Dead Snow (2009)

Apparently, in Norway, vacationing medical students are as puerile as American high school students, or so we are led to believe by the first half of Dead Snow, a recent Norwegian horror flick. In the film, a group of young people trek to a remote cabin in the frozen mountains. What they don't know: the region is the home of a large group of zombified Nazi soldiers from the '40s. Written by Tommy Wirkola and Stig Frode Henriksen, and directed by Wirkola, the film is adequate zombie fare but seems internally inconsistent at the same time.

The first half of the film does not inspire much confidence in its quality. The young protagonists gab away like American teenagers, generally being obnoxious and certainly not acting like presumably more mature medical students. They engage in that staple of the postmodern horror movie: referencing popular culture and films with similar situations, mostly American horror films from the 1980s (including the mostly forgotten April Fool's Day). One character does, however, have the sense to wear a t-shirt emblazoned with the logo of a long ago Peter Jackson film. Watching the first half of the movie, though, it seemed indistinguishable from late 1980s horror film rubbish. How else to characterize the scene in which Chris (the generically hot Jenny Skavlan) and the rather goofy Erlend (Jeppe Laursen) have sex in an outhouse?

But then something happens.

As the film progresses, and the film abandons the carefree exploits of the medical students and evidence begins to suggest that strange things are afoot on this mountain, the tone of the film changes. It becomes much more interesting, and characters are forced to make desperate choices and live with their consequences. Suddenly, the film becomes more than just a recycled American teen slasher movie. One medical student, Martin (Vegar Hoel), initially suffering from an inexplicable fear of blood, must quickly overcome that phobia when bitten by a zombie. Another character, Hanna (Charlotte Frogner), chooses to force a deadly avalanche on the snowy mountainside rather than let a zombie take her. However, the boldness of the characters in the second half of the film doesn't match with the juvenile actions of the same characters at the film's beginning. Aside from the sudden appearance of a monstrous horde of zombies, there is no more meaningful explanation for the dramatic transition in character and in tone. Would that the characters had started out a bit more developed and seasoned in the first half of the film, the second half would feel a bit more earned.

Mythology wise, there's not much to the film. It's never really explained how the Nazi soldiers from the 1940s actually became zombies (or why, after six decades, their uniforms remain so well preserved). There's clearly some connection to a boxful of trinkets in the cabin, though it's unclear why the zombies are attempting to retrieve it. Whether that holds some key to their zombification, or whether it may allow them to again become human, is never quite explained.

But, if you're curious, be patient, and wait until the second half of the film before giving up on it.

Five Questions After Watching Zombieland

This past weekend, I watched Zombieland. Written by Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese and directed by Ruben Fleischer, the film stars Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin, all as survivors of a plague that has turned the world into a horde of zombies. It's a fun flick, though at times, it seemed it didn't know what it wanted to be. Rom zom com, a la Shawn of the Dead? Modern zombie action flick, a la the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead? Or the hipster flick, Adventureland (also featuring Eisenberg), but with zombies? I enjoyed the film, as I do most zombie movies, but it prompted the following five questions which deserve answers.

1. Jesse Eisenberg finds himself in the Michael Cera role in his films: the geeky, socially awkward young man who fumbles about with women. Do you think that Eisenberg, when he realized that he was up for a part in zombie flick, thought to himself, "Gee whiz, finally a film in which I won't play a geeky adolescent?" Guess again: Eisenberg plays Columbus, whose social awkwardness is prominent in the film and in fact serves as a key plot component. (To boot, his introverted nature prompts his personalized set of survival rules in the zombie-infested world.). He develops a crush on Wichita, played by Stone, with whom Eisenberg has zero chemistry.

