CowboysZombies.com

It’s an imaginative title, I know. On August 1, 2011, the UK will see the DVD release of Cowboys & Zombies, previously released here in the States under the title of The Dead and the Damned.

I was excited about this. The combination of zombies and the Western genre has been pretty successful, with games like Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare and books like Eric S. Brown’s How the West Went to Hell. I had high hopes for this independent effort, written and directed by Rene Perez and starring David Lockhart, Camille Montgomery, Rick Mora, and Robert Amstler.

The movie opens with a pretty decent gunfight, but really drops off from there. A bounty hunter is strapped for cash, and goes after a notorious Indian who is wanted for rape and murder. The citizens of the old Western town find a strange glowing-green meteorite and open it up, releasing CG radiation and turning them all into angry, fast zombies. And you can pretty much figure out where it goes from there.

My two biggest problems with this were the lack of originality — there’s really no guesswork here — and the dragging plot. I thought of Creepshow as soon as I saw the meteorite sequence — the Stephen King meteorite segment. And there are just so many traveling sequences. You see a lot of walking around. I almost fell asleep during the drawn-out, actionless dialogue scene between the bounty hunter and the Indian.

Not to mention the blatant CG that plagues the film. I already mentioned the radiation being computer-generated, but a lot of the blood is unquestionably CG and sticks out badly.

I might as well add that I had a problem with the lead actor as well — David Lockhart has the bounty hunter. He comes across as neither rugged nor tough, and his soft, high-pitched voice doesn’t help.

But I will say that I enjoyed the look of the zombies. I loved the sequence inside the house when the blind zombie is stalking the girl. The makeup was done very well, and the scene was pretty well done, even if there were some things about it that didn’t make much sense.

Yeah, I was disappointed by this one. Lots of promise, with little delivery. I give it a 3/10.

Thanks to my friends at Organic Marketing, I bring you some good stuff from the upcoming Fright Night 3D. I love the original, and am curious as to how they remake it. I’m not a fan of 3D at all, and hope I have the option of 2D when it comes to theaters.

Watch the trailer, then browse through the pictures below.

I’ve seen some questions about where listeners can comment on the Horror Jungle podcast. I’m going to start posting to this blog every time a Horror Jungle episode is released, so there’s a place we can talk about the podcast.

On episode 1, I recommended the classic Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (1974). I then recommended Dance of the Dead (2008) on episode 2, and on episode 3 recommended Boy Eats Girl (2006).

Agree? Disagree? Don’t care? Post a comment and let me know.

Thank you all for listening and coming to my site. I truly appreciate everyone.

I love IPA’s. This was confirmed the moment I tasted Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA. I was very anxious to try the 90 Minute and 120 Minute varieties, having heard such good things about them.

A couple years ago, I was fortunate enough to be visiting a friend in Pittsburgh who had been saving a bottle of 120 Minute for upwards of two years, waiting for the right time to open it. He was generous enough to open it right there and share it with me. I was blown away — it’s the brandy of beer. Absolutely amazing.

Many people have told me that 90 Minute is their favorite of the three, but I’ve never been able to locate it. I could only find it by the case, which runs nearly $60. It’s not that I can’t afford it, but convincing my wife that a case of beer is worth $60 is impossible.

The other day I was fortunate enough to find a 4-pack of it for $11. Worth every cent!

I’m not a beer geek, so I’m not going to go on about head and lacing and citrus fragrances. It’s surely a nice-looking beer when you pour it in the glass, and is like the 60 Minute IPA, but richer, tastier, and fuller. Don’t get me wrong — I LOVE 60 Minute — but this just amps up the enjoyment without overdoing things. It’s not overly rich or flavorful; it’s just an awesome beer.

I will buy this whenever I get the chance (and whenever I can get away with spending the money). A+!

This week, the independent British movie Bane was released on DVD by Safecracker Pictures. Written and directed by James Eaves, it runs close to 2 hours, and was the winner of the Best Horror Feature Award at Shriekfest in LA.

This movie has a very Saw vibe. Four women wake up in an underground cell, remembering nothing. They are drugged and subjected to a series of horrifying experiments. On top of this, the women are visited one at a time by the killer Surgeon, who cuts a number into each woman’s skin — the exact time that he’s coming back to kill them. The movie takes a number of unexpected twists and turns, leading to an ending that is truly surprising.

I have to say that I’m amazed at what the filmmakers did with a very low budget, especially in the effects department. There is lots of blood and gore, the vast majority of it being practical (not CG). I only saw a couple quick CG enhancements to the effects, and they did not detract from the scene at all. It all plays into the psychological nature of the movie — they’re messing with the actors’ (and the viewers’) heads, leaving everyone to try to figure out what is really going on.

It’s also very good on a technical level. A lot of careful attention was paid to camera placement and movement, and stylized, creative lighting was utilized to the fullest extent. It’s all edited together very well — even though it’s a longer movie, the pacing is very good and never left me bored or over-stimulated.

The acting is pretty much what you’d expect from a micro-budget film. A couple of the characters are done well, while most are mediocre at best. But they weren’t helped by the fact that there wasn’t much character development — I really didn’t care for any of them that much. Most of the movie is focused on the psychological horror of the situation, not on growing deeper with the characters.

A few specific problems I had:

• I just didn’t get the killer Surgeon. Why was he there? Several things didn’t make much sense to me.
• After the experiments and subsequent questioning, the women were given the chance to ask the doctor one question. Why didn’t they ask what was going on? They never thought of that until the end.
• The main character was awfully calm upon discovering the Lovecraftian tentacle bug monster. She was even clearheaded enough to use the creature to her advantage. I think that any normal person would have crapped their pants and collapsed in a sobbing heap. Or maybe that would just be me.

All in all, this was a very interesting movie to watch. It’s a Saw-like psychological horror film, lacking the fine polish of a big-budget film, but still delivering some nice gore and unexpected twists.

Thanks to my friends at Organic Marketing for sending this!

Every once in a while, I get time to write some new songs and record some stuff. As with most of the songs I write, this new one is the product of just making it up as I go along, having no real plan for how it should turn out.

Holovin Mavers

You can download this on the music page.

I just had a couple comments come in on the blog, one accusing me of being “overrated” and “overdramatic,” then calling me all kinds of names. It’s very flattering that I’ve elicited such emotions from people (and that they’re paying such close attention to me)! It’s just too bad none of them are smart enough to say anything intelligent — all they can do is post obscenities.

While I certainly get a good laugh at these comments, I’m not engaging in any kind of back-and-forth with such people. Sorry trolls!

My blog is back, sifted from the ashes of the mangled Midnight Corey site. WordPress theme files were in really bad shape, and the database was full of malicious injections. I’ve salvaged most of everything, although you’ll probably notice a few strange things happening with some of the old articles. Thanks for bearing with me as I continue the cleanup.

The Midnight Corey podcast won’t continue. There’s too much controversy, and too many crazy people out there who are taking things way too seriously and who have too much time on their hands. If you’re interested in listening to the podcast, all the episodes are available on the podcast archive page.

My original music is also available again on the music page.

I will still be posting whatever comes to my head, and doing various reviews. Enjoy, all you sensitive Internet people.