Mimesis: Night of the living Dead

So it has been a super long time since my last post.  So if you have been a reader of this blog I apologize for not uploading any new content recently, but I have good news!  I have a steady stream of new movies to write about in the coming weeks so keep on the look out for that.  So this week in the corner I am writing about a movie with a very interesting premise called Mimesis: Night of the Living Dead.  Now the word Mimesis itself has a meaning of mimicry or imitation and that is sort of the foundation of what this movie has to offer.  Now I have to say up front that this movie will be much more enjoyable if you have seen the George A. Romero 1968 classic Night of the Living Dead.  Romero's film is in my opinion not only the best horror film of all time, but a film that had a profound impact on cinema, violence, and racial boundaries.  It also was the beginning to the zombie craze that mainstream America has fallen in love with in the last 5-10 years.  Romero filmed the original classic in black and white in a time when movies were all moving to colorizing their pictures.  Romero chose black and white purely for financial reasons (it was cheaper) but it actually adds an eerie quality to the movie.  Secondly Romero chose to cast an African American in the lead role in a time when racial tensions were at a breaking point in the mid to late 60's.  In fact, this movie was finished and shipped on April 4, 1968, the day Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.  George Romero never intended to have racial undertones in this film but the impact that it had cannot be denied.  Finally the original Night of the Living Dead was pretty violent for the time.  To show the zombies eating human flesh, Romero used pork shanks with chocolate syrup, to make it look like the zombies were actually tearing the flesh off of the bloody bone.  It was quite shocking at the time and made the stabbing of Janet Leigh in Psycho look tame.  Now this blog entry is about Mimesis but a little back story on the original helps with the synopsis of this film.  The premise of this movie involves a couple of guys who go to a horror convention.  They go to see some horror celebrities and directors and get autographs and while they are there they are invited to an after midnight party out on a farm.  This is never a good idea in general but of course the two guys agree to go to the party because they are invited by a hot girl.  After arriving at the party and having a few drinks the two guys pass out and when they wake up, find themselves in a farm house, with new clothes, and no idea why they are there.  They soon find out that they have been captured by a group of sadistic killers, with a catch.  The killers are dressed and have make up on to emulate zombies and look to re enact the original Night of the Living Dead for their own sick enjoyment.  The killers kidnap seven people just like seven in the original.  They kidnap a father, mother, and daughter just like original.  The race, gender, and clothes of the seven people even match the cult classic with the lead being African American.  The director adds a nice touch by having all of the TVs in the house showing the original Romero film while the seven people are trying to avoid death at the hands of this group of "dedicated" horror fans.  It is an interesting twist on the genre.  The finale of the film sort of loses its way and doesn't have the impact that the original Romero film did, but it was still a fun watch especially you if you are a fan of the 1968 version.  I feel like there could be a whole series of Mimesis films, one dedicated to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th, or any other classic horror franchise.  If you are a fan of the original Night of the Living Dead, you should give this movie a go.  If you haven't seen the original you should go watch that immediately.

Mimesis to my knowledge can only be viewed on DVD and blu ray, but if you can find a copy, let me know what you think in the comments!  I would love to hear your thoughts on the original Romero film as well!

Next week I am going to be writing about another loving homage to a classic horror franchise.  The Icelandic version of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre!  (this is not a joke! It is an actual movie!)

