Review Of French Horror "The Horde" {Fast Paced Zombie Flick}

Even though this foreign film is subtitled - the action, suspense, and hilarious-sort of "horror" make it a worth-see, in my opinion.  "The Horde" (2009 flick) features an end-of-world battle between cops, gangsters and zombies. Naturally the cops hate the gansters and visa-versa but the zombies hate (and wanna eat) EVERYBODY. So a bond between human enemies ensues - which makes sense because what's a zombie movie without unlikely allies?

PARENTAL CAUTIONS:
This movie is very violent. There's lots of testosterone-laden posturing, with profanity spelled out (thanks to subtitles). In one scene, a female-zombie's breasts are exposed and a fat and dirty old man suggests having sex with her corpse. The only token female in this film acts very much like an emotionally diminished hateful b*tch who runs around with her nipples showing through her skimpy shirt. This movie promotes cocaine use as a physical enhancing asset. 


THE MOVIE:Worth seeing for the zombie action and great make-up, this movie begins with bunch of dudes running around in ski masks carrying machine guns. It's not really clear what's going on at first but really cool suspenseful music plays in the background when a fat guy in a stained T-shirts comes out of his condemned building to order loiterers to push off.




OTHER FASCINATING DETAILS:
When a human is turning zombie, the transition is visible through the skin. 
ZOMBIES growl and walk jerkily like their neurological systems are NOT fully functional. In contrast? Those same zombies can also run at heroic speed.


GREAT DIALOGUE
‎"Gotta chop your leg off." (Spoken casually by a pick-axe wielding nut-job for a fat old man) "What?" (Asks the gangster in a suit, but he soon realizes the old fart isn't joking). 


EXCELLENT MAKE-UP
When someone gets beat-up, their face really shows it and the zombies are rather believable with their rotting flesh as well.


SCENES WORTH WATCHING OVER AND OVER AGAIN
1.  The female cop ends up alone and she's kidney-punching a female zombie. This scene is really AWESOME.  The cop begins slamming that female zombie's head repeatedly inside the cupboard door.  I cannot tell you how many times I rewound the movie for the replay. I had so much fun seeing the female cop just easily flip over a full-size refrigerator on top of the zombie too.  (It's so ridiculous it's amusing.)

2. Gangsta-in-3-piece-suit is repeatedly stabbing a zombie over and over and looks to the ceiling as though in orgasm. WTHeck? 

3.   Multiple scenes with head-butting and punching zombies ninja-style. There's also a scene where the heros cannot hold the door shut when ZOMBIES are pushing from the other side.

4. I kept rewinding to watch a very detailed scene where a zombie's head explodes (by machine gun blast) and it looks like a jar of jelly was smashed against the distant wall.


STUPID PARTS:
What's wrong w/this picture? Smallest person-female-is the one keeping the injured dude mobile while the big males all carry small handguns.

Gangsta's snort cocaine when zombies have taken over the world as though nobody should be keeping their wits about them to survive. 


Gansta shoves handgun in cops face then turns it around when the cop doesn't flinch (hands it to him). Partners now. 


Brave gangsta goes to investigate certain zombie growls when the room their groanings come from is full of flashing lights and the hero gets yanked off his feet ... hangs onto the lower part of the doorway while zombies eat his lower half.

Hello!

Now if someone can just tell me where term 3 went....

Stuff did happen (oh my goodness yes) but not so much on Skerricks.  For assorted reasons.  But I haven't forgotten you, and plan to do more in Term 4.

I have been working with lots of teachers and classes - that's been fun.  And the school now has a Plagiarism and Ethical Use of Information Policy (more later on that) which is launching into its initial implementation this term.

This week in the hols I'm at the ASLA XXII conference at St Ignatius this week, learning lots and looking forward to presenting on Tuesday (my topic is Re-imagining your school library - do come and say hello if you're at the conference).

Hope you're enjoying your hols.  I plan to do more here on Skerricks next term.  Really.  I promise.

Cheers

Ruth

"Scoundrels Are Cool" Says Author M.T. Murphy in this Great Post!

Special guest and author M.T. Murphy writes today's article in relation to his book "Lesser, A Villainous Urban Fantasy" ISBN 978-1-4524-2434-7 (ePub) published by Lex Talionis Books. Follow his successes on Twitter (more contact information for him is below)!

