I love independent zombie movies — they’ve been slaying their big-budget Hollywood counterparts for years now. Bled White (2009) caught my attention during its production, and the good people at CU There Productions sent a DVD over for me to check out.

Bled White web site

The movie takes place after the zombie apocalypse has struck, and what’s left of society is reordering itself to deal with the flesh-hungry “zombies.” People are doing whatever it takes to survive, and we follow several plot lines that intertwine. We follow two hit men, a family, and a couple running a hotel. The scenes aren’t necessarily chronological, creating a darker kind of Pulp Fiction feel. Things happen at the beginning of the movie that don’t quite make sense until it’s connected to something else later on.

The filmmakers explore some interesting territory and have come up with some original ideas — a big plus in my book. We see the conflict between those who believe in “killing” the zombies and those who want to them” live” in hopes of a cure being discovered. Themes of cannibalism, cheating, and survival vs. killing are also in the mix.

The characters are pretty nicely developed, and the actors perform much better than I was hoping for. Some are excellent (the lead hit men), some are mediocre, but none are bad.

On a technical level, they did a great job with a low budget. The whole movie is high-contrast, allowing for a lot of lights and shadows. They managed to film the whole thing during the winter, something not often seen in zombie movies. It works really well. Overall, the shot selection and cinematography were well done. The suspense they’ve created is wonderful. The editing and pacing, along with the good score and sound effects, make for great atmosphere.

Now for the zombies. Even though they run, they look good: pale with lots of blood and light blue cloudy eyes. The makeup is good — they must have spent a fortune in blue contacts. Nothing looked fake. However, the zombies growl and roar and sound demonic — a little too over-the-top for me. This could have been just as scary (probably scarier) with slow zombies.

The effects were good, and they kept it mostly practical. They used some digital effects — fire, gunshot flares, clouds going over the moon, etc. — but they don’t overindulge in digital effects like a lot of low-budget movies tend to do.

All in all, this is a very good low-budget movie — fun and gory. Also a breath of fresh air in the over-saturated zombie movie market.

Rating: 7/10

This year’s Cinema Wasteland just outside of Cleveland was the first one I’ve ever been to. I was really impressed with both the guests and the crowd — everyone was great.

A special thanks to Jason from SRS Cinema for really hooking me up this weekend! It was great to meet and hang out with him.

Kyra Schon was the first guest I talked to, and she was really nice. She was selling really cool, high-contrast Karen Cooper  posters, and I couldn’t resist picking one up.

Howard Sherman played my favorite zombie: Bub from Day of the Dead (1985). Great guy!

Ian McCulloch was the lead actor in Zombie (1979), and is completely astonished by the popularity of the movie. One thing that surprised me about Mr. McCulloch is that he told me he’s never seen any of Romero’s zombie movies — he said he just doesn’t have the desire to. He also told me that he met Romero recently, and Romero refuses to watch Zombie (or any of its sequels) because he thinks they’re all ripoffs of his work.

Al Cliver played Brian in Zombie. I learned some fascinating things from Mr. Cliver — namely that Brian’s voice in Zombie is not his. All his lines were overdubbed, and he doesn’t know who did them. Also, I asked him what it was like to work with Lucio Fulci. He responded, “He was a son of a bitch.” He explained that despite Fulci’s reported temperament, they became good friends and made many films together.

You know who Ottaviano Dell’Acqua is, whether you realize it or not. He’s the iconic Conquistador zombie that appears on the majority of Zombie materials (including my shirt). He was a really fun guy, and very energetic.

I also talked with Richard Johnson, who was really cool. For some reason I didn’t think to snap a picture with him. I love his first line in Zombie: “The boat can leave now. Tell the crew.”

