Planet Terror (2007)

Wooooot! That's how I want my movies on days like this: Fast, furious, funny.

First of all, let me say that I want to see Machete actually being made. I'm a big fan of Danny Trejo anyways, and something as ridiculously over the top as Machete ("...brought to you by your friends at the Weinstein company!") would be exactly my kind of movie. But alas, I shall be content with the trailer... and Planet Terror.

Oh man... what a crazy, awesome movie. Let me see if I can sum up the plot for you: A biomechanical gas (DC2, also known as "Project Terror") has escaped from a military base and is turning the inhabitants of a Texan town into zombies. A go-go dancer, her gunslinger-y former lover, a BBQ chef ("Best in Texas!"), a female doctor who is wickedly cool with needles and a bunch of other survivors try to... well, survive and kill zombies. By shooting them, running them over, using a helicopter on them (I am particularly fond of any movie that features helicopters used as a weapon against the walking dead) etc. It's also sort-of post-apocalyptic (or at least it becomes like that through the course of the movie), and what we always knew to be the only possible solution to the Taliban problem is confirmed: The only man who can defeat Osama Bin Laden is Bruce Willis. Yes, you read that correctly. Bruce Willis. Admit it, you all knew it all along.


Which brings me to something I love very much: Cool actors starring in cool movies. We get Tom Savini (as the hilarious Deputy Tolo), Bruce Willis (the slightly villainous Muldoon, full of win and awesome as was to be expected), Michael Parks in his role as Texas Ranger Earl McGraw, Quentin Tarantino as a rapist with a melting zombified penis... gods, I admire this movie.

There's one word to describe this movie: Awesome. A wild and hilariously funny combination of From Dusk Till Dawn, Pulp Fiction and... well, Robert Rodriguez' other movies, just with wonderfully over-the-top gore. Which is top notch, by the way.



Did I mention that the dialogues are witty and at times absolutely brilliant? I had to chuckle throughout the whole movie, and sometimes I was howling with laughter.

Abby: "I also want your balls..."
Guy: "... but I really am quite attached to them..."

...followed by the most vicious looking pair of scissors which is intended to cut off the testicles of the intended victim.

Or when El Wray (Freddy Rodriguez) wants to save his girl, Cherry (aforementioned go-go dancer) during the outbreak of the zombie apocalypse, he is held at the police station.

Sheriff Hague: "Where the hell are you going?!"
El Wray: "I'm going to get Cherry!"
Sheriff Hague: "Fine, but we're taking my car - "
...at which point, his car explodes.
Sheriff Hague: [looking back at Wray] "...I'm riding with you."



Sheriff Hague: "Don't shoot yourselves. Don't shoot each other. And especially... don't shoot me."

Generally, Planet Terror delivers loads of disgusting gore. Take this lovely tongue for example:



Black abscess tongue. All abscesses should be drained, period. They also squirt around goo...


And I SO want that. Carrying around needles under your skirt... awesomeness. Which also reminds me of the fact that we get treated to a lot of good looking, pretty females running around in high heels and short skirts. I approve of that. Verily.

(I know that the "verily" above isn't exactly perfect style, but I just felt like typing something that expresses the feeling of joy that this movie brings me. I am positively rejoicing, and I don't know about you, but I feel that a heart-felt "verily" enhances the act of rejoicing significantly. Verily. *nods*)

Besides being the ultimate movie for my hobby of spotting Tom Savini (AND Bruce Willis AND Michael Parks AND Quentin Tarantino...), Planet Terror also references quite a bunch of other movies. From Dusk Till Dawn is quite obvious... Other than that, Pulp Fiction, Desperado, Kill Bill, Zombie Flesh Eaters (aka Zombi 2), From Beyond ("I am going to eat your brain and gain your knowledge!"... and man, just LOOK at Dr. Dakota Block (HAH!)...), Women in Cages, Terminator, Killdozer, The Thing, Escape From New York... it's fun to spot the references, trust me. Heck, if I am not mistaken, I even detect a Lord of the Rings reference.

The camerawork is outstanding, the pictures magnificent. Rodriguez obviously knows what he is doing (it would be a shame if he didn't), and he proves with this part of the Grindhouse feature that he is one of the best filmmakers out there.


Planet Terror is being made into a truly joyful movie through the small details that are present everywhere - from the actors, to the references of other movies, to the dialogues, to the camerawork, to the wit and conscious cleverness present in literally everything from the script to the way the script is executed on a purely technical level. The acting is brilliant (I can't detect one single instance of bad acting, or even just mediocre acting... then again, this IS a Robert Rodriguez movie we are talking about), the soundtrack is awesome (I need that on CD, seriously), the gore pretty and quite merciless at times... sheesh, is there anything bad in this movie? Not really, no.



