A Hawaiian, an Australian and a Brit Walk Into a Car Wash ...

There's nothing wrong with The Crazies, Breck (Sahara) Eisner's new remake of an almost-completely-forgotten George Romero quasi-zombie movie of the early Seventies.  There are a few pretty cool scenes, some credible acting, and decent production values throughout. The script itself has some real logic problems and fuzzy continuity, but the feeling in general, with more than 0% positive reviews clocking in on Rotten Tomatoes, seems to be, "What the heck? It's just a friggin' zombie movie, dude!" 

A minor but mildly interesting thing is that the main characters in this survival-slash-government-paranoia actioner are all salt-of-the-earth Midwestern types; the story takes place entirely in a small Ohio town, population 1,200 and something (think of it this way: they keep talking about escape to the Big City ... of Cedar Rapids).  However, not one of the three principals is actually from the continental United States, and two are from much farther away.

Timothy Olyphant, playing the earnest and admirable sheriff in a bad place, is best known as Seth Bullock in HBO's rather amazing series Deadwood, in which he played an earnest and admirable sheriff in a bad place.  Tim was born in Hawaii. His wife, the town's doctor, is played by the radiant Radha Mitchell, an Australian actress best known for kicking ass a little more efficiently a few years back in Pitch Black.  And the most convincing and 'regional' role in the mix in Joe Anderson, playing Olyphant's deputy Russell.  Anderson is British, though he's been hanging around American movie-makers for a while now. He's probably most memorable to Rush-types as one of the ill-fated tourists in The Ruins (but then weren't they all ill-fated?).  Only Danielle Panabaker, in a decidedly secondary (and sadly temporary) role, could lay claim to some kind of Midwestern roots -- if you consider Georgia the Midwest.  It's just worth nothing that the most convincing, even quintessential "American" roles are taken here by people that are anything but.  And they're all actually pretty good.  (They all have pretty good horror-movie pedigrees, too: not just Mitchell's Pitch and Anderson's Ruins, but Panabaker was a principle in the remake of Friday the 13th, and even Olyphant did his horror duty, as a major player in The Perfect Getaway earlier this year and in the best-forgotten film version of Stephen King's Dreamcatcher n the fortunately dimmified past. The Crazies opens today, Friday the 25th.  You can see one of our editors' take on it over at ScriptPhd, or a different (and far more sarcastic) version here at The Rush, in Contrariwise.

 

Deadgirl: the most depressing zombie movie EVER

Zombies are fun, aren't they?  Gosh, yes!  Just look at Zombieland, or Shawn of the Dead or even Fido (which is really pretty good). Even look at I Am NOT Infected, here on the web (which we love). Laugh a minute, those shambling, decomposing, corpsefolkken. (We just made that up, but it sure sounds cool.)

But once in a while it's nice to remember the cultural antecedents of the Walking Dead -- you know, back when we shuddered at the dead part.  The idea of bodies physically rising from the grave, even as they rotted away, with no brain but an undying hunger for human flesh -- that was was supposed to horrify and repel us, remember?  For the most part, however -- absent 28 Days Later, which revived the brand a bit, albeit in fast motion -- we've  become inured to the whole concept.

C'mon.  Zombies are fun.  

Until you see Deadgirl.

In fact, Deadgirl has more in common with the bleak, existential "high school as Bergmanesque death camp" genre of filmmaking that has depressed us for years now than it does with Zombieland.  Think The River's Edge, or Brick -- both excellent films, but absolutely unremitting in their hopeless and almost lifeless view of life for the contemporary teenager.  Deadgirl shambles through the same territory, with a slow but relentless plot, a set of horribly convincing characters and portrayals, and a grimy, gray production design that gives "depressing" a whole new level of depth.

The plot is simple enough: a couple of bottom-of-the-barrel no-account teens, ditching school and looking for trouble, break into the sub-basement of an abandoned hospital (asylum, maybe?) and find what looks like the almost-freshly-deceased body of a teenage girl -- an exotic, even wild-looking girl they've never seen before.  She's strapped down every which-way, slightly blue and not breathing ... but as they go for a closer look she snaps to life and attacks them as best she can: with her teeth.  Mindless, roaring, twitching, she's obviously not dead at all and pretty damn crazy ... but she's not quite alive either.  And best of all .. she's theirs.

Rape, kidnapping, necrophilia ... all the very worst that lies just under the repellent surface of really serious zombie movies is here in stomach-churning profusion.  And though the ending may seem as inevitable as an oncoming freight train, you really, really don't want it to happen.  Please.  But it does.

Made for about a buck fifty by people you never heard of, Deadgirl is available on DVD and has been out for a while now.  And if you want to get a sense of just how undeniably creeeeeepy the whole "zombie" thing was back in the days of White Zombie and the original Night of the Living Dead, here's your chance.  Just plan to take a shower right after you watch it.

The Best Horror/Comedy on the Web: I Am Not Infected

For almost a year now, I Am NOT Infected has been telling the story of three ... well, total jack-asses, really -- trapped in a deserted L.A., inhabited by themselves, a dwindling number of really stupid zombies, and not much else.  And given that, it's amazing how much trouble they can get into while accomplishing almost nothing in the way of self-preservation. 

For more than 27 episodes, I Am NOT Infected has told a surprisingly subtle and complex story, with a new ep every two weeks or so (and continuing: the current installment is less than two weeks old).  And it is, by turns, apalling, hilarious, icky, exciting, and just plain weird. 

But rather than describe it endlessly, just go look.  It's one of the best-made and least-known horror web show around.  Let's viralate this mother!  (Did we just make up a new verb?  Well, it's about time SOMEbody did!)

 

Pride and Prejudice and ... Zombies?

Some books just cry out for attention.  After all, how can you not pick up Seth Grahame-Smith's Pride and Prejudice and Zombies?  Hell, it even looks like the Jane Austen classic (except Elizabeth Bennet looks kind of, like, dead in this version). And the opening proves this pastiche is going to be irresistable: "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains."

Apparently the story is pretty much the same as Austen's original...sort of.  There's Elizabeth, the lovely but defiant daughter, in her evolving love/hate relationship with Mr. Darcy ...

 ... except the both of them, and eveyrone else, are busy sparring with flesh-eating zombies risen from the graveyards of the charming little English  village of Meryton.  So expect plenty of head-shots and piles of corpses along with the quips and quiet agony of love.

It really is an idea that's too good not to do...