Well Now I Just Feel Lazy...

The Projection Booth is running one zombie movie review a day for the month of October. Man, he even has a cool graphic:

Here's the link to the feature to check it out. Cool stuff.

Well Now I Just Feel Lazy...

The Projection Booth is running one zombie movie review a day for the month of October. Man, he even has a cool graphic:

Here's the link to the feature to check it out. Cool stuff.

'07 Spooky Review #7: 28 Weeks Later (2007)

In a split second you make a choice. Sacrifice or Salvation. Don, holed up in a farmhouse with his wife and a few other survivors in the beginning of 28 WEEKS LATER, makes that choice when a group of people infected with the Rage Virus begin ripping apart the farmhouse. Torn between jumping out a window to freedom or staying to try and save his wife, Don jumps and, in what looks to be an act of self preservation turns into something a whole lot worse in this sequel to the popular 28 DAYS LATER.

For anyone who hasn't seen Danny Boyle's re-examination of the "zombie" picture, the universe of both DAYS and WEEKS concern the spread of something called the Rage Virus, a highly contagious disease that turns anyone coming into contact with it, either through the blood or saliva, into a raging fiend within 20 seconds - bloodthirsty and completely apeshit. 28 DAYS LATER tells one man's story as he wakes up from a coma 28 days after the outbreak to find his country falling apart. 28 WEEKS later follows the fate of one unlucky family as Britain attempts to rebuild and re-populate, only to suffer another outbreak.

Nerds and geeks everywhere argue relentlessly as to whether or not these films actually should be classified as "zombie" pictures. Can you call it a zombie movie if the zombies in question aren't actually dead, don't return to life, and run faster than most Olympians? While I greatly prefer my zombies in the Romero style, shuffling and groaning their way inevitably toward you, I think the spirit of the zombie film, of being oppressed by huge numbers, the terror of holing up while the rest of the world collapses is very much on display in these films, and the argument is really besides the point.

Fellow Nerds and Geeks, you may commence your flaming.

In the 6 months since the initial outbreak, the American military has come over to assist Britain in the re-building process. A large section of London has been cleared and people are beginning to move back in. Don, reunited with his two children, tries to cope with his decision at the farmhouse, telling his children that he tried but was unable to save their mother. Don's children Tammy and Andy head outside the "Green Zone" in an effort to retrieve their belongings and mementos of their mother, only to find the real thing hiding out upstairs, somehow surviving the Infected attack. Upon being brought back to the protected zone, scientists discover she's immune to the infection, but still acts as a carrier. One repentant kiss later and Don finds out how quickly the virus can spread, and like that 28 WEEKS LATER takes off.

Everything is filmed in a gritty documentary style, and echoes of Iraq and a post 9/11 world reverberate throughout the story. After a terrifying and frantic opening, things begin to move at a more measured pace, and the real tension oftentimes comes not from impending Infected attacks, but from the military, whose "Code Red" focuses on extermination when containment fails. The danger comes from two directions at once: in one scene our main group locks themselves in a car not only to escape the Infected, but to seal themselves off from the chemical weapons being used by the Army to eradicate a menace they can no longer differentiate.

And then there's the presence of Robert Carlyle's Infected Father. Another innovation of the sequel is to track the progress of one of the Infected, and Carlyle's actions are more brutal and horrifying than anything I remember in the first film. His transformation and subsequent first killing jump off the screen. I squirmed in my seat. And his constant tracking of his kids makes a weird kind of logical and thematic sense: he abandoned his wife and family once, and he's determined never to do that again. So what if now he now wants to rip their throat out? Since we've already established that we're playing outside of the accepted zombie genre, there's nothing to say that these characters don't have some sense of memory, of purpose. Their very movements and actions denote purpose - why else would they be running so fast?

If 28 WEEKS LATER suffers, it suffers from merely fleshing out a concept instead of being innovative itself. 28 DAYS LATER turned in a refreshing new type of horror film, and it's style of shaky handicams have permeated every other genre of film. But what I liked about 28 WEEKS later is that it doesn't try to give you bigger and better: it strives instead to flesh out the existing world, and tell a story that focuses more on humanity's response to the situation rather than the situation itself. Moody, scary, and filled with some really intense moments (the scene in total darkness with only a night-vision scope, the awesome fire-bombing of London) make 28 WEEKS LATER a sharp, surprising little film.

'07 Spooky Review #7: 28 Weeks Later (2007)

In a split second you make a choice. Sacrifice or Salvation. Don, holed up in a farmhouse with his wife and a few other survivors in the beginning of 28 WEEKS LATER, makes that choice when a group of people infected with the Rage Virus begin ripping apart the farmhouse. Torn between jumping out a window to freedom or staying to try and save his wife, Don jumps and, in what looks to be an act of self preservation turns into something a whole lot worse in this sequel to the popular 28 DAYS LATER.

For anyone who hasn't seen Danny Boyle's re-examination of the "zombie" picture, the universe of both DAYS and WEEKS concern the spread of something called the Rage Virus, a highly contagious disease that turns anyone coming into contact with it, either through the blood or saliva, into a raging fiend within 20 seconds - bloodthirsty and completely apeshit. 28 DAYS LATER tells one man's story as he wakes up from a coma 28 days after the outbreak to find his country falling apart. 28 WEEKS later follows the fate of one unlucky family as Britain attempts to rebuild and re-populate, only to suffer another outbreak.

