Don't Wake the Dead (2008)

Because I have nothing intelligent to write about Andreas Schnaas Don't Wake the Dead I'll just share my comments on Facebook, who I wrote while watching the movie. Please don't hurt me, Mr Schnaas!

Ok, let's talk about Don't Wake The Dead...

First of, Schnaas has a career in movies. I don't. So that gives me full right to hate his movies.

Is this a porn movie or a daytime soap?

A movie always becomes better if you use the camera microphone to record the sound - NOT!

Of lord! And people complain about the digital effects in The Asylum's movies.

Nice location. Can't whine about that! But I would like to!

Aha, the hired a dwarf with an oversized hat. Or maybe he's just a short German guy?

They couldn't even put energy on a decent painting of Hitler. Oh, it's not Hitler. Just a random Nazi.

For being a famous gore-director he's totally incompetent in filming effective gore-scenes!

Oh no. The band. And the act like a bunch of catholic priests at a summer camp for girls: not at all.

A woman is talking loud to herself while stumbling around outside the castle.

Is she being raped by the zombie monks? No, just by the dialogue.

‎"Hello! I'm 38 and pretend to be 19!"

Yeah, to speed up footage to make something look faster is always a brilliant idea.

But seriously, I would give a lot to be able to have a career like Schnaas. The difference is that I would make better movies.

The composer obviously just fed his cat with Chili and locked it in the closet together with his synthesizer.

"This is totally ridiculous!" - both a line from the movie and my opinion about it.

Why do people taking all the time, telling us EVERYTHING they do?!????

An actress tries to act shocked. That or she's having a minor attack of epilepsy.

I guess the zombies can't get in the house because they didn't have permission splash blood inside?

There's no furniture in this castle.

I hope someone mercy-killed the cast and crew afterwards.

A headless body suddenly has a head, and the only thing the camera man had to do was to turn the camera one inch.

It would be more powerful if the woman playing a leather-zombie could stop smiling.

On the positive side, I'm not bored! Which according to my rules means this is a good movie. But rules needs to be broken from time to time.

WTF! A fucking concert!

I guess the members must be from one of those classes for "special kids". They act like that anyway.

Andreas Schnaas gives eurocult a bad name.

The singer of the band sounds like a twelve year old boyscout who needs to take a dump.

Modern Talking is better than this band and Dieter Bohlen and Thomas Anders even look like real zombies, but with more surgery.

Accidentally killed by a broken wine bottle... She fell on it. Just like that.

Another thing I like: the zombies as dry powder blood and the humans as wet blood.

One nice kill now, with realistic prosthetics. First time in this movie.

I'm starting to get bored now. To much talking.

Most of the gore is quite fun, but badly filmed.

God, I HATE this concert scene!!!!!!

It's over!!!! I can tell ya one thing, if Schnaas called me now and said how much he hated me but at the same time told me to come down to Germany and do small role in his next movie to see how fun it is, I would do it without hesitation!

That's it folks!

Zombie Apocalypse (2011)

Between 2-9 of November American Film Market had it's annual convention where a lot of movie deals are done. I would love to go there someday, just for window shopping and getting free candy and pens from the booths belonging to every hopeful distributor on the planet. Anyway, I heard somewhere - and I don't know if it's true or not - that around 250 zombie movies was for sale this year! Seems like the market is a bit over-saturated with the living dead. I'm not saying it's 250 BAD zombie movies, but I'm sure the majority of these are utter trash. Therefore I decided to check out what TV had to offer, and I felt SyFy's Zombie Apocalypse was the way to go. Produced by controversial company The Asylum, a gang of people who proudly make professional low budget versions of big budget blockbusters. Zombie Apocalypse was probably, somewhere along the road, inspired by the success of The Walking Dead, but that's about it. This is it's own universe, and believe me or not, but it works quite good.

A couple of months after the zombie epidemic wiped out 90 percent of the earths population, and the governments - trying to stop the spreading of the virus - bombed us all to hell with electromagnetic pulse bombs, we're completely fucked. We join a couple of old friends, wandering aimlessly outside on the countryside. After one of them bites the dust by the hands of zombies, another gang of more professional zombie-hunters saves them and together they continue a city where a boat will meet them and take the to the Catalina Island. But the road there is dangerous and the zombies are slowly getting smarter and more vicious. There's several kind of zombies to look out for, both running and walking - and then we have the animals... Will they make it?! I won't tell you of course, but come on, this is a SyFy movie!