2. Prior to the zombie apocalypse, Columbus attends college in Austin, Texas, where he spends most of his time hidden away from the world in his apartment on his computer. He first learns of the zombie menace from "406," his generically hot blonde neighbor (Amber Heard), who he inexplicably refers to by her apartment number. Apparently, Columbus and 406 have developed a platonic friendship in which he consoles her after she experiences some type of emotional hardship. He fancies her, but she uses him solely as a prop. In a flashback, we see the two of them on his couch, he pining away for her, she relating a story about an unusual homeless man who bit her. They fall asleep on the couch, but when he awakes, she is a full fledged zombie, who proceeds to chase him around his very, very large apartment. Knowing a bit about the sizes of apartments in Austin, Texas, I can say that no college student could effectively elude a zombie for as long as Columbus did in an average sized apartment. The problem: His apartment is far, far too large for any college student, much less one in the Texas capital city. What gives?

3. Further, how does a film in which the protagonist is a college student in Austin not take place in Austin, or even have a single scene set in that city? The film opens in Garland, Texas, which the narrator sees fit to dismiss as post-apocalyptic in nature even before the zombie apocalypse.

4. Much ado is made of the characters' attempt to make it to Pacific Playland, an amusement park in Los Angeles. When they arrive in the City of Angels, though, there are very, very few zombies. They see a handful on the streets of downtown L.A., which seems puzzling, due to the city's size and population. Later, when Wichita and her young sister, Little Rock (Little Miss Sunshine's Abigail Breslin) arrive at the park and activate the carnival lights (which serve to attract the walking dead to that location), less than a 100 zombies appear. Los Angeles is the second most populous city in the United States. Where are all the zombies?

5. Skilled zombie killer Tallahassee (Harrelson) craves but one thing in the film: a Twinkie. He spends much time looking in abandoned grocery stores for this snack cake, suddenly elusive in the new zombie world. Can you imagine the product placement meeting between the producers and Hostess? "Uh, yeah, our psycho zombie killer character, played by Woody Harrelson, really wants a Twinkie to help him cope with all this killing of the undead. Can we use your logo and reference your products?" Um, okay.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

What to think about the remake of 1984's A Nightmare on Elm Street, released today in theatres? On the one hand, the original film, and the franchise it spawned, remain quintessential 1980s popular culture, forever entrenched in the minds of those who knew them then. If you were a child of the 1980s, but too young to sneak into an R-rated movie at the theatres, it was the perfect video rental (particularly, or perhaps only, if you were crashing at the home of a friend with cool parents). On the other hand, the films are, by today's standards, dated, and as the original franchise evolved, it aimed more at campy gross-out humor than fright, suggesting that a new direction and tone may be welcome. Certainly, cinema-goers have become more sophisticated in the past two and a half decades, and what might have frightened an audience in the halcyon days of the 1980s might no longer scare their modern day counterparts in 2010. (An interesting aside: Does that issue, in and of itself, forgive the producers of a horror movie remake?) Whatever the case, the original film does not seem immune from a remake.

The original film was written and directed by Wes Craven, and starred Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger, Heather Langenkamp as Nancy Thompson, and a young Johnny Depp, as Glen Lantz, Nancy's boyfriend. The remake stars Jackie Earle Haley as Krueger and Rooney Mara as Nancy. (Mara was born after the release of the original 1984 film). Haley is actually an interesting choice, and one that makes me suspect that the remake might not be all bad. Haley was wonderfully creepy in 2006's Little Children, and he, as Rorschach, was one of the few good things about last year's adaptation of Watchmen. Maybe it's Netflix queue-worthy.

As an aside, the original franchise did attempt a change in tone with 1994's Wes Craven's New Nightmare, a film with an interesting twist: It takes place in the real world and follows the exploits of the cast of the original film, including Englund (who plays both himself and Freddy Krueger), Langenkamp (as herself), John Saxon (who plays himself, the actor who was Nancy's police officer father), and even Craven himself. How postmodern is that?

As for the remake, released today, we reserve judgment.

Birdemic: Shock and Terror (Austin Premiere, 2010)

Rumor has it that Ryan, author of the now defunct pop culture blog The League of Melbotis, has scored four tickets to see the Austin premiere of Birdemic: Shock and Terror, the brainchild of the auteur James Nguyen. This is a cause for great envy. Alas, though, as he is no longer a blogger, we will have no way of knowing how truly wonderful this event was. Perhaps he'll dash off a quick summary of the film for publication at this site. We'll see. (See here for a bit more info on the Austin premiere of this bad movie gem, which will include an appearance by Nguyen himself.).

