Survival of The Dead Review

Survival of the Dead Review

Reviewed by Nyquill of the Gutter

Ok I know I have been slacking but this is one of those movies that have been sitting in my download cue for like 3 months and I finally put it to work and watched it. Man I wished I would have watched this earlier to save myself from the ups and downs that is George Romero’s newest chapter in his Zombie lore. Survival of the Dead kind of picks up where the Diary was going; if that’s what you want to call it because I felt that movie was going nowhere. There was a scene in Diary of the Dead where the kids in the film crew were robbed by a group of soldiers and these soldiers (or what’s left of them) are the new stars of this latest entity of this still existing franchise. There is also a small island off of Delaware that has 2 old Irish families as its leaders (on some Hatfield and McCoy’s type stuff) that the residents have completely parted ways due to the issue that some want to try to keep the dead there and make them perform duties that would suit them (um slaves George? Seriously?). Then the rest of the island natives want to kill off all the dead and keep the virus out of their land. Of course the smartest decision (to kill all the zombies) gets cast aside and they exile the Captain O’Flynn from the island that he called home because they did not agree with his slaughter them first ask questions later tactics. This is a zombie world, and I don’t know about you but I would have been right on the boat with Flynn, I slaughter first that’s why I have over an 80% percent chance of surviving a zombie attack, but that’s for another time. Anyway, the soldiers are doing what they can do to survive and I’ll be honest with you for the first couple parts of this movie I had no problem. I thought it started off with a lot of potential it was way more aggressive in the first 10 minutes than the whole film of Diary, and yes the zombies were moving slow just like they were supposed too. One of the beautiful aspects of all prior to Land of and even Land of to some extent (though I will never agree with you guys that that is a good film) is that Romero always gave you enough of the characters in the film that you related to them. They became your neighbor, you police officer, your butcher at the deli, daughter etc. He always did a good job of making the common folk the hero and staying very political on his distrust and views on our government and military forces. In this film, just like diary the characters really don’t matter except for the O’Flynns and Muldoon who bring the movie to their home for the conclusion.

Now I know there were a lot of problems with this film as the soldiers found a way to get to the island through various hicks and a spotty internet reception. They also come upon an abandoned armored car that has over a million dollars in it. After some maneuvering around the last of the dead at a nearby dock, in which one of the soldiers swims to retrieve a ferry and decides to bite off the finger of the contaminated that is reaching for him under water (like we don’t know what happens from here) they make it to the island to find weird things going on. I know you hated the zombie on the horse but if you have been followings Romero’s films religiously (like most of you) then you would understand since Day of the Dead (my personal favorite) Romero has always been showing an evolution of the creatures. Whether it’s shooting guns, coming to the mall, or riding horses Romero has shown us that no matter how carnal and primal we as humans become familiarity is a trip we can’t get rid of in this narcissistic lifestyle we have created for ourselves. So let the dead zombie ride her horse and shut up. The only part of interest in this section of the film is when Muldoon has a theory that they could stop the dead from eating humans and have them eat others things like horses, pigs, you know all the things they ate when they were alive. It seems as if it’s a failed experiment and the clash between Flynn and the soldiers against Muldoon escalates to a magnitude where I swear there were guns fight scenes that had zombies walking right behind the shooters and not attacking? Then it just got out of hand with all the remaining zombies on the island getting set free and of course the over used and abused by Romero himself person on the grown being pulled apart by multiple zombies scene is there and by the conclusion of the film I start to wonder if this movie was supposed to be a comedy that fell flat.

I’m sorry folks but with all the fast zombie movies and virus quarantine type things out there unfortunately I don’t see any need for Romero to be in the genre anymore. He reinvented and put a stamp on it that no one will ever be able to take away from him. Seriously though George I think it’s time to call it a day. I’ll be a fan forever of you and your franchise but it’s time to step out of the zombie movies if you do anything else in horror. I know you can and I’ll be waiting and so will everyone else! Wait for this on Sci Fy 31 days of Halloween, it will be on there I promise!