This vampire-werewolf tale falls under the urban fiction category. It's humorous, dark and romantic. Released on September 10, 2011

HERE'S M.T. Murphy's exclusive posting for Vampire Review: "Gray is my favorite color"

Han shot first.

With that statement, I reveal myself as the nerd that I am. So be it. I am a geek who prefers to see a character with a dark side.

Scoundrels are cool.

Real people aren’t all sunshine and roses, even though they may pretend to be. Everyone has both good and bad in them. Make-believe people should be the same way.

Take vampires for example.

In the old legends vampires ate babies, buried themselves back in their own graves each night, and were not particularly attractive—appearing instead as bloated corpses. There was no hair gel, no fancy silk shirt, and no angst to be found.

The modern vampire has evolved into a beautiful, self-loathing creature that struggles against its unsavory impulses. All it takes to give them the strength to stand against their evil brethren and find their inner heart of gold is the love of a kind human.

Fuck that.

The vampires I write about are not so altruistic. They enjoy drinking blood and amassing power. They revel in the joys of being nearly-invulnerable carnivores atop the world’s food chain. With a few exceptions, they don’t think twice about feeding upon a human and tossing him aside like a chewed-up pizza bone.

That’s not to say their eternal life is without its challenges. My vampires have two things to fear: werewolves and other vampires.

They have hunted werewolves to near extinction, and any vampire will tell you that this is a very good thing. You see, werewolves have the unpleasant tendency to kill vampires on sight, which vampires find very inconvenient. They are stronger than vampires and share their affinity for human blood and flesh, but it’s far more difficult to create a werewolf. For every hundred humans who survive a werewolf attack, one may become a werewolf while the other ninety-nine will likely die from the toxins in their blood.

Vampires’ greatest threat comes from themselves. Along with an insatiable lust for blood, the vampire nature also instills an equal desire for power. In their world, there is no better way to achieve power than in stealing it from one’s peers.

In short, vampires are evil and proud of it.

What happens when these malevolent demons are forced to do something heroic, like protecting a human from other vampires and werewolves? For me, that’s when things get interesting.

Black and white are boring colors. Gray is where it’s at.

Lesser, the second novel of my Villainous urban fantasy series about vampires and werewolves is available now at the following retailers:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Smashwords

If you want to discuss my books, vampires, werewolves, or anything in between, contact me here:

Blog

Twitter

Urban Legend "The Vampire Of Sacramento"

Onision presents this very fun 6-minute movie about a "real" vampire of Sacramento, California - aka "Dracula" to mental health professionals. The serial killer named Richard Trenton Chase (May 23, 1950 – December 26, 1980) not  drank his victims' blood but cannibalized them as well.  Enjoy this too short but very sweet and spooky film. 

Review of Shaun Of The Dead

I really enjoyed watching Shaun of the Dead, a 2004 film. I felt the movie had been overly hyped during its release and never watched it until now. Sad thing about publicity campaigns is my imagination is rather vivid and I began to expect much more from what I'd heard about this film than what I actually saw. 


In spite of SOD's slow start - a couple's bickering over their dating discomfort - as  soon as the zombies began to appear the movie became much more fast paced and very fun to see.

One of my favorite scenes involved a "girlfriend" beating zombies back with her boyfriend's bloody lower stump after he'd been disemboweled and dismembered.


If the video, below, does not play, you may watch the 5-minute version of Shaun of The Dead here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWw9vE39IGc

Review of "Return Of The LIving Dead 3" LMAO

Return Of The Living Dead 3 ... Director: Gerry Lively. Fascinating flick presents self-mutilating and suicidal zombies! Parts of this movie were so compelling I'd rewind just to watch a particular scene over again, thanks mostly to excellent make-up and animation.

This has got to be one of my all-time favorite zombie movies (not kidding). In the beginning, the objective is for military and medical personnel to create bio weapons for the United States with human corpses. Curtis, the main teenage character, is in love with peer Julie. But what can he do when she starts eating brains? (I won't destroy the movie by sharing HOW she became a zombie.) Fortunately, Julie learns that self mutilation helps her not to feel quite so cannibalistic and she shoves every metal thing into her soft tissue except for maybe a fork and knife.

If you enjoy watching movie scenes where legs are shown kicking (while the camera scans away so you don't see ALL the zombie action) then this film is also for you.


Here's Snapshots Of Dialog:

• "It's your fault. Your brought me back. You should have just left me dead." (Julie to Curtis.)