Bruce Campbell and Bubba Ho-Tep (2002)

On Monday, October 8, 2002, actor Bruce Campbell exhibited his then-new film, Bubba Ho-Tep, at the River Oaks Theatre in Houston, Texas. Prior to the film, he spoke and conducted a brief question and answer session for the crowd. This is a summary of that event.

In the film, a bizarre horror flick, Campbell plays an elderly Elvis Presley who must fight an ancient Egyptian mummy to save his nursing home. Campbell talked a bit about the film and remarked that the Houston screening might very well be just the second or third time the film had been seen by theatre audiences. He would later say that it was a true independent film, as no Fortune 500 company had bankrolled it, nor was a major distributor handling it. Disdainfully, he remarked that it wasn't the type of film in which you would see Tom Cruise holding a Taco Bell product. He envisioned Paramount Pictures executives kicking around the idea of making a film about an elderly Elvis with prostate cancer battling Egyptian mummies with Ossie Davis as a character who thinks he's JFK. Campbell recalled that Davis' voice was so formal and proper that it was infinitely amusing for him to hear Davis remark upon Egyptian creatures who can only suck the soul from a human being through a particular orifice. Indeed.

Campbell then read from the then new paperback edition of his book, If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor. In so doing, he read an excerpt about a bizarre experience on a New York radio station appearance. Apparently, he had been booked his appearance on the show without knowing that the other guest would be a porn star/performance artist. Madness apparently ensued as the young woman ("Montana Gunn") disrobed before him; the aftermath of the experience is detailed fully in the book.

Campbell then took questions from the audience, and tattooed arms immediately began to rise in the theatre. The usual questions were asked - "Will he be in Spider-Man 2?" [Answer: Perhaps. Campbell noted that director Sam Raimi had already proclaimed that Campbell would return for the sequel. Campbell joked that he suspects he'll simply have a minor role in which he will get run over by a bus, although when the film was released in 2004, Campbell played an usher who denied Peter Parker admittance to Mary Jane Watson's play.] "What about Evil Dead IV? Now that Raimi is a darling of Hollywood?" This was the question of the hour, but Campbell appeared baffled for a moment and then did not provide anything helpful in his answer. (Seven years later, still no Evil Dead IV, but that is probably for the best for many, many reasons.).

Obviously caring more about sounding clever than asking a substantive question, one fan asked which director could best handle the "Montana Gunn" scene when the inevitable film rights to his book were sold and production of a film version began in earnest. Campbell quipped that only Scorcese could master the tension required of that sequence. Someone then asked what his next project would be, and his reply was a bit of a surprise, at least to me: not another film, but another book. He explained that it would be a light-hearted look at - of all things - relationships. The title, of course, reveals that he won't abandon his particular brand of humor: Make Love! The Bruce Campbell Way (which would be released three yeas later, in May of 2005). In response to one question, Campbell revealed that he does not play with the Evil Dead action figures. ("Though I do play with my boom stick."). He had no meaningful stories to tell about his ill-fated, early 1990s TV series "The Adventurs of Brisco County, Jr." ("We laughed and laughed when it was canceled. Was that what you had in mind?"). When asked about what he enjoys reading and watching, he raved about Roman Polanski's 1976 flick, The Tenant, which he described as a tense thriller which needed no expensive digital effects. He also said that since he works in "fantasy land" all day, he likes to read travel and non-fiction books, rather than immerse himself in even more genre fiction.

When asked about working with Jim Carrey in The Majestic, he said that he never met Carrey when working on that film. Apparently, Campbell's scenes had to be filmed first, so that they could be incorporated into scenes to be shot later. (Having not seen that film, even to this day, I didn't really get that.) However, he said that he ultimately did meet Carrey after production wrapped, and the real trick was making his way through the throngs of nervous Carrey handlers. ("He was a very nice man."). Someone asked about his short-lived TV series from 2000, "Jack of All Trades." ("So you're the one that watched it."). An ill-informed fan asked what he thought when he first read the script for Evil Dead. ("Well, I had already read it, as I helped raise the money to make it, so . . . .") What did he think of working on the 1996 film, Menno's Mind? ("Did you just want to pick some obscure movie to ask about?").