I've seen more than a few zombie flicks during the last years, or related - like mutated people, people with an aggressive illness etc. I guess this one falls in-between, because the zombies (which they are called) both shows signs of being dead and having a virus of some kind. I guess they die fast and then become living deadheads! Some have been stinkers, some have been good and some a little bit of both. UK-African co-production The Dead was a disappointment and I can't recommend it at all, Serbian Apocalypse of the Dead was trashy fun, the Mattei-flicks was cheap and great, I dig the Resident Evil-franchise... and even if some people says the opposite, I would say that Nick Lyon's Zombie Apocalypse belongs with the good one's. But this is still a TV-movie, made on a fairly low budget and extremely generic. If you can handle those facts, you're in for a treat.

The script is pretty straight forward, which could have been a failure - because no one likes a boring zombie movie. But the story is built up with a good amount of tension and likable characters. You have zombie attacks every ten minute or so, but they never get repetitive. There's a point with every attack, from killing of a character to introduce the characters to a new adventure. It helps that the zombie make-up is good (I was a bit worried when I saw the behind the scenes-stills at The Asylum's homepage, but you can't compared unprocessed stills with the finished product) and the dialogue is down to a minimum. Because I HATE when people talk just for the sake of talking, and in low budget movies that means that the script isn't good enough. Here they talk when they need to, and usually say good stuff. Most importantly they made the world, or the US, look deserted and post-apocalyptic, which is very impressive considering the budget, and adds to the atmosphere.

Gore? Well, this is a movie made for the SyFy Channel, but it could be the bloodiest SyFy production I've seen. True to The Asylum's traditions the gore is digital, but it's used in such a frenzy that it works fine. A lot of heads is being chopped off, body parts and blood spurting and a high body count - and an even higher zombie count. I'm not sure if the SyFy version was edited for violence, it usually happens on that channel, but if so I hope there will be an even bloodier version on BD as soon as possible!

The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire (1971)

Riccardo Freda, the man who started it all, always had a hard time with the newer fans of eurocult. Maybe the productions he made later in his career wasn't as polished as the work of Dario Argento and Mario Bava and the script's was a bit sloppier. But isn't that part of the grindhouse-tradition that we love so much? Should a movie be perfect to be considered as a good movie? I consider both Tragic Ceremony and Murder Obsession flawed but very interesting pieces of eurocult and well worth re-evaluating for those who once upon a time decided they where inferior works of a very talented man. I been wanting to see The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire for a long time now, and after picking it up at Weekend of Horrors in Bottrop I finally got the chance to see it.

I really don't want to go into the story, which is a complex mess of a lot of characters and red herrings, and even in the end I wasn't totally sure WHY the killer attacked all those people, but it works good as a fairly bloody and nicely acted giallo. Much of it evolves around an ambassador and his family, all of them are suspects in the case of the mysterious killer slicing the throats of beautiful young women. But the main story, and the best, is that of ex-cop John Norton (the great Luigi Pistilli), who can't stay away from the police-business. Both because he's a highly original character but also because his former colleagues understands that he's too good to be ignored. He lives together with his slightly confused, and crime-interested mother, and his teenager daughter. These scenes are great, filled with a fine chemistry and somehow it feels like Freda invested a lot more in this storyline than all the others trying to find their place in the script. It's understandable, because it's best written part of the movie.

Iguana gets a bit to talky and convoluted for its own best, but it's a pleasure seeing all the great actors and colourful characters trying to take over every scene. From Pistilli, of course, to genre stalwarts like Werner Pochath, Dagmar Lassander, Renato Romano and Anton Diffring doing excellent work. Also watch out for a cameo from legendary laundry facility The Swastika Laundry, with a nice juicy swastika as the logotype. It was located in Dublin from 1912 to 1987, and it's name and symbol of course referenced the ancient culture of India and nothing else. But it's a fun detail.