Citadel

This week in the corner we will take a look a little indie Irish movie called Citadel.  This is an interesting movie if you can suspend your belief for about 80 minutes for what you watching.  But if you have been keeping up with this blog you may remember that I will be looking at movies that may be a bit polarizing in their content.  I can see where you could really love this movie or really be bored with it.  But that is the fun! Citadel starts in an apartment building with the main character Tommy and his pregnant wife.  Tommy leaves his wife at the door to their apartment to take bags outside for their trip to the hospital.  Upon returning he is caught in the elevator and witnesses his wife attacked by what seems to be 3 children.  Once Tommy gets out of the elevator his wife has been stabbed with a needle.  Tommy rushes her to the hospital and the doctors are able to save Tommy's baby, but after some time in a coma, Tommy's wife dies.  This sets the stage for the rest of the movie.  Fast forward nine months later and Tommy is a single father and suffers from a serious case of agoraphobia which is basically having constant anxiety of places that can put you in danger and overall panic attacks.  Tommy becomes a prisoner in his own home because of his anxiety and holes up in his apartment all stemming from witnessing the events of murdered wife.  Adding to his stress and anxiety is the fact that he is stalked and haunted by the same feral children that attacked his wife months ago.  If you have ever dealt with panic attacks or extreme anxiety it is very easy to relate to Tommy and the need to escape where he lives, but being so overcome by fear that can't.  All the while doing his best to raise his 9 month old daughter.  The scenes with the feral children are extremely creepy.  Especially in the final act of the movie when they start to play a much larger part to story.  They are almost zombie like.  They hunt in packs and are ruthless to their victims.  They also have a shriek that will give you chills.  I won't spoil why they attack people or what is behind their savage nature but as with most horror movies, there is an underlying social aspect to the movie.  Tommy's character lives in an area of town that is being rejuvenated.  A very poor area almost like what we would call the projects here in the US.  A rejuvenation project is when the government comes in and cleans up the area and in many ways forces the poor to move elsewhere.  The closest thing that I can think of in our country is gentrification.  This movie clearly has a message of poverty, class systems, and the social and economic ramifications of these problems on our planet.  The feral children in the movie are just a representation of these problems regardless of how the director chooses to explain their behavior within the context of the story of the movie.  Overall Citadel has some pretty scary moments and great characters towards the end.  This movie can be streamed instantly on Netflix.

Take a chance on this movie and let me know what you think in the comments below.  Also be sure to sign up with your email below so you can get notifications on when this blog is updated.    Next time I will be writing about a movie that is generating a lot of buzz amongst horror fans...Mimesis!!!

Hemlock Grove

First off, there are some changes on my blog for this week.  If you scroll down to the bottom of the page and input your email, you will receive email updates whenever I post something new!  This week in the corner we are going to switch gears again and take a look at something a little different.  I am going to write about the new television series that is exclusive to Netflix called Hemlock Grove.  This series is created and developed by Eli Roth.  Eli Roth has developed quite a bit of fame in the horror genre without ever really making an iconic movie.  He did direct Cabin Fever which is creepy and gross(and pretty good) and he also did the polarizing Hostel, which in a lot of ways was responsible for the horror sub-genre known as torture porn.  With Hemlock Grove, Roth is doing something different entirely.  There is quite a bit of gore in certain scenes and there is some scares and spooks but this series is more about the town and people who live in it.  The show begins in episode one with the murder of a teenage girl and the ensuing mystery that follows.  When the body of the girl is found we are initially led to believe that she was attacked and killed by an animal of some sorts instead of just some sadistic killer.  You can probably tell from the one sheet above that werewolves are involved and all of the supernatural fun that comes with them.  If you are worried (or excited) that this show is jumping on the success of Twilight, this is hardly the same thing.  In fact, this show in many ways is trying desperately to recreate the aura of the early 90's cult masterpiece Twin Peaks.  Both of these shows start out with the murder of a teenage girl and the who dunnit that follows, but both shows really focus on all of the quirks and oddities of the various towns folk and there are definitely some odd ones in Hemlock Grove.  I don't believe that this show achieves quite the same vibe as Twin Peaks, mostly because no one can do what David Lynch does, but it definitely creates more creepiness and discomfort through its characters than it does with werewolves and murders.  Those are merely a backdrop that allows us to get a close up look at the people of Hemlock Grove and what makes them tick throughout the show.  The bigger question I would like to pose, is about what Netflix is doing with this show.  This is the second big show to be released all at once exclusively with Netflix.  The first being House of Cards with Kevin Spacey.  Netflix is also bringing back the wildly popular Arrested Development for its fourth season.  Not only that, but Netflix releases every episode at once, so viewers can technically watch all 13 episodes in one sitting.  They don't have to wait for a week for new episode and they don't have to sit through commercials while they watch them.  I believe that this could be the beginning of a new generation of television the same way Napster and iTunes changed the way we listen to music.  Consumers are being able more and more to watch their favorite shows through places like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon.  They are able to skip through commercials with DVRs and paid subscriptions to TV services.  House of Cards has already been hugely successful for Netflix and created almost 2 million new subscribers since that show was released.  If Hemlock Grove proves to be just as successful Netflix will only continue to create new content. Eventually people are going to start to look at their $100 a month TV bill for Comcast or Directv and start to question whether they should subscribe to 2-3 services like Hulu and Netflix for about about $8 each and get all of the TV they want for a fraction of the price.  Eventually major cable networks and these huge cable providers are going to have to look at how they do business to continue to compete with these streaming services.  I think the only thing holding back a mass exodus from cable and satellite providers are the sports networks like ESPN or NFL network.  Currently there isnt really a way to watch sports live through Roku box or Google TV.  But if these networks ever strike a deal with a service like Netflix or Hulu, then there will be a television revolution that will change the way most people consume media as we know it.

