Dead Alive Review (1992)

Dead Alive

Before he went all crazy, making those silly Academy Award Winning Lord Of The Rings movies, Australian director Peter Jackson had a fairly nice career making crowd-pleasing horror film. His most famous of which are Bad Taste and Dead Alive. While these two films didn’t make much of a splash stateside during their theatrical release, they did soon become cult classics, and made a killing on DVD.


Dead Alive is known to most by a different title. One that is a little more catchy, being Braindead. It was put out under Braindead in most regions of the world, nearly all in fact except America where it was changed to Dead Alive, which makes it sound more cheesy than it should. Even though this movie has enough cheese to make Kraft jealous.

The plot that the film follows can be easily claimed by almost any zombie flick. On a trip to a remote jungle, a zoologist uncovers a strange breed of monkey, which at that point attacks both him and his crew. Somehow the monkey catches a ride on a boat and makes it way to land, where it is promptly caught and placed in a zoo. Enter a young man with an over protective Mom, a crush on the girl next door, a heart full of gold, and a body full of clumsy. Lionel decides to take his girlfriend on a date, and go to the zoo of course, but his always knifing mother is there to put a stop to things, and subsequently gets bitten by a Sumatran Rat-Monkey. She gets ill, passes on, and then comes back, only to bite and infect more people with this strange disease from a distant land.

Obviously, Dead Alive isn’t one of the most original films to grace the screen. In fact, its plot has been done several times, near to death, but it just keeps coming (he-he). The screenplay, weak as it may be, is always fun. Now fun doesn’t mean good. It’s full of inconsistencies, impossibilities, voice-overs, terrible dialogue, and to many deux ex machinia’s to count. Our hero begins as a bumbling idiot, and somehow becomes a leading class strong-man in the course of about three days. He also has the keen ability to get the girl, end his mom, and save the day. Like I said, fun doesn’t mean good. But in the life of a film critic, sometimes its nice to just sit back and watch some stupid without a care in the world.

That being said, for what it is, Dead Alive is an excellent film. It obviously knows what it wants to do and does that perfectly. It has a certain vulnerability at its heart that entrances the audience into rooting for the characters, and hoping for the survival of their favorites. It may be one of the best zombie films made. It’s intentionally funny and self-referential, the humor doesn’t always hit, but when it does, it hits spot on. The film is also unrelentingly grueling, gory and violent. Peter Jackson knows how to direct violence, he puts things at the perfect angle, sets up just the right shot, gets the gore, and doesn’t let up. He isn’t afraid to cover the screen in gooey red, or green, or even white. (yes white, one of the more disgusting scenes in the film)

Not a whole lot else matters in a zombie film like this. The film sets it sites, and hits its mark. It knows what it does, does it perfectly and nothing else. You cannot hate a zombie movie for being a zombie movie, especially a good one. It is wholesome, mindless, brain-bashing, gut-munching, side-killing fun, that never lets up and never holds back. Peter Jackson can have his cake and eat it too, as he knows how to direct fun, entertaining horror films, and win some Academy Awards too.





I Give Dead Alive A:
4/5

Army Of Darkness Review (1992)

The third, and (thus far) final film in Sam Raimi's epic Evil Dead trilogy comes to us in 1992 with the title Army Of Darkness. Bruce Campbell returns as the chainsaw wielding Ash, and the story picks up directly after the events of Evil Dead II. This is by far and away my least favorite of the Evil Dead films. It trades in gore, violence, and scares for some cheap thrills and laughs. I enjoyed some of the humor but not enough of it to make an entire film based off it. Evil Dead II was the perfect combonation, but by Army Of Darkness the series almost became pointless. I love the campyness of the film, some good laughs, decent effects (for the time), and some of the costumes are rather well done, I still enjoy the film, just not nearly as much as the others. There are currently talks of a sequel, or remake (or both), and either way, I'm pretty much there.

I Give Army Of Darkness:

3/5

Scream 2 Review (1997)

After the major success of the first Scream movie, the studio obviously wanted to cash in on that. What kinda movie studio are you if you don't cash in on your horror film franchises? So, in 1997, a year after the first, Scream 2 was realesed into cinemas. It kept the same surviving cast of the first, and added mo re, young, hot TV stars to be filler. These include Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jada Pinkett, Jerry O'Conell, and Omar Epps. While the film wasn't as financially successful as the first, (only by like 2 million dollars) they decided to continue the franchise and make it into a trilogy. Wes Craven returned to direct once again, and the script was written by the undeniable genious Kevin Williamson.