Nerds and geeks everywhere argue relentlessly as to whether or not these films actually should be classified as "zombie" pictures. Can you call it a zombie movie if the zombies in question aren't actually dead, don't return to life, and run faster than most Olympians? While I greatly prefer my zombies in the Romero style, shuffling and groaning their way inevitably toward you, I think the spirit of the zombie film, of being oppressed by huge numbers, the terror of holing up while the rest of the world collapses is very much on display in these films, and the argument is really besides the point.

Fellow Nerds and Geeks, you may commence your flaming.

In the 6 months since the initial outbreak, the American military has come over to assist Britain in the re-building process. A large section of London has been cleared and people are beginning to move back in. Don, reunited with his two children, tries to cope with his decision at the farmhouse, telling his children that he tried but was unable to save their mother. Don's children Tammy and Andy head outside the "Green Zone" in an effort to retrieve their belongings and mementos of their mother, only to find the real thing hiding out upstairs, somehow surviving the Infected attack. Upon being brought back to the protected zone, scientists discover she's immune to the infection, but still acts as a carrier. One repentant kiss later and Don finds out how quickly the virus can spread, and like that 28 WEEKS LATER takes off.

Everything is filmed in a gritty documentary style, and echoes of Iraq and a post 9/11 world reverberate throughout the story. After a terrifying and frantic opening, things begin to move at a more measured pace, and the real tension oftentimes comes not from impending Infected attacks, but from the military, whose "Code Red" focuses on extermination when containment fails. The danger comes from two directions at once: in one scene our main group locks themselves in a car not only to escape the Infected, but to seal themselves off from the chemical weapons being used by the Army to eradicate a menace they can no longer differentiate.

And then there's the presence of Robert Carlyle's Infected Father. Another innovation of the sequel is to track the progress of one of the Infected, and Carlyle's actions are more brutal and horrifying than anything I remember in the first film. His transformation and subsequent first killing jump off the screen. I squirmed in my seat. And his constant tracking of his kids makes a weird kind of logical and thematic sense: he abandoned his wife and family once, and he's determined never to do that again. So what if now he now wants to rip their throat out? Since we've already established that we're playing outside of the accepted zombie genre, there's nothing to say that these characters don't have some sense of memory, of purpose. Their very movements and actions denote purpose - why else would they be running so fast?

If 28 WEEKS LATER suffers, it suffers from merely fleshing out a concept instead of being innovative itself. 28 DAYS LATER turned in a refreshing new type of horror film, and it's style of shaky handicams have permeated every other genre of film. But what I liked about 28 WEEKS later is that it doesn't try to give you bigger and better: it strives instead to flesh out the existing world, and tell a story that focuses more on humanity's response to the situation rather than the situation itself. Moody, scary, and filled with some really intense moments (the scene in total darkness with only a night-vision scope, the awesome fire-bombing of London) make 28 WEEKS LATER a sharp, surprising little film.

'07 Spooky Review #6: Sublime (2007)

20th Century Fox decided to give a bunch of filmmakers the chance to make a low-budget horror film (1.5 million a piece) with complete creative freedom. Each film will be released to cash in on the lucrative DVD market, where horror tends to fare much better nowadays than in the theater. The catch? They have to complete artistic freedom as long as as they "expands what horror means" or something like that. SUBLIME, from former 24 executive producer Tony Krantz, is the company's second offering.

SUBLIME is the story of George Grieves, a 40 year old man, successful and happy in his life who is about to into the hospital for a routine colonoscopy. Beginning with a simple scratch on his leg as they wheel him in for the procedure, George suffers a series of complications ranging from infection to actually having the wrong surgery performed on him. As he sits in his hospital to "recover," he begins to notice that not everything is kosher around the halls of the hospital. Rumors abound of unnecessary surgeries performed on immigrants, and there's the imposing black guy in the red bow-tie who's messing with George's IV and possibly murdering other patients...

Thomas Cavanagh of Ed and Scrubs fame plays George, and does an adequate job of getting across the fear and confusion of what's happening around him. Problem is, the movie focuses so much on atmosphere and mood (I guess there's a reason for it, but that's spoiler territory) that you're left wondering when you're going to get some solid plot instead of just going along for the ride. As the complications pile up you become more frustrated than anything else, and what eventually becomes the "surprise" ending is pretty obvious about halfway into the feature.

Interviews with Krantz in the bonus features of the disc talk about how the film is an allegory for America's involvement in Iraq, and how the George in the movie is George Bush, and how his fears and insecurities led him down a dark road that becomes harder and harder to get off of. Or something like that. As soon as Krantz went on his political bent, I started to drift off. Because he seems to make the mistake that a lot of people make with their "art" - namely that if the message is important, the product itself should be cut some slack. Unfortunately in this case the product comes off as a poorly written made-for television exercise that TNT or the Sci-Fi channel might do.

Or Fox, for that matter. SUBLIME has a few creepy scenes an a nice performance by Cavanagh, but aside from that take it for what it is - a moody little movie that substitutes real scares and story with flashy art direction and a message that better served in another film.