The Walking Dead ( Week 4 )

Another fantastic episode , I'm beginning to have more respect for that hill billy red neck Merle and he wasn't even seen in this episode. The man cuts his hand off with a hack saw, cauterizes the wound and steals his would be rescuers truck and killing zombies along the way.

It now looks like the show is it's own entity and entering other story lines not seen in the comic book. So far I'm O.K. with the changes, I still have Kirkman's books and a new television series to enjoy.

Shane looks to have settled down from his beating to poor old Ed, even displaying a little compassion to Jim after having to restrain the man from hurting himself, digging all those holes like that. Speaking of Jim, what's up with him ? Is he now psychic ?

I enjoyed the confrontation between Rick and his group with that of the street gang, I totally wasn't expecting the reasons for the hostility from the gang.

The zombie attack happened quickly and from out of nowhere, the consequences were horrific and surprising, like the book , you can never be sure who will be next.

Zone of the Dead

Directed by Milan Konjovic' and Milan Todorovic'

Starring Ken Foree,Kristina Klebe, Emilio Roso,Miodrag Krstovic,Vukota Brajovic,Steve Agnew

In the last year or so there has been a splurgence of films making their way here from Serbia. Some of these films have caused controversy at film festivals and screenings, one film in particular A Serbian Film may even become banned in certain countries. It's real to life violence and horror representing the atrocities that have taken place in their country since the breakdown of Yugoslavia. Zone of the Dead is not one of these films, although it has been financed and supported by the Republic of Serbia, it has it's own atrocities to deal with such as bad dubbing, terrible translation and some mediocre acting.

The film's opening scene starts with a police detective and a coroner investigating four skeletal remains at a construction site and are only partial decomposed after 300 years. The bodies are covered with Lyme indicating they have died from the plague. A worker has cut himself on one of the skeleton's bones and has since died. The worker rises from the dead attacks the pair . The opening scene does nothing to advance the plot, we never see these characters again.

At a train station, we have an old man trying to phone his wife after he has missed his train, a station manager and a skinny ass kid of a police officer, or peace keeper I'm not quite sure. Enter three obnoxious assholes wearing military garb, NATO is performing military exercises throughout the country. The three soldiers are harassing the young officer, removing his gun from it's holster, a struggle per sues and the handgun accidentally fires into a tankard full of Toxic chemical from a train that arrived just moments before. A greenish colour gas escapes. I hate to be a nit picker, BUT I find it hard to believe that a tankard carrying such a dangerous chemical could be released with a single bullet from a handgun. Wouldn't you think the tankard containing the Toxic gas be reinforced with a metal of superior strength. Yeah I know sometimes we have to suspend our dis beliefs and not think about gaping plot holes, but I really don't like it when writers take advantage of their audiences. These characters all perish to the Toxic gas except for the old man who has managed to don a gas mask located in the station house.

We are introduced To Reyes ( Foree ), I'm guessing from the boxes packed in his small apartment, the picture of the pretty blond and Reyes popping pills and drinking vodka that we are supposed to feel sympathy for him. How can we , we don't even know this person or given a chance to feel connected to him or any of the other characters in the film. Now working with INTERPOL his partner Dragan ( Krstovic ) pulls him away from his apartment for one more mission.

It's Agent Mina Milius (Klebe) first field assignment, along with Reyes, Dragan and three other agents to escort a prisoner to Belgrade where the prisoner will then fly to London. On route the armoured vehicle transporting the prisoner and the truck with the agents run into trouble in the region of Pancevo, where the deadly gas has escaped from the tankard. The surviving agents must now form a truce with the prisoner if they are to survive the growing horde of the undead. Making their way to an abandoned police station, which also quickly becomes surrounded by the zombies. Is this a homage to John Carpenter's Assault on precinct 13 ?

The zombie make up effects by Miroslav Lakobrija look impressive enough I think, sometimes it is really too difficult to tell with most scenes being under lit and the use of jump editing during attacks giving the picture that jerky look which I find has been done to death in the zombie genre. My favorite zombie has to be the well endowed woman wearing nothing but an untied bath robe and a towel in her hair.

As all of this is going on, a young man having been locked up in a church and now free has been anticipating this moment all of his life and is prepared for Armageddon. He has enough weapons for a small army, and he is going to use them.

Along with the wooden and stilted acting, the dubbing is off target and I'm hoping for the sake of the screen play writer that the dialogue has been lost in translation because most of it is ambiguous and an incoherent mess.