Freda is handling the direction very well, and he uses the Dublin and Irish locations very well. The look of the movie is a lot more interesting than many of those based in Rome. Sure, everything in the production is rough around the edges, but for me that just adds to the charm and grittiness of the story. Because, even if it's giallo with beautiful ladies and a complex plot, it's also a surprisingly violent and cynical story. The gore, while not in any huge amounts, are very bloody and sadistic - mostly graphic throat-slits and the killer throwing acid in the faces of his/hers victims. The attack on one characters family is also very cruel and violent. Plenty of nudity for those who likes that, and more red herrings than you can count.

The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire is not perfect, but still an entertaining and violent giallo set in a great location and with a solid cast. I liked it, which of course doesn't mean anything if you look at the history of my taste in movies.

Roaring Fire (1982)

Last day at Weekend of Horrors in Germany. Tired, broke and just wishing I could be back home in my own bed and with a less aggressive native language around me. On the second floor, just inside the "No one under 18 years"-section, I looked down and saw... a cheap Josefine Mutzenbacher-box and thought of Jocke directly. But that's not the point with this story, the point is that not far away, maybe a meter away, I saw a small "hartbox" with the title Diamentenauge, starring Hiroyuki Sanada and Sonny Chiba. I froze. "I need this!". Sonny is one of the coolest actors ever and Hiroyuki is quite a hottie. That's how I came to own ROARING FIRE!

This might be a bit confusing: as a baby Joji (Sanada) was kidnapped, without reason, by a man and moved with him to Texas. There he grew up to be a phenomenal cowboy and a friend of the nice native Americans. On his deathbed, the man he thought was his father, tells him that he has a twin brother in Japan! BUT what none of them knows is that his twin brother, Toru, became a Hong Kong gangster and just days before got shot to death, in a very bloody way!!! Joji goes back to Japan and goes directly to his family's house where he finds a small army of half-naked women swimming in the pool. Some of them topless! But here's the deal: his uncle is really evil, he's a Nazi and has an American boxer in his basement to torture people! He also has an army of evil Chinese henchmen (something I never seen: Japanese actors with make-up to look Chinese!) and I think all of them are out to kill Joji (and his blind sister, which I forgot to mention) and also find the legendary diamond that's hidden somewhere...argh, something like this. Anyway, this is one FANTASTIC flick! Really!

Oh yeah, Sonny Chiba shows up in an extended cameo as Mr Magic, an undercover cop who works as a magician at a cabaret in the evenings. Wattya say about that?

Roaring Fire is pure insanity. I had no idea what to expect from the movie when I bought it, but it exceeded every expectation I had. From the colours and wacky music, to the bloody squibs, the presence of veteran wrester Abdullah the Butcher (playing a character named Spartacus!) and the non-stop action. Ok, there's a few scenes with comedy and talk, but then Hiroyuki kicks a lot of ass - and it's even better when Sonny show what he's made off! Someone on the net compared the final reel to a video game, and that's not far from the truth. Wave after wave of bad guys for our heroes to fight!

The light mood of the movie reminded me of the Lucky Stars-movies, but it's much more violent and has more deaths and some nudity. The stunts are really well done, especially one scene when Hiroyuki is fighting baddies on top of a double-decker.

Roaring Fire almost gets surreal in places, with absurd comedy and a bizarre scene when ten samurai killers on bicycles chase Joji and his friends all over Kyoto (I think it is), including a spectacular stunt sequence when everyone is squeezing themselves up between two tall buildings standing very close to each other. Hard to explain, so see this movie please.

The Germany DVD looks absolutely stunning. It has English subtitles and a crystal clear Japanese audio track.

I'm hyping it now, but Roaring Fire is an extremely entertaining movie, and from now one one of my top ten movies from Japan!

Inbred (2011)

After many hours at Weekend of Horrors in Bottrop we sat down outside, Jocke lit a cigarette and the only thing on our minds was to lay down in our soft hotel beds and sleep the eternal sleep. Thanks heavens Jason woke us up and with the last powers we had we decided to watch Inbred, a new horror movie from Alex Chandon. Alex, armed with a fresh version - only four days old - introduced us to a truly demented piece of horror cinema, and I can say that no one of us in the screening room regretted watching this superb movie!

It began like so many other movies (almost, I refuse to spoil everything): a bunch of people in a minivan going out on the countryside for a weekend of learning to cooperate and maybe even be friends for life. Lead by two social workers, having responsibility over four troubled youths. They arrive to a small village, where they rented a house, and starts to clean up the place. But something is of course terrible wrong with this charming place, and it starts with the colorful clientele at The Dirty Hole, the local pub...