I know I didn't really write too much about horror this week, but Hemlock Grove is a show that has its hand in so many different genres not only in substance but as a television show in general that it is an important stepping stone in what could be the way we watch TV in the next 5 years.

If you end up watching Hemlock Grove tell me what you think in the comments.  If you think TV is on the precipice of change let me know that as well!

Next week I will be back to basics and write about a crazy movie called The Citadel!! This flick has feral children.  Please subscribe with your email below and check back in next week!

Frogs

This week in the corner, I am writing about a much different kind of movie than in past weeks...George McCowan's Frogs!  Let's get a few things out of the way.  First off, the poster would lead you to believe that this movie is about giant man eating frogs.  While there are lots of frogs, none of them are enormous, nor do they eat humans.  Secondly, although this movie would be considered a horror movie, it is rated PG and is pretty low on gore and adult content.  So why have this on my blog?  Because this movie follows another very common horror trope in the genre sometimes known as the creature feature.  Creature features have been around almost since the beginning of film making.  Lon Chaney, who was a master of make up, was the wolf man in 1941, Creature from the Black Lagoon was released in 1954, and Frogs was released in 1972.  These are of course not the only creature features to come out, but movies about monsters, creatures, and animals that attack have been made for over 70 years.  So what does Frogs have to offer?  Not much...Frogs is basically about a rich old curmudgeon who owns a plantation of sorts in a swampy bog in what could be Louisiana, Florida or some other kind of marshy area in the southeast.  The rich old man is celebrating his birthday weekend and his entire family has come to "celebrate" with him.  The family doesn't like him much but they all hope to be included in his will so they try to put up with his unpleasantness once a year.  While all of this is going on a wildlife photographer played by a very young Sam Elliot ends up in a boating accident on the water and ends up crashing the old man's birthday party.  What Sam Elliot's character begins to realize is that the old man's fortune has been made through various factories and plants that have been poisoning and contaminating the swamps and bogs for years.  Well it turns out that frogs, snakes, spiders, alligators, and all forms of reptiles don't like to be poisoned and decide to attack the entire family during the old man's birthday party.  This movie is pretty terrible.  But terrible in one of those so bad it's good kind of ways.  Writer Fran Lebowitz actually called this "the best bad movie I have ever seen in my life."  The interesting thing is that I think most creature features are kind of bad.  So why do they continue to get made?  For one they tend to attack a lot of humanity's base fears.  Lots of people are scared of snakes and spiders.  Lots of people are scared of creepy crawlies.  Also human beings mistreatment of the environment has been a hot topic for a lot longer than people realize.  Frogs is clearly conveying an eco-friendly message and this kind of movie was actually very popular in the 1970's.  Godzilla, which may be Japan's most famous export outside of high end electronics, was about mutated wildlife that resulted from the nuclear bomb.  Creature features will continue to be made...some better than others.  Frogs as a film is pretty terrible to watch all by yourself.  But with a few friends and some beer, you could have a pretty fun Saturday night.  You could make a drinking game out of it and take a drink every time there are 3 or more frogs on screen.  You can stream Frogs on Netflix right now.

If you end up watching this with friends or you brave through it by yourself, leave comments below!  Next week I am going to change gears a bit and actually write about a TV show instead of a movie.  I will be taking a look at the first episode of the Netflix exclusive Hemlock Grove.  This series is created and directed by Eli Roth who is famous for his nasty horror flicks Cabin Fever and Hostel.  Hope you come back next week!