Gritty, dark, sarcastically funny and one hell of a crazy ride. I fully approve.

9.5/10 attempts to find Deputy Tolo's severed finger again... followed by the quest for the ring.

Diary of the Dead (2007)

I've finally come around to watch this Romero output, and I have to say: I'm pleased. I am truly and absolutely pleased. Mostly because I think that Professor Andrew Maxwell, played by Scott Wentworth, is one of the most awesome characters ever in a zombie movie. I could easily imagine a zombie movie with him as the actual protagonist (living, not dead, or undead, or some sort of death-dependent status of existence).

Awesomeness.

Anyways, on to the plot: A group of film students from the University of Pittsburgh (cunningly pronounced as "Pittsberg", as the proper pronounciation - see for example "Edinburgh" - is beyond the American public and its grasp of English) are trying to survive in a world in which zombies are everywhere... and make a documentary about it. The whole movie is set up as a documentary - "The Death of Death", by Jason Creed. I want to note here that the initials "JC" have a creepy similarity to those of another famous JC, who also wanted to bring truth (even TRUTH) to the people/mankind and sacrificed himself for his message. Makes me wonder what Christianity would be like if that other JC had had a myspace and a blog...
The students film how they survive (more or less), use other material they downloaded from the net or from surveillance cameras or from the news to show how the media is distorting the truth (no, not the capital Truth)... and living an obsession with documenting the terror and cruelty that invaded their lives.

As always when it comes to Diary of the Dead, the Professor Emeritus puts it way better than I could. Witness the following dialogue, with a bit of background:
JC is constantly filming. Pretty much everyone is a tad annoyed at this, especially since he isn't much help with his camera practically glued to his face. A friend gets attacked in an abandoned hospital (they clearly forgot one of the rules of surviving a zombie apocalypse: One of the worst places to hide in case of a zombie apocalypse is a hospital - for obvious reasons), and he just stands back and shoots what's happening whilst his friends hysterically cry for help.

After the situation is resolved, the Professor is shooting him a look of pure disgust, and the following gem of dialogue is produced.



Andrew Maxwell: "There will always be people like you, wanting to document, wanting to record some sort of ...diary."
Jason: "Me? You're the one who put the camera in my hands. You're the one who made me want to do this!"
Andrew Maxwell: "Not this. This is a diary of cruelty. And in wartime, when the enemy can be marked as this son of a bitch or that son of a bitch, then cruelty... becomes justified."

A diary of cruelty. It's exactly what this movie portrays, and damn, whilst it isn't flawless, it is a solid zombie movie in the tradition of The Master (no, not the one from Doctor Who) with the social commentary we came to expect from his works.

Another scene that demonstrates how sick we, as human beings, can become is close to the end of the movie, when JC refuses to help Tracy (the Texan girl) when she is chased by a zombie - in order to grab the perfect horror movie footage. It is actually slightly sickening - not because of any gore or terror or suspense, but just because you realise how fucked up and sick JC's reaction is.

Diary of the Dead doesn't only explore the media's reaction to something like the zombie apocalypse happening, but intrinsically deals with today's society and its possible reaction. Especially with the rise of the internet and its importance in our everyday lives (hell, try living without your email for two weeks, you'll know what I mean... you practically miss EVERYTHING) and the speed with which information is travelling through the world... it is an interesting concept, and Romero surely made a lot of this very basic idea.

Something that is repeated sometimes is the phrase "if it isn't on camera, it didn't happen". It strongly reminds me of the internet meme "pics or it didn't happen" - in an age where you basically can't trust ANYTHING due to the new nature of information (or maybe it was always the nature of information to be generally untrustworthy, due to human nature, failure and our inherent... well, I'll cut the philosophical stuff short and just say that it is due to the conditio humana that we all suffer from). Read somewhere on the net that vaccinations are making people sick and are only used because companies want to suck the very lifeblood from the people? Well, either you accept it as truth, as a lot of people these days seem to do (predominantly in the US, I might add), or you try to find your own truth (usually done by thinking).

"What gets into our heads when we see something horrible? A horrible accident on the highway - something keeps us from just driving on. Something... pulls us. But we don't stop to help. We stop to look."

Thought provoking, isn't it? The essential voyeurism of the human race. We get excited by the cruelty and suffering we see. We call friends and family to inform them that we just witnessed an accident, and they are as eager to hear all the details about it as we are to elaborate on those details. What is it with our obsession with cruelty, with suffering, with violence and death and pain? Okay, this directly ties in with "why do I watch horror movies", but... seriously. Give those questions a thought and try to find out for yourself.