Oh boy. Inbred is clearly one of the best, funniest and goriest black comedies I've seen it a very long time. No, I won't compare it with Shaun of the Dead or Tucker & Dale, because Inbred are in it's own brilliant league. It's darker, gorier and has a Monty Python-esque Grand Guignol atmosphere. I'm of course to young to have experienced real Grand Guignol, but I'm sure Inbred is pretty close to that once was the hottest entertainment in Le Gay Paris.

Every good movie lives its life because of good characters, and Inbred has a phenomenal cast. I'm writing this now without the luxury of Internet, but just google the movie and check out the cast! Our heroes has truly depth, with enough personality to make us care when they finally bites the dust. Even the antagonists are written with love and they are so superior to similar "inbred rednecks" that it would be any problem to write another story only focusing on them.

The gore is just stunning! It's, according to Alex, 99,9 % practical effects with a final digital touch. We're treated to a couple of ultra-gory scenes of extreme carnage, lots of violence against heads, stabbings, body-slicing! Inbred has every kind of kill you can imagine, and it never takes away the focus from the story! I'm surprised how such - at the first glance - generic story can offer something more, but Inbred actually manages to do this.

Currently looking for distribution, but Inbred is a must in your DVD or Blu-ray collection when it's out. Personally I can't fucking wait!

Off to Weekend of Horrors in ze Germany!

I haven't written so much lately, mostly because I've a new job for the moment and it's a lot of stuff to take care of regarding Attackafant Entertaiment and Oddbooks. Today I will leave Sweden and go to Weekend of Horrors, together with this bloke and this dude. Gonna be fun! We're staying there all three days, so if you see me/us, say hello!

If I'm not too lazy I will bring a few copies of The Killer Elephants on DVD, if someone wants to buy directly from me - or if I find someone at the conventions who want to sell it for me.

Watch for photos and nerd-stuff after the weekend!

Night of the Demon (1980)

Together with Ryan Schifrin's Abominable, Night of the Demon could be the best Bigfoot movie (or Sasquatch Schamsquatch) ever made. No kidding, it's a promise. I'm not sure you would agree with him, but remember that a Bigfoot movie must be entertaining and not even close to pretending to be some crappy, overrated wannabe-nature show with someone filming firs for ninety minutes. Night of the Demon is good old exploitation, close to be a slasher - but with a grotesque monkey-man instead of masked serial killer.

The story is as simple as my mother's taste in men (she likes them bald with a beard): a team of students go out in the forest to examine a Bigfoot-sighting, and during the way they are telling stories about the attacks - who show in graphic details - and then finally meets a satanic sect and the monster itself in the end. It's very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very simple writing, but believe it or not, it's competent made and with some interesting visual solutions.

First of the all, the title sequence is awesome in it's simplicity: if I ever make a creature feature myself I WILL steal the blood-runs-into-bigfoots-footstep, which both is a stroke of genius and a great mood-setter for the rest of the movie. Night of the Demon is a gritty, cheap and cheap (did I mention cheap?) movie, made just to show the gore, blood and shocks. It has tits, gore and blood - and a monster. What more to expect from a good movie?

Even if the story is very episodic it's also effective, and the constant flashbacks makes the movie fly by like a Catholic priest on his way to a Justin Bieber concert. Sure, some of the actors can't act themselves out of a wet paperbag - like the sheriff in the beginning and end of the movie - he looks like a scared rabbit in front of the camera, and some of the female talents probably never even thought the same morning that they would appear the in a movie. My favourite being the lady in the van who seem to go through all the screams in her meager acting-register.

The effects are very cheap and very bloody, so just don't expect any fancy schmancy Tom Savini-style effects. This is down and dirty, bottom-of-the-barrel effects which works very good and fits the movie perfectly. I love how the filmmakers focus on the effects and lets the camera linger on the prosthetics or pumping blood long as possible.

The DVD from Code Red is probably the best the movie ever looked, and I'm quite sure it will from no one be the best version ever released. Not perfect by any means, but people who actually complain about a movie like this not looking perfect has a special room in hell next to people whining about 3D movies and still paying to see them every time and those who actually claims "the only movies being made today are remakes".