Evil Dead (2013)

It's been a while since my last post.  But a European vacation followed by a nasty bout of food poisoning has delayed the next post.  But this week, we are bringing it back with a brand new release in theaters, the remake/reboot of Evil Dead.  If you are a horror fan and have visited this blog multiple times you have probably seen the original version from 1981, directed by Sam Raimi and starring Bruce Campbell.  They developed cult icon status with this movie and the even better Evil Dead 2.  They went on to make a third installment called Army of Darkness, which is often forgotten about in the franchise.  Sam Raimi has since gone on to become a bonafide Hollywood blockbuster film maker.  He directed the Spiderman trilogy with Toby Maguire, and more recently just released Oz with James Franco.  This post is about the new Evil Dead movie, but it is important to note that Raimi and Bruce Campbell were producers on this film and were involved with the movie.  If you were a fan of the original, I honestly am not sure what you will think about this movie.  First off, the 2013 edition has a much more somber tone overall.  The movie centers around a group of friends who go up to a cabin in the woods, but the main character, Mia, is battling  a serious addiction to heroin and is trying to kick the habit cold turkey at the cabin with her friends providing unyielding support.  This is different from the 1981 version which was basically just a group of college friends going away for the weekend.  Just like the 81 version, in the new film, the group of friends uncover the infamous book of the dead which is the book bound in human skin and written in blood that summons the evil spirits from the woods.  Of course the spirits possess our main character Mia.  At first her friends think she is just going through a painful withdraw from the drugs.  Quickly they found out that it is something completely different.  The original Dead definitely had some tense moments but there was almost a three stooges quality to the film.  It acquired cult status in large part to the campy nature and the great performance from Bruce Campbell.  The new version doesn't have many, if any at all, comedic moments.  It is dark and dreary from the get go.  There are a few homages to the original.  You'll see an old car you may recognize, some great camera work through the woods and of course...the chainsaw.  But the tone is one that is much more serious and dare I say it, more violent.  This is one of the goriest movies I have ever seen released to a theater.  Body parts are severed, blood is sprayed, and at one point literally rained down from the sky.  Directer Fede Alvarez said he wanted to use as many practical effects and as little CGI as possible.  This really worked for me in the movie and added to the extreme gore.  I personally liked the movie and had fun during the short 90 minutes.  The bigger point for me is the growing trend in the last 10 years of remaking or rebooting every horror franchise almost in existence.  The question for me is, why remake a franchise?  Is it for the cash grab?  Is it to introduce a franchise to a younger generation who may not have had the chance to see the original?  The new Evil Dead does enough in my opinion to change things up just enough from the original to do something fresh and different that warrants the remake.  I think that if you are just going to do the same thing and do a shot for shot redo, what is the point of the remake in the first place?  Evil Dead will not make hundreds of millions of dollars because of its extreme violence.  But I do think it is one of the better remakes of a horror franchise to hit theaters.  If you think you can stand the gore, check this out.  If you haven't seen the original Evil Dead, you should see that to!  I think you can currently stream it instantly on Netflix.  Ultimately, what I am most excited about from all of this, is the possibility and rumor that Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell are going to finally get to work on an Evil Dead 4.  Nothing beats the original...Hail to the king baby!

If you have seen both the original and the remake, leave a comment below and let me know what you thought of the remake.  Too violent?  Loving homage the original?  Check out next week as I will be writing about an old school horror movie.  One of the original creature features...George McCowan's Frogs!