Someone asked Campbell if he had ever considered running for public office. He smirked and replied that he did inhale, so that might make matters difficult. (Not these days, not even then, when we had a president who had allegedly used cocaine.). However, he said he might consider it if the political climate changed dramatically enough so as to be forgiving of such an alleged indiscretion. (It certainly has.). He then laughed and remarked that on that day he would return to Houston to run for Mayor with the help of a few friends from Enron. We're still waiting.

The Ring (2002)

Once upon blue moon, back in 2002, I saw the sneak preview of The Ring at the theatres. As neo-horror flicks seeking to capitalize on the success of The Blair Witch Project and The Sixth Sense went, it wasn't bad. Since then, the film has spawned a forgettable sequel, and looking back, the original film is mostly forgettable itself, save for the presence of Naomi Watts, who has done far better (2003's 21 Grams) and far, far worse (2005's wretched remake of King Kong).

Either my expectations were so low that it was easy to meet or exceed them, or the film, at least on the first viewing, was remotely clever. Returning from Mulholland Dr., Watts falls victim to a videotape that - gasp - kills you. Immediately after a character views the short film, she receives a phone call alerting them that she will die seven days later. A somewhat promising premise. The videotape itself is as one character describes it: all too student film with its adequate though uninspiring attempts at surrealism or expressionism or both. The images are bizarre and initially seem unconnected: dead horses in the sea, a strange woman peering into a mirror, a plateful of severed fingers, an eerie ladder, et cetera. Watts spends most of the film attempting to trace the origins of the mysterious videotape -- which killed her teenage cousin and now threatens to do the same to herself, her son, and his estranged father. (Like all other films of this genre, the young son is not only wise and mature beyond his years, but also clairvoyant -- just like the far more convincing Hayley Joel Osment was a decade ago in The Sixth Sense.)

The plot meanders unevenly in parts, but it occasionally startles. We are led across the dreary landscapes of Washington State, a grey and perpetually rainy locale which suits the film. But of course, for any such film to be shocking, the ending must be of the twist variety. Rather than arriving at the film's climax, the "twist" comes after all of the loose ends are addressed, leaving the viewer to wonder if it was an afterthought. But such endings are mandatory these days.

This must have been new territory for director Gore Verbinski, perpetrator of such flicks as Mouse Hunt, The Mexician, and the fun Pirates of the Caribbean and its unnecessary sequels. His stewardship of The Ring is not entirely unoriginal, which may not necessarily be faint praise in an era of interminably predictable suspense "thrillers." He did, of course, have some interesting source material; Verbinski joins the ranks of other Hollywood pseudo-auteurs who mine foreign cinema for ideas: the film was based upon the 1998 Japanese film Ringu.

Peter Jackson's Bad Taste (1987)

Having recently watched again some of the more well known flicks directed by Peter Jackson, I decided to watch his first release, Bad Taste, from 1987. Basically, Bad Taste is a zombie flick, although the "zombies" are actually aliens who, at the risk of great discomfort, transformed themselves into human form. Much is owed to George Romero and his Living Dead trilogy. Viewing Jackson's incredibly low budget film, as well as the making-of documentary which accompanies it on the DVD, really illustrates how far Jackson has come as a director. For Bad Taste, Jackson constructed his own Steadicam at the cost of $15, and he baked the masks of the creatures in his parents' kitchen. Compare that to the $300 million the studios gave him to create the three installments of J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy. The documentary is inspiring to the would-be filmmaker, as Jackson's ingenuity (and his utter skill at stretching a dollar to the maximum degree possible) is showcased to a great degree. If he could do so much in the way of crude special effects with so little money, what could an aspiring director do with equally meager funds for a film which did not require special effects at all? (The documentary also has clips of Jackson's earliest home movies, including some footage from a film called "World War Two," which Jackson made as a pre-teenager. Sorry, I can't bring myself to say "tween.").