Beatrice Ring played the lead role in Zombi 3 (1988), and is every bit as beautiful as she was when she made the movie. Zombie 3 is notorious for the nightmarish production it went through — Lucio Fulci directed most of it, but later on, Bruno Mattei stepped in to finish it at the insistence of the studio. I asked Beatrice about how crazy the process was, and she said that it wasn’t as big a deal as everyone makes it out to be. She worked with Fulci the whole time, and wasn’t even aware of Mattei’s part in it. “It happens all the time, in lots of movies,” she explained when she talked about reshoots and studios bringing in a different director to finish a film.

When I was at Horror Realm last fall, I somehow missed speaking with Jim Krut, the helicopter zombie from Dawn of the Dead (1978). So I made sure that I got to meet him this time around, and I’m glad I did. He’s very tall, and fun to talk to.

Gary Ugarek is the creator of Deadlands: The Rising and Deadlands 2: Trapped, and was there to support Jim Krut, who also starred in Deadlands 2. I ended up talking to Gary for a long time, and he’s a really down-to-earth guy.

This is the second time I’ve met Tom Savini. I’m a huge fan of his work, and he’s truly a master of what he does. Despite that, I haven’t been very impressed with him personally. Both times I’ve talked to him, he seems annoyed that I’m there — it’s like he doesn’t want to be there at all. Disappointing.

It was a blast hanging out with Tom Berdinski and the cast/crew from The Italian Zombie Movie. Tom is a good friend, and I was excited to meet him and others whose passion went into these unforgettable films. They truly know how to have a good time. And if you haven’t seen parts 1 and 2 of The Italian Zombie Movie, you’re definitely missing out on something special — so go buy it!

Speaking of good friends, here’s one that you’ll all know — Misfitboy. He’s every bit as cool as he comes across in his reviews, and I was honored to hang out and have a few drinks with him and Mrs. Misfitboy.

This double 8-string electric guitar made specially for Saw V is a thing of beauty. It belongs to Sonny Lombardozzi, whose shredding skills are inhuman. He’s a really cool guy, and now that I’ve checked out his music, I’m a huge fan! Find out more about Sonny at his web site.

I almost had my jugular ripped out.

What happens at Cinema Wasteland stays at Cinema Wasteland.

There is an old urban legend that says “if you kill a praying mantis you can be fined up to $50.” But what if the mantis is bigger than a 2-story house? Well, that’s what’s at the drive-in this week as we dive into Universal’s The Deadly Mantis (1957). One neat little fact about the film is that the actor who did the voice for the famous “Robby the Robot” narrates the film. Now at first you might think that this movie is a documentary from 5th grade science class. At certain parts of this film, you’re not sure if you’re watching a b-movie or getting an education! I mean, this goes on for the first 12 minutes into the picture! (insert more stock footage for plot holes). I would personally recommend the MST3K version of this film for the simple fact that Mike and the “bots” really tear this movie to pieces!

So here is the plot. “For every action there is an equal and opposite re-action,” narrates the voice at the start of the film. A volcano erupts on a distant island and causes tremors across the North Pole, causing a giant glacier to crack and collapse, revealing our giant menace (yes, a giant insect in the North Pole — don’t ask, I don’t know either). OK, insert even more stock footage, and finally 15 or 16 minutes into the picture the film finally starts. On a small military station manned by two men, a distant buzzing sound is heard before the roof collapses on top of them. Meanwhile, Colonel Joe Parkman is worried that something is wrong with the station, so he sends out a search team. When they arrive they find the station is destroyed. A giant claw falls on top of them, nearly crushing the two searchers (he he, giant claw)! They take it back to the lab for investigation. After more [YAWN] chattering they finally figure out what it is! Yeah. They send out a plane to see if they can find it after it appears on the radar, and the plane never comes back. Surprise [insert more boring dialogue] and then the mantis finally strikes! OK, as if the poor Eskimos don’t have enough to deal with — polar bears, living in ice, gamera at one point (never vacation in the north pole) — the mantis attacks and the Eskimos flee.