5/10

Predators Review

Predators Review
Reviewed by Nyquill of the Gutter

So where is Arnold? That’s really the only question I had in regards to this film before it was put to the screen. Is he going to make a CGI cameo like he did on Terminator Salvation? Probably not but I wasn’t too worried about it with the cast of characters slated to be in this film anyway, oh and not only the cast this film is produced by one legendary Mr. Robert Rodriguez.
So lets talk about the cast first shall we, well this is my review so we shall. Adrien Brody is the man no matter if he is in a Dr. Pepper commercial or rocking liberty spikes in Summer of Sam, and me like many others were intrigued to see how he would do in a big action caliber blockbuster such as this film. Wait let me stop right there. Is this film truly a blockbuster? I mean people have known about it for about 2 years now, but you as a consumer don’t feel slighted just a little. I mean Adrien Brody is in the movie for god’s sake and how many trailers, sneak peaks, etc did you see or hear about before the past few months. Die hards like me can give you 1000 websites of clips, leaked info, stills from the set blah, blah we are nerds, and its ok. I’m talking to you though, you know Joe the head banger. The guy that works at Mobil every Saturday that always says the same stuff to the cute girls going out that night, “Hey what’s up going out tonight?”
That’s how I kinda felt going into this movie like hey Adrien what’s up man fighting some Predators tonight? Cool. Let’s get it. The only problem is Adrien didn’t respond like I wanted him to he gave me one liner after one liner, “Lets go this way” or “They know we are here” To be honest the script was nothing but one liners. It seems like they were just making it up as they went and allowed all the characters to follow suit.
Danny Trejo is a legend; I don’t care what anyone says. He is ultimate Latino badass machismo! I can’t wait for Machete to come out so he can finally get his due as lead actor. In this movie though he unfortunately gets short sided and becomes one of the many 1000 badass forgotten characters that he has unfortunately had to portray many times. Sad because I thought with the release of Machete coming up I thought Rodriguez would give him a bigger part to warm the movie audience up to him a bit more. Guess not. Laurence Fishburne was a huge disappointment as well and I’ll tell you why in a bit. Excuse me that 70’s what? Who is in the film Topher Grace? Topher skinny ass Grace? This is the luckiest cat in the world to still have a career after already being so lucky to kiss the lips of Laura Prepon so many times. The whole time I’m watching the film I’m like, really what is he doing here? So let’s talk about it then.
So the movie gets right into it. Brody is falling from what must be an airplane, his chute wont open until the last second and then boom he hits the ground. He is not alone and finds out fast as Trejo, a Russian, and a very beautiful Miss Alice Braga (I Am Legend) all have been given the same experience. So all of them decide to band together to find out how they all got there and even more who put them there in the first place. They run into a convict and a Somalia rebel fighter who points out Grace. They all notice something different about Grace as opposed to all of them, he doesn’t seem to fit the mold. After short lived background checks you find out that they all were doing something and woke up falling into this jungle with no idea how they got there. Sorry folks they never explain it but yes they are on another planet and yes it does not look like they are going home anytime soon. So they find out through various cages and what not they are not alone, as in species. They meet a yakuza who is quiet but understands like Brody that there is something more here then what is being seen, some kinda huge trap they are all in. They find out fast they aren’t the only ones with that in mind as they quickly walk into a deadly trap set up by a man that is already dead so obviously something got to him before he was able to use it.
Who let the dogs out? The Predators that’s who. I think I would have enjoyed this film more if there were more interaction with the actual predators themselves. There were gadgets and animals that the predators were using for their hunt that had never been seen in previous movies, and similar to the AVP portion of the franchise they gave you a glimpse on how these creatures may live but I wanted more. They finally have their first contact with the so called predators after they stumble into a trophy ground filled with ripped out spinal cords and skulls of all shapes and sizes and one very still alive um Predator? This was in my opinion the first good part of the film, why was there a Predator tied up in the film was this another trap. They don’t have time to find out as the cavalry comes in. They barely escape ( not all of them) and are guided away when they encounter what they think is another predator but just ends up being Mr. Morpheus himself aka Furious Styles Laurence Fishburne. He gives them the whole background on where they are and what’s going on. They are on a game planet set up by the predators to hunt various species from around the galaxy. He also says that there are 2 types of predators and the one that is strung up is game just like them because there are bigger predators that kill the smaller ones too. Well Fishburne ends up being a scavenger tries to kill them to take there stuff but he is unsuccessful due to a good plan by Brody. By this time the film is dragging and as you can tell by my review they introduce things that could have made the film better if they would have dove into those aspects but it just falls flat every time. To be honest I really didn’t care too much for the film after I saw how they used Fishburne in the movie I was a little disappointed, he totally played a Jackie Early Haley role in this one. So to finish this mess up because I swear this review is too long because I’m trying to stretch it to make it worth your while, Brody decides to enlist the help of the Predator that was tied up to help fight off the others. Then all hell breaks loose as they flash past every scene to give to a lackluster ending but I will say there was one bad ass part when the yakuza went at it one on one with a predator. No guns just a Katana and seriously folks the scene was bad ass kudos to the Rodriguez and the director Nimrod Antal’s (who gave us the classic Vacancy)crew because that part of the movie was totally a Rodriguez type of style, the rest don’t really think so. The ending just bombs and of course it leads to a possible return for another movie but who cares. I would have rather scene the aliens in this one with the humans to be honest with you. There was so much that could have been done but they failed to do so. It seemed like a very rushed put together film which garners the question why did this need to come out? The AVPs are doing ok at best, so was this necessary. Maybe the studios told Rodriguez that he has to make this before Machete sees the light of day. Oh well in my opinion they could have left this on out of the franchise, and seriously where is Arnold? Wait for this one to hit the shelves.
5/10