My first introduction to Jackson's oeuvre was in college when one of the members of the crew at the student television station screened a double feature of Jackson's films. In so doing, he exhibited the violent gross-out puppet extravaganza, 1989's Meet the Feebles, and the equally disturbing 1991 film, Dead Alive. Soon thereafter, I saw the excellent Heavenly Creatures from 1994 (which was my first introduction to the lovely Kate Winslet), and after that, I trekked to see The Frighteners (which featured the one, the only, team-up between Jackson and Michael J. Fox) after work on the first day of its release in 1996. I think I was the only one present in the theatre for that showing. When I heard that he was going to direct the Tolkien trilogy, I was skeptical -- indeed, I was almost certain that it would fail, as fantasy has never really been a successful genre at the box office. I wondered what would happened to the second two installments if the first chapter tanked. Would they release them? Would the studio funding for post-production dry up? Who knew? But, obviously, failure was not meant to be for the trilogy.

And to think, it all began in 1987, with the release of the, well, bad, "Bad Taste."

See here for the Ultimate Bad Taste Fan Site (and here for the original version of that site).

Resquiat in pacem: Heather O'Rourke (1975 - 1988)

Heather O'Rourke
(December 27, 1975 – February 1, 1988)

Heather O'Rourke, the child actress best known for her role as Carol Anne Freeling in the Poltergeist films, died 22 years ago today. Although I was not overly familiar with that series, I do remember reading about her death in the news back in 1988, chiefly because I was not very much older than her at the time of her passing. Her delivery of a single line from the first Poltergeist film, "They're here," became a staple of popular culture in 1982. Steven Spielberg co-wrote and co-produced the first installment, which spawned two sequels in 1986 and 1988. O'Rourke's death at such a young age, coupled with some other unfortunate and macabre coincidences, gave rise to an urban legend of the Poltergeist curse. Rest in peace.

(A sad aside: Zelda Rubinstein, who played the psychic Tangina Barrons in all three Poltergeist films, died last week at age 76). The trailer for the original Poltergeist film is below:

Stephen King's "The Mist" (1985)

"In the market, my muse suddenly shat on my head - this happened as it always does, suddenly with no warning. I was halfway down the middle aisle, looking for hot-dog buns, when I imagined a big prehistoric bird flapping its way toward the meat counter at the back, knocking over cans of pineapple chunks and bottles of tomato sauce. By the time my son Joe and I were in the checkout line, I was amusing myself with a story about all these people trapped in a supermarket surrounded by prehistoric animals. I thought it was wildly funny -- what The Alamo would have been like if directed by Bert I. Gordon. I wrote half the story that night and the rest the following week," - Stephen King, describing the genesis of his novella, "The Mist," in the "Notes" section of the paperback, Skeleton Crew, p. 568 (Signet Books: New York, 1985). The long in the works film adaptation of King's short story opens in theatres tomorrow.

What is the most frightful in Stephen King's novella "The Mist" is not the advancing horde of unseen monsters hidden by a dense and mysterious fog. Rather, it is the psychological machinations of a group of citizens hiding from them in a local grocery store. More than two decade's ago, in 1985, "The Mist" appeared in Skeleton Crew, a collection of King's short stories. (Originally written in 1976, it had been published in an earlier form in 1980's Dark Forces). The premise: A commercial artist, David Drayton, and his young son , Billy, venture out to the grocery for supplies after a particularly devastating thunderstorm hits their lakeside community. Following the storm, a strange and unusual mist has begun to overtake the city. As the story progresses, Drayton and the others in the market learn that lurking within it are vile prehistoric creatures who feast upon anyone bold or foolish enough to venture outside.

Thus, along with other archetypal members of the community, the two Draytons find themselves trapped the large supermarket, unable to flee, unable to contact relatives, and unable to acquire any information of any kind. To cope with their new found horror, some try to escape, some fill themselves with booze, while others, including Drayton, attempt to formulate some type of long term plan. Slowly, but surely, the local eccentric, Mrs. Carmody, recruits a number of citizens to her camp of religious zealots, all of whom believe that the mist is a punishment for a higher power who must be appeased, ultimately, by a human sacrifice.