In another homage, this time to George Romero's Dawn of the Dead, the survivors are debating where to go next, someone suggests a shopping mall. Foree's character replies " it would be too hard to secure, and believe me , they would get in anyway. Ken Foree portrayed Peter in the original 1978 version, a trooper whom with a small group tried to make a shopping mall their sanctuary.

My Thoughts: Watch Night of the Living dead again.

My Rating: 2 Go Go Girls out of 5

The Walking Dead ( week 3 )

Another fantastic week, I can't believe we are at the half way point of it's already short season of six episodes. Thankfully for us it has become a big hit and has been signed on for another season, Hallelujah for the T.V. gods. What a powerful emotional beginning to last night's episode, I could feel my eyes being slowly lubricated from some alien fluid that some how found it's way into my eye sockets, it takes a powerful moment from a television show to make this happen. But when Rick exited the truck and little Carl And Lori turned their heads up to see him, and that music by Bear McCreary you could actually feel how ecstatic they both were with his appearance. At the same time you can see Shane's little fantasy world come collapsing down around him.With Rick's arrival it's becoming an emotional battlefield out there. We are starting to see how much of an asshole Shane really is, telling Lori that Rick was dead, but man did she put him in his place, letting him know he is off limits to her family. Shane didn't take this so well, and took out his frustrations on poor Ed,beating the piss out of him after treating the women disrespectful. As I was watching Shane punch Ed in the face several times with no sign of letting up, I couldn't help but think Shane was wishing it was the face of Rick's he was beating to a pulp. And Rick thanking Shane for taking care of his family , is he really that nice ? or that naive ? I'm guessing, that nice, especially wanting to go back to rescue that red neck prick Merle. Considering the circumstances with a city full of undead citizens, a wife and child he has just reunited with, why bother?

Any how things are getting even more interesting with the small rescue team including Merle's brother Darryl reaching the roof top where Merle had been left hand cuffed, finds the roof empty except for a dangling pair of cuffs, a hack saw and a hand. Merle will not be taking this lightly, and I'm guessing will want to avenge his abandonment.

What says you?

King of the Ants

Directed by Stuart Gordon

Starring Chris McKenna, Kari Wuhrer, George Wendt, Vernon Wells,Lionel mark Smith, Timm Sharp and Daniel Baldwin

Remember how friendly and likable George Wendt was as Norm Peterson in the sitcom Cheers? Well be prepared to loathe him in this film. He truly is a despicable mean son of a bitch, a character you will grow to hate. This role of Duke Wayne and the one he played in The Masters of Horror episode " Family "proves his acting chops, especially in the horror genre. The movie House also benefited greatly with his presence.

Stuart Gordon gives us his scary, surreal look at average shmoe Sean Crawley (McKenna ) when he becomes involved with shady land developer Ray Matthews (Baldwin ) and his small posse of henchmen ( Wendt,Wells and Smith ). When the Jack of all trades, Sean is hired to follow an accountant who is occupied at City Hall, things turn sour for Sean when he agrees to try his hand at being a hit man and retrieving a wanted document. After Matthews reneges on his payment, Sean blackmails the wanna be Kingpin with the wanted document that he has hidden.

Believing killing Sean will lead the police back to them and possibly the murdered accountant, the mobsters decide to fuck Sean up literally. Sean is abducted and held hostage where he is tied to a chair and is hit upside the head daily. You will not look at a golf club the same way after witnessing this cringe inducing display of cruelty. In between Sean's daily tee off time, he is slowly beginning to lose a grip on reality,hallucinating some surreal images as his mind unfolds to reveal an unsettling, disturbing breakdown as only Director Gordon can deliver. Stuart Gordon is most noted for bringing the characters and creatures of H.P. Lovecraft to life. He gave us Jeffery Combs as Herbert West- Re animator, From Beyond,and Dagon which he has adapted from Lovecraft's short story Shadows over Innsmouth and the Masters of Horror episode " Dreams from the Witch House".Dennis Paoli adapts Lovecraft's stories and in my humble opinion is the only one capable to do so. Gordon and Paoli have worked on many other projects in the past.