Splice Review

Splice Review
Reviewed by Nyquill of the Gutter

Here is the question I want to pose to you before we start this review: Do you consider creature movies as horror movies? There are many reviewers that want to discredit this as being a horror film, and state that it’s kind of an uncategorized film. I would have to disagree with that statement. I will agree that it is not a scary film whatsoever and that there were no high body counts or though there was a little gore in the film and titties (well little itty bitty ones) so I was okay with the direction of the film. Now let’s talk about the film.
So the film starts out with a new organism that has been created by Brody and Polley. This organism was created through the splicing of DNA from many types of animals. They successfully introduce the creature with another of the same that was created days prior. The problem they are having is there seems to be a short life span for these creatures so they want to alter the DNA with a little splicing from humans. Of course this is a no, no, and they are told that anything involving human DNA will not be tolerated and they would lose their grants unless they could prove these organisms were special at a conference they had coming up. Of course Polley has other plans and lure Brody into helping her do the ultimate Splice. After many failed attempts they finally are successful at creating the DNA and they notice that not only does it take but its starts growing into a living cell very fast. Within months the being is growing at a rapid speed and soon the uterus can no longer hold and the creature is read to be born. Polley does the dumbest thing in the movie by sticking her hand in to try and see what’s going on with organism and is immediately bitten. Brody rescues her by cutting open the bag and releasing the creature, which looks like a giant sperm monster! They capture the creature and lock it up for observation.
Brody feeling unsure if this is morally right decides they need to get rid of the creature. Polley sways him other wise when she shows through some tests that its growing rapidly and they have to keep it alive because it will die pretty soon because its aging days in hours. The weird thing is, is that the creature they think dies but finds out that it hatches the real creature after a few days. It looks like a cross between a bird and a human similar to an ostrich with a human face. It’s aggressive at first but as it matures it takes more of a human shape on top but the legs still look similar to the blue children on Avavtar. Like I said earlier this movie is not a scare you a minute film this is a movie with a well written script and great acting by all parties that gave you a moral sense of if this is just wrong what they are doing. The older the creature gets the harder it becomes to hide. So they create a room for it in the storage unit no one uses. There is a scene in the film when Brody and Polley are intimate and the creature named whom they name “Dren” watches them having sex. Now lets go here for a second and discuss something important to the film. This sense of this dark neurotic intimacy in the film reminded of the move “The Bride” with Sting and the girl from Flash dance. As said by many people in the industry this movie has a true Frankenstein feel to it but I would say due to the relationships between the cast and Dren it gave me more of a Bride feel.
Funny thing is this movie has creature feature all over it. I even compared certain parts with the interaction of the characters similar to the interaction of the main characters in King Kong. Even more then that without the singing there was a hint of Little Shop of Horrors feel to it as well. There is a crucial part in the film that I want to discuss but will hold off because I want you to see this film, and I know you may hate it, think it’s boring or to slow. I say the opposite. I was into the whole film; it just made sense to me. The ending of the film gives you more of the true horror film feel as the creature turns on them (you have to watch it to see how) and the characters are put at risk. The ending scene was pretty predictable but at the same time was brilliant in my opinion. Like I told my friend as we were exiting the theatre that I live for movies like this keeping true to all the classics and then making it there own. If anything it’s not a remake of another movie though it does give you the glimpses of many movies from yesteryear. I applaud Dark Castle for releasing this “Outer Limits” type movie that was well written and well played. It’s a bold movie to release and I can see younger audiences and true “I only watch horror movies” fans as disowning this and hating it for many reasons. I would say this though , if you are a fan of good moves no matter what the genre then this is a must see. Watch it with an open mind and you will see the beauty that this future cult classic has wrapped all inside of it, go see it!
8/10