The giant claw, as I referred to earlier, is actually a hook from the mantises giant pinchers. MORE DRAMA THAN THE MIDNIGHT PODCAST!!! Sorry Corey. Here comes the giant puppet! The mantis shows itself eventually right outside the base of Red Eagle One, as it’s referred to. Seeking a warmer climate, the mantis moves towards the USA. OK, enough already, the mantis tours Washington and New York, where it is rammed by Parkman and bails out of the plane at the last second — that was close! In the end, the mantis is trapped in a highway tunnel under the streets of New York!

Spoiler alert!! The mantis hides in the tunnels of New York, wounded and dying. Then the military comes in to gas the creature. The end.

On a scale from 1-10 I would give this a 4, BUT the MST3K version would be a 9! Go figure. Thanks Corey, and I’ll see you at the drive-ins for Creature from the Black Lagoon! This is misfit boy and I’m out!

I’m very happy to introduce a new series here on the ol’ Midnight Corey blog: Monsters of Misfitboy. If you recall, Misfitboy did a fantastic run of reviews of George Romero’s zombie movies, and their sequels and remakes, on the Midnight Podcast. Now he’s back, and I’m proud to have my friend on the blog.

Days of the Drive-Ins

The drive in days are long gone (well most of them anyway). I used to love going on the weekend to see some of my favorite horror films. Unfortunately not many were shown at the nearest one by me. I always wondered how great it would be to raise some money & show a “movie madness” night. Imagine going to see Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead at the drive-in! Or even older horror films from the 50’s. well, those are the films I will be talking about. We’re going back in time when CGI had no definition. Special effects consisted of wires, puppets, and of course cheap makeup. But to me, those were the best.

I’m so nostalgic a person (I know this sounds dumb) I would take a drive-in DVD I have with a bunch of promos that they would show in the good old days, and I would splice it together with some of my favorite b-movies, take my equipment outside and watch some movies under the stars with my favorite beer. Sounds like a waste of time but it still gave me that feeling of being there. Anyway, I asked some people in the ages of 50-65 what their favorite horror films were at the drive-ins. NOTLD always came up, and everyone and their mother have reviewed it already. But I have found some good ones and some not so good ones that still have a place in my heart.

So with that, here are some of the films that were mentioned to me that I will re-watch and review.

THE GIANT CLAW
TARANTULA
THE DEADLY MANTIS
CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (in 3-D)
THE GIANT BEHEMOTH
GODZILLA

And possibly some others. As always a special thanks goes out to Corey for allowing me to do this. See you at the driveiins!!

misfitboy

Someone recommended the movie Big Man Japan (2007) to me out of the blue. I’d never heard of it, but I was told that I would probably enjoy it. Yesterday I gave it a watch, and it was far from what I expected.

The film follows a “common” Japanese man. A film crew is conducting a series of interviews as he goes about his normal daily activities. He’s struggling to make rent, separated from his wife, and only gets to see his daughter once a month. He’s somber and contemplative.

Oh yeah — he also tends to grow into a 50-foot mutated version of himself to fight off enormous invading monsters, protecting his fellow citizens from the monster threat.

The film catches the “King of Pain,” as he is nicknamed, on a sort of downward spiral. He comes from a long line of this kind of fighters — his father, grandfather, great grandfather, etc., were all giant monster fighters. In the past decades, they were highly respected, achieving fame and fortune as protectors. However, he has come to be shunned by the Japanese, and can’t seem to do anything right. It’s obvious that he’s depressed, and the desire to continue fighting is lost by the end, in which he slips into a weird delirium fueled by alcohol and disillusionment.

This movie is mostly done in the style of a reality/documentary film, but the fighting scenes are all cinematic. Apparently, his fights are televised, and the sponsors are paying the Big Man’s salary. Of course, all the monsters (including the giant King of Pain himself) are all done using CG — not with rubber suits, like I expected. Well, until the end, anyhow.