Frankenhooker

This week in the corner we are going to take a look at Frank Henenlotter's wonderful horror comedy Frankenhooker.  Henenlotter has amassed quite a bit of cult following status with this movie and for Basketcase.  I had seen Basektcase years ago and loved it's absurdity, gore, acting, but also the strange way it showed heart and compassion.  I saw Frankenhooker for the first time two days ago and Henenlotter included many of the same things in this movie that made me like Basketcase so much.  Frankenhooker starts out following a young couple, Jeffrey and Elizabeth, very much in love at a backyard birthday party.  Jeffrey is into medical experiments and has been thrown out of 3 medical schools for it.  Elizabeth is a bit of a ditz, but is very happy and content with her life.  Ten minutes into the movie Elizabeth falls victim to a tragic lawnmower accident and her body parts are sprayed all over the backyard during the birthday festivities.  You can pretty much read the title of the movie and figure out where the movie goes from here.  Jeffrey uses the body parts of dead hookers and the decapitated head of his dead girlfriend and pieces her back together a la a Frankenstein like creature.  Any description I write cannot do justice to what this movie truly is.  It is a campy, comedic, over the top movie whose genre became popular in the late 80's and early 90's.  If you have ever seen the iconic Evil Dead or Re-Animator, then this movie falls right into that same type of arena.  Although in my opinion this movie is not quite as gory as those two.  The characters are wonderful and the actors do a great job.  Patty Mullen uses her timing and facial expressions to nail down the title role.  This movie has a scene of exploding prostitutes that I could watch over and over again, and the ending is so classic and unexpected that I wouldn't dare write about it here.  If you watch this movie you will be glad you knew as little about the ending as I did.  It will truly make you enjoy it more.  This movie is fairly hard to find.  I purchased it on blu ray from the Synapse Films website.  The HD transfer looked great and there are a number of special features.  So if you are into this kind of a movie you may just want to go ahead and purchase it to add to your collection.  I am happy I bought.  If you don't think you want to own it you cannot stream this movie instantly on Netflix but you can get the disc through the mail.   I had a great time with this movie and if my opinion isn't enough, Bill Murray of Ghostbusters and Caddyshack fame has said many times that this is one of his favorite movies of all time.  So give it a shot!

I will be out of town next week, so there will be a week off from a new entry.  But I am going to try to have my next entry be my first blog post from a new movie in the theater!  I hope to have a new entry on the The Evil Dead remake that is set to hit theaters on April 5th.

As always if you have comments about Frankenhooker I would love to see them.  If you have friends or family members who are into horror, pass this website on to them!  Finally thanks to everyone who takes the time to read these every week!  I have had almost 350 readers in 5 weeks!  I really appreciate it and I hope you keep reading!

I Drink Your Blood

This week in the corner we will take a look at David Dursten's I Drink Your Blood.  Right off the bat I should say that this movie was released in 1970 and was the first movie rated X for violence.  It follows a group of Satan worshiping, acid tripping hippies who have arrived at a small rural area to perform demonic rituals.  In the process they end up catching a women spying on one of their rituals and they take it upon themselves to assault her in the woods.  When the woman arrives home she tells her grandfather and little brother what has happened.  When the grandfather seeks revenge, the little brother decides to follow.  What transpires from there is a mixture of a twisted after school special and Sweeny Todd.  For one, the band of Satan worshipers drop acid like they are candy.  The movie, for me, has sort of a "don't do drugs" undertone.  Also, the little brother in the movie ends up killing a rabid dog in the woods.  He gets a syringe and draws blood from the rabid dog and secretly injects the blood into some meat pies that the Satanic cult plans to eat.  The cult then gets rabies themselves and begins to go on a blood thirsty rampage.  The cult members foam at the mouth, decapitate each other, and just plain go insane.  This movie seems to try very hard to be like George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead(my favorite horror movie).  Although to be fair Romero released The Crazies in 1973 which is in a lot ways similar to I Drink Your Blood.  Living Dead, for me always spoke to social inequality, civil rights, and what it means to be different.  All topics relevant in 1968 when the movie was released.  I drink your blood doesn't necessarily tackle the exact same issues but for being released in the same time frame and having LSD being the drug of choice of a bunch of devil worshiping rapists, it is hard to ignore the "drugs are bad" message.  If you choose to watch this movie, make sure you get the uncut director's X rated version.  That version is 8 minutes longer and includes all of the things that have made this movie a grind house hit.  The R rated version actually cuts a scene, in my opinion, that is fairly important for the rest of the movie.  This movie isn't for everyone, but if you like early 70's grind house flicks with gritty footage and grisly gore, you should definitely check this out.

Next week in the corner, I will write about a movie that I have never seen before!  FrankenHooker!!!!

Oh and give me your thoughts in the comments section!!