Back in the day, reviews were mixed. Of course, from its premise, it seems like pure and utter schlock. But one reviewer praised King for "escalat[ing] our worst anxieties into a hyperbolic fairy tale."¹ Others dismissed his tale of "gooey monsters at the supermart"² as "the stuff B-movie drive-in double- features are made of"³ (although depending upon one's perspective, those descriptions may be compliments after all). The New York Times noted that it "begins as a powerful evocation of a small Maine community dealing with the terrifying aftermath of a storm, but it quickly deteriorates into a hokey sci-fi thriller full of gigantic spiders and insects created presumably by human tampering with nuclear energy."⁴

Barry Boesch, writing for the Dallas Morning News, observed:

As interesting as the horrible monsters outside are the emerging monsters inside as the people try to deal with their panic and stress at being thrust into a seemingly hopeless, life-threatening situation.⁵

Boesch poses the most interesting question in his review. Of whom should the reader be more frightened, the dinosaur-like monsters waiting in the mist, or the human beings whose social order begins to deteriorate inside the supermarket? "The Mist" is at times a fascinating psychological study of its characters. But King has always been a better storyteller than writer of pop literature. His dialogue is oftentimes awkward, his descriptions of scenes and characters clunky, and his resolution to a narrative generally unsatisfying. In mid-novella, it devolves from a stark psychological drama to self-caricature; Mrs. Carmody transforms from an ominous old crone to a hysterical cult leader, who exclaims things like:

It's expiation gonna clear away this fog! Expiation gonna clear off these monsters and abominations! Expiation gonna drop the scales of mist from our eyes and let us see!

...

And what does the Bible say expiation is? What is the only cleanser for sin in the Eye and Mind of God? Blood.

This, of course, is evidence of Boesch's point that the monsters within are as scary as those without, but it doesn't seem to be the type of thing someone trapped in a supermarket would actually say, however crazed the situation. With a handful of loyal comrades, Drayton escapes the clutches of Carmody (who is shot and killed), the confines of the supermarket, and the creatures of the mist. But the story flashes forward several days to a hotel room where Drayton is chronicling the bizarre events of recent history. He and his followers have found temporary solace from the mist and its monsters. King then offers only this as an ending:

That is what happened. Or Nearly all -- there is one final thing I'll get to in a moment. But you mustn't expect some neat conclusion. There is no And they escaped from the mist into the good sunshine of a new day; or When we awoke the National Guard had finally arrived; or even the great old standby: It was all a dream.

(Emphasis in original). What is amusing, and irksome, about this ending is that King acknowledges he had no satisfactory resolution, but he then self-referentially makes note of that fact as if to forestall criticism on that very point. He suggests that his ambiguous non-ending is superior to a more definite closure because tidy endings are, apparently, square. The attempt did not go over well. Writing in 1985, and quoting the next paragraph in the story after the one quoted above, Davin Light of the Orlando Sentinel concluded:

But suddenly, King seems to run out of energy. And then he tells the reader he's run out of energy and dismisses it in much the same way he introduces the book. The ending '' . . . is, I suppose, what my father always frowningly called 'an Alfred Hitchcock ending,' by which he meant a conclusion in ambiguity that allowed the reader or viewer to make up his own mind about how things ended. My father had nothing but contempt for such stories, saying they were 'cheap shots.' '' I'm with his father.⁶

King commits the same sin twenty years later in Cell, his 2005 novel of a zombie apocalypse caused by cellular pulse. There, King ends the story with another non-ending: the protagonist holds a cellular phone to his zombified son's ear in hopes that it will restore his life to normalcy. There is no conclusion, there is no answer, there is no resolution to the story. The narrative ends with the reader not learning what ultimately comes of the son or his father. The reader is left to decide whether they find happiness again or only death in their new world.

One wonders if King had always intended such ambiguous endings in "The Mist" and Cell or if he, as Boesch suggests, merely ran out of energy and surrendered.