The CG worked for me. This may be surprising to you, being that I’m generally turned off by CG. The reason is that it wasn’t trying to pass computer-generated animation as real. The filmmakers didn’t attempt to combine live shots with CG. It gave a real fantasy quality to the fighting scenes.

Even more importantly is that this is a spoof. It’s making fun of traditional giant monster movies, exploring the element of the common man dealing with giant monsters. It’s yet another reason why the CG works — it’s not serious at all, despite the fact that there are some serious moments in the film (depression, divorce, etc.).

The monsters are highly original. The screeching, elastic monster with a combover. The monster whose single giant eye is attached via a very long umbilical cord. The passive monster who does nothing except block traffic and emit strange smells. I loved them all!

Some short-attention-span viewers of Big Man Japan will be driven crazy by the pacing. It’s slow and thoughtful, characteristic of a lot of Asian films. Moments are drawn out in a poetic way, leaving the viewer to dwell on the implications of the scene. The viewer is encouraged to drawn his/her own conclusions — it’s not all spelled out for you. The story of the Big Man is pieced together throughout the entire film, which is another point that may frustrate some. Things that seem confusing or unclear are often resolved later in the film. The key word here is patience, and a lot of people may not have it.

It’s rated PG-13, which is pretty stiff. I would let extremely young children watch this, as there is no foul language, nudity, or violence. Maybe a couple small trickles of blood, and a good bit of fighting. I guess the only problem that very young children would have in viewing this is that it’s subtitled.

I really liked Big Man Japan. What a great film. I’ve never seen anything like it, and it goes deeper than a lot of other movies. It’s saying something about modern societies that love nothing more than to praise and lift up heroes and celebrities, only to delight in dragging them back down to the depths of loathing and scandal.

If you get the chance, pick this one up. I give it an 8/10.

This afternoon I decided to watch a movie I haven’t seen since college: Over the Edge (1979). And I forgot how much I love this film.

It’s about junior high school-age youth whose parents have moved them into a planned community (subdivision) in the middle of nowhere. With nothing to do, and with their parents obsessed with their careers and attracting buyers to the community, the kids are left with nothing to do. Their only entertainment is a private recreation center. When the bored kids drink, take drugs, and engage in crime, the parents and police neglectfully point their fingers at the youth. They’re just a bunch of bad kids, right?

That kid on the left is Matt Dillon. Seriously.

In their quest for making money in their new planned community, the parents and law enforcement are leaving nothing for the youth to become involved in. Naturally, they’re going to do destructive things if they’re bored and neglected. And the kids revolt, locking their parents and police in the school during a what-are-we-going-to-do-about-these-bad-kids meeting. Destruction ensues.

If you get a chance, watch this movie. Brilliance.

In the past couple weeks, I’ve been watching everything but zombie movies — with one exception. Most of these are ones I’m planning on reviewing at some point for various podcasts.

Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer (2007)
I probably wouldn’t have given this one a chance if it weren’t for the bubbly exciting review given by my friends on the Horror Etc. podcast.

White Zombie (1932)
I’ve seen this one many times. It’s the only zombie movie I’ve watched lately, and it’s one of the best.

Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus (2009)
Well, I watched most of this. However, the antics of confused, irate podcasters interrupted my viewing of this fine film. But I’m pretty sure I got the gist of what this one has to offer. To be fair, I’ll probably give it another shot.

Phantasm (1979)
Love this movie. Quite possibly the best plot ever. People call this a zombie movie, but I disagree — despite the fact that zombies are in it. Just because zombies appear in the movie, it doesn’t mean that it’s a zombie movie.

Drag Me To Hell (2009)
I finally saw this one. To be honest, I saw the TV trailers before it came out, and although I was excited that it was Sam Raimi, I wasn’t excited about what I saw. To me, it was just a lot of CG. However, I followed the rave reviews I’ve heard about it, and just bought the DVD. I’m glad I did.

Let the Right One In (2008)
One of my favorite vampire movies ever. I bought this DVD at the same time I bought Drag Me To Hell, at the recommendation of KruegerDude.