With the help of a friend Sean finally manages to escape from his cruel and unusual punishment, and makes his way to a mission where the murdered accountant's wife ( Wuhrer ) volunteers . Things get interesting, when the newly widowed woman takes Sean in as her house guest.McKenna who portrays Sean is excellent, his character begins likable enough, taking on odd but honest jobs to make a living. Sean is a little off kilter , but the creep factor is on high alert after his head injuries are healed. Is this from the traumatic blows to the head, the inner Sean escaping ? Or is it metamorphosis ? Escaping from that shack , could be compared to exiting a cocoon.

The character of Ray Matthews is a pitiful excuse for a human being, and one who believes he is entitled to what and who he pleases. Matthews is the kind of person who has snapped the neck of an ankle biting dog because it's yapping had caused him coitus interuptus with a young woman he was trying to conquer. I'm not sure how he would take this , but Daniel Baldwin was made for this role. Kari Wuhrer's character of Susan is the only person who deserves any type of sympathy but she too is an emotional little fire cracker waiting to go off.

My Thoughts: This is a post modern horror film with compelling images, that will linger with you substantially after pushing that eject button and snapping the disc's keep case closed.

My Rating: 4 Go Go Girls out of 5

Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eye

Directed by Antonio Margheriti, Starring Jane Birkin,Hiram Keller,Francoise Christophe,Venantino Venantini,Doris Kuntsmann.

Man, I had a tough go with this one. Sure it looks good with it's Gothic style setting of a castle complete with damp basements and secret passage ways that open up behind stone walls. Young women running through long corridors in their nighties, rats devouring the flesh from forgotten bodies tossed to the cellar. An ape even puts in an appearance to wreak havoc on the castle grounds.All of this does not make an exciting story, and takes quite some time to get where it is going and in my opinion not worth making the trip. You would think death by nasty slashes to the throat, a mysterious cat which is always present during the killings and a family curse involving vampires could hold my attention. Hypnotically stylish, maybe too much for it's own good, this is a sophisticated horror film and those looking for a film with plenty of body counts and clever methods of doing the victims in are advised to look elsewhere.This killer's M.O. is the slashing of the throat.Of course a movie where the potential victims and killer are all situated at the same location creates many red herrings and this picture is no different.

A young woman Corringa ( Birkan ) arrives at her aunt's Scottish castle to find members of her family being killed off one at a time, a la Agatha Christie's Ten little Indians. I found most of Corringa's family to be pretentious, but her cousin Lord James MacGrieff (Keller ) is also an obnoxious rude, spoiled brat who, when first introduced ,clears the table of his mother's dinner guests with his blatant insults. Lord James MacGrieff is a strange bird who happens to keep an orangutan caged in his bedroom.

There is a little bit of kinkiness going on, including a bi-sexual slut and an incestuous relations, but that darn pacing did me in. Slowwww going.In my opinion a better film by director Antonio Margheriti is Danza macabra ( 1964 ) also known as Castle of Blood starring the impressive Barbara Steele and filmed in a sombre black and white medium.

My Thoughts: I wished the story elaborated more with the family curse, and the dead family members did return as vampires. As it is ,it's just another case for Scotland Yard.

My Rating: 2 Go Go Girls out of 5

The Walking Dead ( Episode 2 )

So far so good, Darabont and company are batting two for two. I'm really enjoying the way the story is unfolding, catching a little glimpse of the members of the caravan and some of the new characters introduced. Having read some of the trade paperbacks I am getting a little anxious to jump in with both feet. But from the look of this episode , it could very well be a slow cooker before the whole kitchen goes up in flames. The characters are fleshed out a lot more, Glenn is even more good natured and easy going than the book shows. Shane is , well Shane is Shane. Pausing his little rendezvous with Lori until she removed the locket from her neck, and then he turned her over anyways.
I found most of the ideas from the book are being incorporated into the series, just not following a chronological order, I'm not complaining, it's familiar but at the same time new.Chopping a walker into little pieces by an axe, Rick and Glenn smear flesh and guts onto themselves to cover their own scent of being alive.Trying to make their way to a construction site for a vehicle.The book shows the two already having been back at the camp, then making the trip back to the city for guns and ammo using the same olfactory disguise.
Michael Rooker's character, I believe it's Merle, he is quite the red neck and will make an interesting addition to an already excellent ensemble. Rooker is the type of actor who takes on characters which are usually uneducated and a low life scumbag of some sort.So far this character is not an exception.
It was nice to see Glenn speeding along the empty freeway, finally releasing some unpleasant emotions, he no doubt has built up since the zombie apocalypse.
What are your thoughts? Let us know.