It has taken some time for the novella to make it to the silver screen. On May 14, 1996, Bryan Byun, posting in alt.books.stephen-king, related that he was "looking forward to the film version [of 'The Mist'] by Frank Darabont (Shawshank Redemption). If anyone can do true justice to the story, I think he can." The film adaptation of "The Mist" opens nationally tomorrow, eleven and a half years after Byun's post. Written and directed by Darabount (no stranger to King's work as the director of 1994's The Shawshank Redemption and 1999's The Green Mile), the film stars Thomas Jane (The Punisher) as Drayton and Marcia Gay Harden (Miller's Crossing, Pollock) as Carmody. For years and years and years, Darabount had been struggling to turn the short story into a motion picture. He has been linked to the project for so long that his efforts were being discussed at the dawn of the Internet. Byun, and others like him, were expecting him to helm an adaptation not too long after his success with The Shawshank Redemption. On October 10, 1994, Eric Parish, posting on the rec.arts.tv.mst3k and alt.tv.mst3k Usenet newsgroups, noted that "[t]here will be a movie of 'The Mist' coming from Castle Rock someday, directed by Frank Darabont, who did 'Shawshank' . . ." On June 28, 1996, Bev Vincent wrote on alt.books.stephen-king that "Darabont is supposed to be working on "The Mist", but I have not heard that it is anywhere beyond the pre-production." But delays and distractions kept the film in development hell for more than a decade.

But will it be worth the wait? Darabont will no doubt set the film in the present and bestow upon his characters all of the accessories of modern life (cell phones, Blackberries, irony), none of which will be able to penetrate the mist. The question is whether Darabont will run out of narrative gas as King did in the original novella, although these days, such a maneuver would lay the groundwork for a sequel, if the film rakes in a sufficient amount of box office dollars. Having worked so closely with King over the years, though, Darabont may be unlikely to significantly alter anything his patron author set to the page two decades before.

1 Bolotin, Susan. "Don't Turn Your Back on This Book," New York Times, June 9, 1985.
2 "Skeleton Crew - Book Reviews," Playboy, July 1985.
3. Graff, Gary. "King Gives His Imagination Room to Roam," Lexington Herald-Leader (KY), June 30, 1985.
4 Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher. "Books of the Times," New York Times, July 11, 1985.
5. Boesch, Barry. "Wide-Ranging 'Skeleton Crew' Looks at Internal, External Monsters," The Dallas Morning News, August 4, 1985.
6. Light, Davin. "Too many Bones, Not Enough Meat," Orlando Sentinel, July 14, 1985 (quoting the final pages of King's novella).

28 Days Later (2003)

Permit a heresy: George Romero, director and grandfather of the zombie horror film, never fulfilled the promise of 1968's Night of the Living Dead. With that film, he created frightful genre capable of both startling chills and social commentary. But its sequels simply could not capitalize upon everything that made the original so innovative and captivating.

1978's Dawn of the Dead offered some keen social observations on consumerism with the undead reflexively wandering through malls as if instinct demanded it. But at 139 minutes, the film moved at a pace as slow as the zombies it depicted. With 1985's Day of the Dead and 2005's Land of the Dead, Romero illustrated his apparent belief that the genre's evolution could only be brought about only through the zombie's discovery of his or her own individuality. But the manner in which Romero explored such Cartesian zombie thought processes was as cinematic as a dry academic thesis. In horror films, zombies eat their victims' brains; they realize the potential of their own brains.

But the younger directors now trafficking in zombie pictures realized that to make that genre frightening again they must replace the plodding uncertainty of Romero's zombies with a new rage and speed. The notion that slow zombies have lost their scare value is hardly new. Ten years ago, on March 19, 1997, Dennis McLaughlin reviewed the Doctor Who serial, "Dragonfire" on the rec.arts.drwho Usenet newsgroup and asked: "Why do zombies have to move so slowly? Fast zombies are much more likely to capture their prey, aren't they?"

Good questions.

Pioneering that new "fast zombie" direction was British director Danny Boyle with 2003's 28 Days Later (which, technically, is not a zombie picture as it depicts victims of a rage virus).