Them! (1954)
It was on Netflix Instant Watch, so I watched it. I love movies about giant creatures from this era, and these giant ants are classic.

I was excited this morning as I looked at the schedule of films for the day and saw that a zombie short was supposed to go on in the morning. So I showed up early, watched the first film (Harvest Moon, a very good vampire short), but was then confused as they skipped the zombie short and went right on to Casting Call of Cthulhu, a fun comedy short with wonderfully-crafted CG work. Alas, no zombie film.

But then I was treated to Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown, a fantastic documentary about HP Lovecraft featuring interviews with Guillermo Del Toro, John Carpenter, Neil Gaiman, and a ton of other well-know horror people. I haven’t read Lovecraft for a long, long time, and now I want to go out and read a whole bunch of it.

The other highlight of the day was meeting and talking with Kane Hodder, the actor to best portray Jason Vorhees. He is one huge fella, and very personable. He even was so kind as to do an interview for the Midnight Podcast, in which he expressed what I have been hoping to verify all along: that Jason is in fact a zombie. The interview, along with all the others, will be featured on episode 106 of the Midnight Podcast next week.

Of course, I had to meet and hang out with Chainsaw Sally. Her husband, who is also the director of Chainsaw Sally, was there with her, and snapped the picture you see here. Very nice people.

I may stop by the festival once more tomorrow to stop and say hello to the Rue Morgue magazine people. Their table was very crowded today as I passed by it, and I was getting hungry, so I didn’t have the patience to wait around.

I’ve just come off two days at the Eerie Horror Film Festival at the Warner Theater. I haven’t actually watched any films — yet. That’s for the weekend. As for yesterday and today, I’ve spent my time there talking to people. Namely the famous ones (but also some of the not-so-famous ones).

First off, I’m really happy that I finally scored a copy of The Video Dead, a movie that I’ve been attempting to track down for a long time now. One of the DVD vendors had it, and explained that it’s out of print and only exists on VHS and VHS-to-DVD transfers. He also had Porn of the Dead, and while I usually jump at the chance of watching any zombie movie I find, I passed on this one. The vendor was a really cool guy, and we talked zombies for quite a while before I moved along to the celebrity section.

Sid Haig was the first celebrity I talked to. He was very nice, but seemed tired. I did an interview with him for the Midnight Podcast in which he was a little less than enthusiastic, but cool nonetheless. I found out he’s seriously running for president. If I were a voter, I’d vote for him, no doubt. After that, I strolled around a while longer then left.

This afternoon, I went back and talked to Gunnar Hansen. He’s an intimidating man — large in stature and doesn’t smile much. But he’s very cool too. His interview for the podcast was definitely fun.

But the man I enjoyed talking with was Ed Neal. This guy is a character. He’s a lot of fun, constantly cracking jokes and very animated. I had a blast doing the interview — we could have gone on and on, but a crowd was gathering to talk to him, so I cut the interview short and let him carry on with his thing.

Hopefully some of the other guys I want to talk to show up this weekend — namely Kane Hodder and Tony Moran, who were nowhere to be seen so far. I also wouldn’t mind talking to Chainsaw Sally and Rodrigo from Rue Morge magazine. We’ll see.

The horror movies site horror-movies.ca, which usually sponsors worthwhile contests to enter, is now giving away the DVD release of The Happening (a better title is The Crappening) when it comes out October 7.

I guess that’s the only way people will actually come to own this DVD — if they give it away.

No, I didn’t see the movie. But after the slew of reviews I’ve heard and read (most of which have contained spoilers), I can confidently say that if I were to view this film by that bastard M. Night Shyamalan, I would despise his directorial efforts even worse than I do now. It’s another case of the hype of the film completely misleading people. And the meaning behind the whole film — why everything happens — is completely retarded.

I’m not going to enter the contest for this DVD. Even if someone gave me the disc for free, I wouldn’t ever watch it.