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.

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!

Finally! After months of vlog silence, I come forth and tell you about my progress.

BONUS!

An exclusive still photo from the film!

Progress is being made, as I’ve started shooting. And reshooting.

Mistakes abound this week! Do not use natural clay to mold a fake head, and do not use Precious Molding Gel in trying to make a fake hand out of ballistics gel.

Things are getting crazy as I run around looking for supplies. And I’m a bit concerned about the plot.

Pre-production is at hand! I’ve started to buy things for this crazy project, and I start to think about a lot of the trickier aspects I’ll be faced with.

If you’ve been following me on Twitter, I’ve been talking about the new video camera I got. Now I have no excuse not to make some sort of a movie. Not only that, but I’ve challenged myself to do the whole thing entirely on my own: I will write the script, star in every role, direct, shoot, light, edit, etc . . .

Sounds easy.

I’m vlogging about it on Youtube, and the introductory clip was just posted today. Have a look . . . buy the ticket . . . take the ride.