The New York Ripper

Directed by Lucio Fulci
You're going to want to take a shower after watching this slice of cinematic sleaze. Every main character introduced has some strange sexual hang up that would keep a dozen psychiatrists working around the clock busy for a year.
At the harbour an old man is throwing a stick for his dog to fetch, one toss lands the stick into some bushes. The dog exits the bushes carrying the severed hand of a female victim. Elsewhere the Staten Island ferry is making it's way back to the island, among the blaring horns of the ship a woman is sliced and eviscerated by an unseen assailant.Jane a sophisticated, well dressed woman is sitting in the front row of a live sex show secretly tape recording the performance for her husband. A sleazy looking man who is missing the ring and pinky fingers of his right hand sits himself several chairs down from Jane.As the two performers show is coming to a climax, Jane is beginning to get into the act,(if you know what I mean ) a solo performance of her own. The once occupied seat down from her is now sitting empty. The female performer goes back to her dressing room, in it's blackness she discovers by broken glass in her bare feet that the bulb has been smashed.Hearing a noise from behind a curtained closet she approaches only to have her privates mutilated by a broken bottle.This movie is sprinkled with lots of the sleaze factor through out, again the nicely dressed Jane borrows the Porshe and drives out to 42nd street area. Sitting in a pool hall, she is quickly noticed by two Hispanics who make a bet with each other regarding if she is wearing panties or not. Slipping his bare foot out from his shoe and between her legs" Morales has silver toes " he says. A minute or two later he owes his friend Chico a beer. Jane enjoys putting herself in danger , she meets the three finger man at a hotel for a little bout of S& M. Is this the man that has been taunting the police and particularly Inspector Williams with phone calls and quacking like a duck. Yes folks you read that right, this killer sounds like Donald Duck on quack, I mean crack. Like I said before every main character has some sort of hang up with sex, even our protagonist Inspector Williams. He sleeps with a prostitute but they act like an old married couple.Eventually Inspector Williams teams up with Paul, a psychologist to help with the capture of the sex killer. Turns out Paul likes to buy magazines with naked men in the pages.When a phone call from the quacking killer leads Inspector Williams on a wild duck chase , oops I mean a wild goose chase, Williams learns that the killer is at his prostitute, Kitty's apartment.This scene is no doubt the one that is talked most often when the conversation turns to The New York Ripper. The killer has Kitty tied to her bed, sweeping a razor blade over her body, finally resting the blade on her forehead. Pressing the blade into the flesh, and pulling it down across her eyeball. Next we see the blade divide an erect nipple, in extreme close up. Fulci has been labeled a woman hater in the past, and this film is not going to help matters with his label as a misogynist. Earlier films of Fulci's such as The Beyond, The Gates of Hell and Zombie we have seen a young girl's head on the wrong side of a shot gun blast. A woman puking up her intestines and yet another woman having her eyeball impaled onto a nine inch splinter of wood. But Ripper is Fulci at his nastiest with it's various sex crimes, the slicing and dicing of women and the pscychological themes of insanity. This is in our world, this could be real, sometimes it is real. There are no zombies here or hotels built over a gate to Hell,making this film more realistic. With it's red herrings, whodunit murder mystery and themes of insanity The New York Ripper comes across very much like a giallo. Many years ago In Italy pulp novels were published, these books contained stories of murder, mystery and sex. The books themselves were binded between bright yellow covers.Giallo means yellow in Italian. Soon these books were made into low budget films. Dario Argento being credited as one of the first directors to work with this sub genre.
I found this film's pacing a little slow, most giallos are. The tone, ugly, most scenes taking place on 42nd street or Times square. Today these areas are clean and respectable places but back in the days, scum bags, druggies and low lifes wandered these streets night and day. The overall atmosphere comes across very gritty and grungey looking,with endless scenes of Adult movie houses, peek shows and live sex performances being offered. I thought the killer's identity was not a strong point in this picture,I felt the motive behind the killings were rather weak as well. The reasoning behind the duck like voice is actually absurd.
My Thoughts: This is by no means Fulci's best work, The Beyond IMHO is the one that does it for me. Check out Fulci's Don't Torture a Duckling for an earlier try at a murder mystery.The cover states that it is The Most Controversial Horror Film Ever Made! Sorry but I'll have to disagree.
My Rating:2.5 Go Go Girls out of 5 Sure , there's lots of skin to look at, but it all ends up mutilated.