I want to add at this point that I totally approve of zombie destroying deaf Amish guys. Say hello to Samuel, the bravest, most courageous and most awesome deaf Amish you'll ever meet.



Samuel - officially coolest Amish ever. Could YOU impale your brain with a scythe whilst a zombie is nibbling at your brain? I don't think so.

The dialogues aren't bad; the tension in the group of survivors, especially at the beginning, when things are still new and JC's obsession with filming everything that happens is still a novelty to the others (an annoying novelty, I might add). Generally, the pacing is a bit on the slower side, but it doesn't fail to deliver its premise of the zombie apocalypse in the age of the information superhighway and media control. It's not about the zombies and the gore, it's about the social implications.

Also, myspace.com gets screentime: "72.000 hits in 8 minutes!" - one of the reasons why I wonder how that other JC would have fared with myspace. Then again, in modern times, he would be dismissed as one of those whacky Near Eastern crazies, not necessarily thought of as the messiah / Son of YHVH.

Going back to the dialogues for a second - the best lines are, of course, coming from the Professor:

(Referring to the radio transmissions talking about the rising dead, clarifying some misconceptions his students appear to have with the concept) "The problem doesn't seem to be that people are waking up dead, but that dead people are waking up."

(Referring to his flask filled with delicious alcohol) "I'm running low. I'd like to make it to a state store before they all shut their doors forever. God, there's a terrible thought. A world where a gentleman can't buy a bottle of bourbon."

I truly enjoy every single line that man utters.

The gore isn't bad, either. We get one zombie whose intestines are falling out of his stomach cavity, one whose brain is being eaten away by some sort of very cool acid, headshots, gut-munchings, scythe action, arrows to the brain sticking teenage zombies to walls (or rather, nailing them to walls)... not too much, not enough to make me salivate all over the keyboard, but still good.

My major criticism of this movie is how idiotic the students are and how idiotic they react. At least they had enough exposure to culture to know that you best exterminate dead people who don't behave dead by shooting them in the head, aka destroying the brain. Have they never watched a zombie movie? If I heard on the news that the dead are rising, I would run to the next store, stack up on canned foods and bottled water and sturdy objects to make my home into a fortress, run back home, and hide. Well, at least for a while. But definitely not try to find my relatives and hole up together. Then again, I'm not exactly known for my great zombie survival scenarios, if you catch my drift. Still, the students are idiots, at least in the beginning (they wisen up a bit).

But the Professor is awesome. VERY awesome.

7/10 Professors who appreciate books, are masters of archery , have a taste for good alcohol and fancy themselves a swashbuckler.

Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Well, I am pleasantly surprised. I honestly went into this movie expecting nothing at all, besides maybe a boring zombie flick. Let me uniformly state that I have been reformed. As of now, I like zombie movies.

Now, this movie has managed what only very few horror movies manage to do - it kept me on the edge of my seat for the whole time, and sometimes, my jaw just dropped.

Now, I guess everyone knows the premise of the movie (even I did, and I had never seen the original): During a zombie outbreak of magnificent magnitute, a group of survivors hides in a mall. Doesn't sound too interesting, mh? Well, that's what I thought as well.

BUT...

From the beginning on, Dawn of the Dead keeps a fast pacing - not too fast, mind you, and I really enjoyed it. There are hardly minutes in which nothing happens - fast, tight, and good. I am refraining from making a quickie-joke now.
Also, the introductory scenes - when everything is still "normal", that is, without the living dead running around - provide a very good contrast to the terror that follows. Especially since you know exactly that all hell is going to break lose, if you have ever seen a horror movie. I was gleefully thinking "enjoy your last peaceful hours... you won't have any for a long time."




I will never be able again to see that without instantly thinking of this:

AWESOME! It's the End of Days! I love it.

And I want to reiterate again that running zombies are just so much better than slow, shambling zombies. I don't care how many of them are running around, if I can out"run" them with a leisurely pace, I just don't feel threatened. Running zombies, however... creepy as hell. And the noises they make are awesome and just all around perfect.

Also, it's the small details that really enhanced the movie-experience for me.

Greater Milwaukee Area - YOU'RE SO FUCKED.

And now... the opening credits start, complete with Johnny Cash's "The Man Comes Around". Awesome. I already am hooked on the movie, and it hasn't even started properly.

Also, I am apparently psychic when it comes to horror flicks. The second I saw the pregnant woman I was wondering how the baby would be affected by an infection. Because that's stuff I am thinking about. Far too much, some might say.

As soon as our survivors have arrived in the mall and cleansed it from zombies, the movie starts to show the side that I consider to be its main strength: The emotional impact of their situation is superbly played by the actors. Even the annoying characters were portrayed really good. Blame it on my usual fare of indies and obscure B-Movies, but the acting was superb all the way through.

