this is my film, and I'm gonna cram it full of my favorite local bands to give them some exposure." In a documentary about how big record companies Are Not Good, the constant live footage of blues/country/folk/whatever musicians added very little.
I wanted to like this documentary - I love underground music, love film, and, like the director, am from Kansas City (it made me smile to recognize radio stations and music stores), but it's my opinion that it failed in its intentions.
Zombie Night (2003)
One of the worst I've seen
First, I watch a lot of zombie flicks. At least one a week. My love for the genre includes all the B-horror indie stuff, made with a camera you got for Christmas, made with friends in school. But at least those kind of films know what they are.
Rarely do I feel the need to comment on a bad zombie movie, as there's so many out there it'd take up a lot of my time. But sometimes one comes along that just reeks of failure. Zombie Night is one of those.
I sought this out based on a review on ZMDB.org. The review said "good acting, plot, cared about the characters, check it out".. but holy crap, now I think it was all tongue-in-cheek. The acting is some of the worst I've seen. It's right up there with Zombie Nation and Rising Dead. The actors actually stammer their lines sometimes, as if it's difficult to speak. They're so poorly delivered I actually cringed a few times (when I wasn't laughing and rolling my eyes). The actors are like talking stone walls, until the script says "move," and then, they promptly become stone walls again.
The story is average, but execution is unenthusiastic and extremely bland. I pray this is the director's first film. You don't care about any of the characters (though you do want Derrek to make up his mind on staying or leaving), and just wait for the gory parts, of which there are few (though it is decent special effects for such a low-budget film). There's a couple topless scenes, but other than that, f***ing yawn.
Would've been 2/10 but I gave it an extra star for the decent bloodwork. I was glad when it was over. I wish I could wash this movie off of me.
Day X (2005)
All zombie-apocalypse strategy, no gore
My first review of a movie...
For fans of Max Brooks and/or conspiracy theorists.
Night of the Living Dead's influence is no more obvious than when the character Jason says "Did you ever see that movie.. the black guy and the.. zombies? Those people in that house?" to character Frank Chambers. And Ken Edwards does do a good job as Frank Chambers, taking charge of a situation we think we know all too well: the zombiegeddon.
No great special effects, but some nice thought-out strategy, if such an unlikely event were to ever occur. Seems the filmmakers didn't really have the money to pull off the battle scenes they needed, but the general atmosphere and mood is great. A bit more blood would've helped things along nicely.
(A slight critique - if you're going to have a "personal video diary" throughout the film, why not make it shakycam so it doesn't seem the same quality as everything else?)