The story of Scream 2 is essentially the story of the first film. This time, Sidney Presscot, fresh off her recent brush with mass-destruction, is away to college. Here she has new friends, new habits, and hopefully a new life. But, a new movie titled "Stab" has just been realesed about the original Woodsboro killings. And someone has taking a liking to this film. Too big of a liking, and members of her campus start dying off one by one. And even worse, Gale Weathers comes to investigate the latest deaths, that seem to be following Sidney, however, Deputy Dewey comes, and along with Jamie Kennedy, provides the bulk of the comic relifef

Now, the plot is essentially the same. And that is defiantly not a bad thing, because I really enjoyed the first

Scream movie, and it was fun to poke at the self-refrencial style that it had. Scream 2 continues that with a passion and does not dissapoint. With the realese of "Stab" the film even makes refrences to its predesscor, which is great. Kevin William and Wes Craven turn out to be a force that shouldn't be reckoned with. I hope them both the best, and am excited to see Scream 4, which will bring all the actors, and essential crew back together for another round of scares. The first film was, like a lot of 90's horror flicks, less about the murders, and more about who was commiting them. Scream 2 doesn't change that formula, and makes an interesting twist ending, that connects morbidly back to the first.

Once again, the acting was top-notch by everyone involved. I really enjoyed how the writing did in fact make the college students, made the charecters grow, rather than have the exact same views and personality they did when they were in highschool. Neve Campbell does another excellent job as Sidney, Courtney Cox is always a treat to watch, and David Arquette and Jamie Kennedy do right by their charecters

There are two things that I enjoyed more in Scream 2 than in the original film. One being that there is a lot less jibber-jabber. The first film was excellent because it had an interesting story, portrayed by interesting charecters, and the second does the same, but with a lot more action, and thrills, and not so much talk over and about everything that is happeneing around these people. The second is that the blood-letting is a bit higher in this one. If you read my review of the first one, you'll know that I was somewhat dissapoionted by the lack of kill originality and bloodflow. This one increases the bloodflow, while it didn't quite fix the problem of the kills. They are still just stabs.

Overall, Scream 2 plays out a lot like Scream 1. But because of the things that I mentioned in the above paragraph, I belive that Scream 2 is the superior film. I really like the new blood, the interesting story, and good characecter development. So mark down Scream 2 as one of the few sequels that is better than the origial. And though Scream 2 is better than Scream 1, it still doesn't quite make it into the five star category. Scream 2 gets 4 zombi heads, out of 5.

Scream Review (1996)

Holy shit! Thank God that this film came out when it did. For those of you who don't know, during the mid 80's to about the mid 90's, the bussiness of horror movies was in a big slump. The horror film economy was like our economy right now. The films were still getting made, but no one was buying them, and no one was seeing them. Then in 1995, Kevin Williamson, (a genius) wrote the screenplay for Scream. When it was realesed a year later, Scream took audiences by storm, with an ensemble cast that included: Drew Barrymore, Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, and Jamie Kennedy, and what promised to be a very original script. And it was. Flocking to theatres, Scream revitalized the genre, and introduced the world to Kevin Williamson, and told all them youngsters about Wes Craven.

Simply stated Scream probably has the most original story, and that being said, you've seen this story a hundred times, masked kill stalking teens, there's your story. But what makes it different is the characters, not the story. The characters are self aware that they are in a horror movie, and that's what makes Scream such a... no, just...no. After two fellow students are killed, the city orders all school to be canceled, and issue a curfew of nine-o-clock. But of course, with a killer on the loose, who wants to go home at nine?! So they have a party complete with booze, drugs and movies. Jamie Kennedy works at a video store, and is a horror professional like the all of us, so him, along with his friends no how a horror movie (and therefore their own enviorment) work, and what to do, and how to survive. Filled with enough in refrences that you'll have trouble keeping up, Scream is good for both a newbie, and the addict.

Scream is what launched the success of Kevin Williamson, who went on to write the screenplays for the next two films to come after this, along with the first I Know What You Did Last Summer, Cursed, and The Faculty, none of these were as successful, or good (opinion). Scream also launched the infamous Ghostface, and re-enstated Wes Craven as the suspense master that he truly is. Before Scream, the last big thing Craven had done of Nightmare On Elm Street, was New Nightmare.

Speaking of suspense, Scream has a ton of it. And I loved every minute of it. The first time I saw this film, the tension was so fucking great, it was killing me. Craven does a great job of making a really good film, as he shown numerous times before, as in everything he has ever possibly made. But directing is only one part of what makes a great film. Another great part goes to Williamson, but I've already talked about that enough. Now usually as a horror film, one either takes the gore route, or hit the tension with an iron fist. Scream does an excellent job at keeping both very prominent, and having a great sense of balance and timing between the two.