Dawn of the Dead really managed to capture the social dynamics of our group of survivors par excellence. In a world where there is nothing but your own survival, humans become what they essentially are: Wolves at each one another's throats. Add to that the ever-present feeling of distrust and the dynamics of power, and you're in for a ride through the darkness of what humans are willing to do to survive in rough times. And I guess a zombie apocalypse counts as "rough times"...

And I want to add that I have a soft spot for Ken Foree. He delivered the classic lines that pretty much everyone knows with an eerie intensity. You all know what I'm talking about.

"When there's no more room in Hell, the Dead will walk the Earth."

And oh, Andy. Andy is stranded alone in his gun store across the mall's zombie-infested parking lot. And when I say "zombie-infested" I mean "fucking hell, that's...OMG...".
I got to love Andy. The genuinely oppressive mood of the movie actually gets a bit of a lighter touch through that guy (and he's one hell of a shot as well). I had to laugh out loud when he and Kenneth, the police seargeant, played chess. It was a much needed moment of lightheartedness, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Things start to get downhill from there. Another group of survivors of humanity's collapse before the zombie apocalypse arrive - one of them an extremely ugly woman who is so obviously dying that I had to wonder why anyone would care to do anything else than mercykilling her. Well, of course that fat lady was infected - and our "heroes" (I use the term reluctantly) finally find out how the epidemic spreads.

Again, it's the small details that made this movie shine for me. After the fat woman dies, no one knows her name. You'll know what I'm talking of when you see it.

Also, the zombie-shooting with Andy was awesome. "Burt Reynolds!" I was giggling uncontrollably.

I don't want to give away too much of the plot, but a few more points: The first use of fire against the zombies down in the underground parking garage was unsettling and really powerful, in every way this can be taken.

Of course, I shouldn't forget the pregnancy. If you're anything like me, you'll know that a pregnant woman in a horror flick is pretty much game. Unless it's one of those tame PC-movies. Dawn of the Dead gives us exactly what we expected from the beginning: Zombie pregnancy! At which point I have to confess that I didn't manage to keep my suspension of disbelief up. I mean, look at this:




Does that look like anything else than a zombie baby to you? No? Well, that's what I thought. The question is... how long have they been trapped in the mall? We don't get to know how long it is, but judging from the fact that Andy was trapped alone in his gun store across the parking lot, not THAT long, because even a gun-toting awesome guy like Andy can't possibly have had that much food stored in his house.

So, the question is... when did the baby die? And as it doesn't look as if it died only when its mother finally went to heaven or something like that... shouldn't it have tried to get out of the womb or eat its way out? I am still pondering that.

Anyways, the pregnancy really made me squirm uncomfortably. There's something about bloated bellies that just makes me feel slightly sick.

Now those were the pros.

Cons?

The blood was too bright and looked clearly fake. It never appears to dry on people's faces/arms/wounds/whatever either, and the consistency is a bit too... squishy and fluid.

Also, there were three characters that just annoyed the shit out of me. One was Andre, a young black man (and, incidentally, batshit insane and father-to-be of zombie-baby), the other one his stupid Russian wife, and the teenage girl (who really doesn't look like a teenager - I look more like a teenager then her, and I'm 24).

Those are pretty much the only negative points I can bring up... asides from a few WTF?!-moments.

First - how the fuck does the zombified neighbour girl get into the house? Don't people in the US lock their doors? That was a big WTF? for me.

Another point was the utter obliviousness of the characters to horror movies. I mean, granted, it would have taken some of the tension away if they had figured out that the ...people, and I use the term loosely, they are up to are zombies. But good Gods, at least ONE person should have mentioned something like zombies. Movies don't happen in a cultural vacuum... Also, good plain logic? If someone who only has one arm left and looks pretty much dead runs at you with frighteningly high speed, I'd figure to shoot them somewhere else than in the leg. Like in the head. Or maybe I have watched to many movies or am far too interested into undead things that go bump in the night.

Also, where did crazy "I'm going to be a daddy!"-guy get his ammo from? The guy generally cracked me up, in a negative way. With his stupid wife.

"We need to go to the hospital!" - HELLLOOOOOOOOO?! ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE?!

But yeah, those were the only things that pissed me off a bit, and they were obviously outweighed by the sheer awesomeness that is the remake of Dawn of the Dead.

A truly nerve-wrecking hell of a ride, with a superb soundtrack and score. And make sure you sit through the credits! This movie deserves bonus points for severed zombie head and lots of more zombie goodness. Gory enough to satisfy gorehounds, and it delves right into the mayhem, destruction, brutality and hopelessness that such a Dawn of the Dead would produce.
Awesome.

9.5/10