• I just buried myself in this insane job and because of that, I haven't always been there when you needed me. . .We have a lot to talk about."


• "It proves that the living dead are not just animated flesh. It proves that they have an inner life."


• After watching really grotesque zombie behavior in a seemingly sterilized room, we hear "I need to know what the hell happened here." (like duh, dude. Weren't you just watching?) LOL


• Curtis: "So you really think I could do it?" (go to Seattle, play in a band, when Curtis has never had any musical training). Homeless man, aka "You can call me 'River Man": "Sure. Why not? Course. What do I know? You're talking, to a guy, who lives in the sewers!"


• "Next time you see someone who needs help, you just give 'em this Madis Gras coin and help em out. And you tell them to do the same. To help somebody else. Because as long as that coin is circulating, there's always somebody out there doing something good for somebody."


• "Strap that damn thing down before it wakes up again."
  


• "If people knew what they had inside them, and knew how to get it out, they'd be a lot more happy." Homeless "River Man."

Lessons From This Movie:

• Never get too hyper-focused on anything or you might get bit in the ankle by a newly made zombie. 

Embedding of the movie beginning (first part) was disabled ... you can watch it HERE

Review of "The Lost Boys" (1987 Vampire Flick)

Watching "The Lost Boys," a 1987 - Joel Schumacher film, was entertaining to say the least. A few highly intelligent Facebook friends had suggested that I watch it ... and to my light-hearted pleasure, I did!


In the beginning scenes, brothers Michael and Sam travel by car with their recently divorced mom, Lucy, to their new home in California. After that, it was difficult to decide what, exactly, was happening. A whirling vacuum motion kept sucking people into the air, as though strange abductions took place helicopter-style. Actors screamed as they followed car hoods and flying debris into oblivion. Later, however, the movie showed a beach scene where party-goers screamed as that same whirlwind-like disturbance swirled sand around them and then vampires suddenly appeared to sink fangs into their skulls.

What really made this movie worth watching, in my opinion, was all the humorous dialog.

EXAMPLES OF HUMOROUS QUOTES:

"Lucy? You're the only woman I know who didn't improve her situation by getting a divorce." Said Ganja-smoking hippy-grandpa (Lucy's father).

"Anything around here might pass for some aftershave?" ... "How bout some Windex Grandpa? ..."Yeah. That might work!"

Santa Carlo's become a haven for the un-dead. "Kill your brother. You'll feel better."

Very geeky boyfriend brings mom flowers. Her retort? "Boy. Someone around here has bad breath" (family's dog, a Husky suddenly appears)

Don't ever INVITE a vampire in, you silly boy! It renders you POWERLESS!

The movie also features a lot of slapstick humor, such as when a teen couple are presented in what may become a make-out scene, since they're sitting in back of a car at what seems to be a lookout point. She's laughing over a comic book. He's trying to kiss her. She smack's him alongside the head. Then the winds come.

Then, when the film focuses more on the vampires, things get a little creepy. A beautiful young teen is dominated by her loser-boyfriend and it makes the viewer wonder why her mom never taught her to "Say No To Thugs!"

Because this movie was filmed in the 1980's you'll see rotary dial phones, nerdy kids on stingray bicycles and ongoing arguments over which comic-book toting young boy can protect whom. When the geeky boys enter the vampire hotel it's an abandoned warehouse decorated with rotted linen curtains.

After, teen-age Michael, main character, drank from a fascinatingly hand-decorated wine-bottle that a ring-leader "lost boy" passed his way, stoner-like euphoria results and Michael realizes he just consumed vampire blood. Next? He's having serious anti-gravity issues.

OTHER VAMPIRE FACTS:

Instead of sleeping in coffins, these vampires hang from their bat cave upside down (like bats).

When a vampire is staked through the heart, one of two things can happen. Either guts and globs of goo shoot everywhere or the vampire looks like he's being electrocuted with sparks flying everywhere. (There are only male vampires featured in this film.)

One weapon the boys used against vampires involved filling squirtguns with a garlic "tea." With such monster soakers, they seemed successful at fending the vampires off until a couple more resourceful fang-bearers entered the house through the chimney - Santa Claus style.

STARS: Jason Patric, Corey Haim, Kiefer Sutherland, Jami Gertz, Corey Feldman, Dianne Wiest, Edward Herrmann, Alex Winter, Jamison Newlander, and Barnard Hughes