The blood here isn't extreme. It did have nice gore, and a good gore factor, but its not somthing that will make you sick to your stomach. The worst kill (as in bloodiest kill) actually is the first one that you ever see. You know that one where the guy gets his guts wripped out and are hanging from his stomach to his ankles. The rest of the film includes, beatings, stabbings, hangings and brutal beatings, but it truly wasn't extreme, trust me, I can handle a lot or gore, and I don't really mind it. But I also don't care if there is gore. Anyway, I'm rambling. But the blood within Scream, was used well, looked good. It was kind of like the musical episode of an old ninetys sitcom, every sitcom has one, but it really just doesn't need to be there. But you watch it anyway. And this isn't referring to the movie as a whole, but to the blood.

All of the acting in this movie was awesome. Every single actor and actress in this film seemed to be perfectly cast, and knew what they were doing. Neve was perfect as the lead, Courntey Cox was taken perfectly from her then comedy standard. While the film clearly advertised Drew Barrymoore as a main character. They were funny, serious, scary, and they seemed to get the source material, which was great.

Overall, as it's probably easy to tell, I really, really, really liked Scream, it was scary, fun, well acted, funny and amazingly put together from a techinal standpoint, the lighting, and production looked and felt very nice and real. The only problem was the lack of blood, which is okay, and the fact that the film was nearly two hours long. But again, I really, really, really liked it. So yeah. Scream gets Four zombi's out of Five.

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Slither Review (2006)

Slither, is a little horror/comedy film that was realesed about three years ago, the film went widley unnoticed though, and was a financial failure, with a budget of thirty million dollars, and making only thirteen million. It was written and directed by James Gunn, he was the writer of the remake of Dawn of The Dead, which was more successful. That's not saying much. While it didn't do well money wise, Slither was universally enjoyed by fans and critics with few exceptions. It was a throwback to the classic b-movies of the 70's and 80's, which really stuck a nerve with the audience.

The film opens with two bumbling idiot cops, sitting in a car, patrolling a highway or something like that, in the background a giant meteor falls from the sky and crashes in the woods behind them. Meanwhile a man who is busy cheating on his wife, he finds a whore in a bar, and they go into the woods for some fun. They find the meteor and feel the need to investigate. Something shoots out of the large space rock and impales the man in the heart. This man slowly starts turning into a horrible monster, that REALLY craves meat. Later the entire town goes to a party to celebrate the start of the hunting season, meanwhile, he is infecting another woman with his alien disease. Later, after the police officers find out about what has been goin' down, they track the infected woman to an old barn, where they find that she has become extremely fat. She keeps growing, and growing, until she eventually explodes realesing a massive group of small leaches, and as it turns out, if you get bitten by these leaches they infect you as well. Damn, that would suck.

As interesting as this film it, it's only as good as its worst scene. The movie tends to drag a little bit in the beggining, but as soon as the fat lady explodes things move along fast enough. The movie is gory enough, funny enough, and entertaining enough to warrant both horror, and comedy fans should give it a looksee. Nathan Fillion, (of firefly fame) stars as one of the many cops who rampage throughout the film with guns ablazing. Elizabeth Banks (shes from scrubs) stars as the women whos husband was infected in the beggining. The film is especially fun if you know the material. If you were a child of he 70's and 80's drive in, you will really enjoy this films commitment. The only thing this movie is missing from that genre is the nudity. None is here. Oh, well. But, if your a fan of Quentin Tarantino you'll know what I mean when I say this film is a piece of genre cinema.

Thank God for whoever did the special effects for this film. I hope that whoever it may be, they get paid very highly. The effects are great because they are not practicul effects, not CGI. The fake blood is really there, its not digitally added later. The monsters look like they were created for Gremlins, they don't look like Gremlins, but the movements are very similair. While the gore factor in this film isn't extreme, it's enough to give non-horror fans a queasy stomach. Scenes in which a monster/man/squid thing are shown are very nice, with classic make-up effects from a very smart crew. Whenever a monster or creature is on the screen, awesomeness was infused into every frame.

The acting in this movie was decent enough, I enjoyed the main characters, and the side characters enough to where I didn't notice if they were good or bad. All were funny when they needed to be, but serious also, and pulled of the change rather well. What people forget by looking at the case is that this is a comedy. It had some great running jokes, as well as some perfect one-liners. Nathan Fillion did a great job with the comedy stuff, as did Elizabeth Banks, and it seemed as if they knew that this film was a genre, not a movie. One of the background cops was also very funny as well, he was an older man, and I can't seem to find the actors name which is a shame, I think that if you see this movie you'll know who I mean.

This film was one of the kind that was hopping back and forth between genres. At the beggining it wanted to be a 50's sci-fi classic, and about halfway through, it finds that it wants to be a 50's creature feature, but then it thinks it wants to be a 70's explotation flick, things would have run a lot smoother if this had been figured out in the beggining. Also dull at moments Slither comes up just under perfect, but still an amazing flick for fans of any genre. And I'm telling you this is a COMEDY too.

Little Kid: What's a Gina?
Guy: It's a country, it's where...Ginese people come from.

Overall, Slither gets Four zombi's out of Five.