Jim (Cillian Murphy) runs from a fast zombie set afire, in 28 Days Later.

28 Days Later chronicles the effects of a bio-genetically engineered disease, or rage virus, which has ravaged London and turned those it infects into gruesome zombies. As the film begins, Jim (Cillian Murphy, just a few years shy of his role as Scarecrow in 2005's Batman Begins), awakens from a coma four weeks after the disease begins to spread. Finding no one in the hospital, or anywhere else for that matter, he discovers that he may well be alone in London, now an empty metropolis. He, like Tom Cruise in the Times Square sequence of Vanilla Sky, strolls through the vacant city streets and past familiar landmarks. Following the conventions of the genre, Jim stumbles upon other survivors who have banded together in the aftermath of the zombie infestation, including characters played by Naomie Harris, Noah Huntley, Brendan Gleeson, and the young Megan Burns. They attempt to make their way from London to the countryside, where they encounter a number of seemingly friendly military servicemen (led by future star of Doctor Who, Christopher Eccleston). But like most soldiers in such films, they prove to be as much of a threat, if not more, than the undead. By film's end, the group of survivors has dwindled, and there is no clear salvation for humanity.

Jim (Murphy) walks the empty streets of London in 28 Days Later.

As a director, Boyle was once applauded for Trainspotting and Shallow Grave and later forgiven for the trespasses that were The Beach and A Life Less Ordinary. With this low budget horror flick, he took a risk by shooting on digital video, of all things, and casting mostly unknown actors as the leads. However, the digital video effectively dramatically conveys a sense of isolation, immediacy, and gritty realism. He eschews well choreographed action sequences and computer generated special effects and opts for a jerky verite camera style. In his review, New York Times film critic A.O. Scott observed that the film has some roots in the Danish Dogme95 movement, a nod to cinematic minimalism and truth. Scott wrote:

[T]he most haunting moments in "28 Days Later" . . . have little to do with social allegory, graphic horror or cinematic shock tactics. The movie, shot in digital video by Anthony Dod Mantle (who has worked with Dogma 95 disciples like Harmony Korine, Thomas Vinterberg and Lars von Trier), sometimes has an ethereal, almost painterly beauty. The London skyline takes on the faded, melancholy quality of a Turner watercolor; a field of flowers looks as if it were daubed and scraped directly onto the screen. Thanks to Mr. Mantle's images and Mr. Boyle's unexpected restraint, the middle section of the picture, though punctuated by mayhem and grimness, has a pastoral mood, and the actors, unwinding from the stress and panic of London, are allowed to be warm, loose and funny.

Today's viewers are are so accustomed to formula that any device that still shocks or startles is welcome. For Boyle and his cinematographer, less is more, which in 2003 was a re-emerging trend in horror and suspense thrillers. Hollywood had rediscovered that what the viewer does not see is far more frightening than any multi-million dollar computer generated monster. Both Alejandro Amenábar, who directed The Others, and M. Night Shyamalan, who did Signs and before that The Sixth Sense understood this principle (although Shyamalan has allowed his initial successes to cloud his judgment in later projects). In 28 Days Later, "the infected," as they are known, are very much like the humans they once were, except for their glowing red eyes, rage, and obsessive hunger. They are like us, and shot on digital video, they are all the more scary for it. Accordingly, Jim's quest to free himself from their clutches is actually suspenseful. In accomplishing that task, Boyle did something remarkable.

But, alas, Boyle would not return to direct the sequel, 2007's 28 Weeks Later. Sticking around only to executive produce that film, Boyle was replaced at the helm by 29 year old Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, then known mostly for 2001's excellent Intacto. But the sequel lacked much of what made 28 Days Later a vibrant success; gone were the stark realism of digital video and the novelty of the fast zombies (which had featured in the 2005 remake of Romero's Dawn of the Dead). Romero, for his part, may have learned his lesson but overcompensated: In February of 2008, he will release Diary of the Dead, an alleged reboot of his franchise featuring the struggle of young filmmakers in a world of zombies. As pleasant as it might be to see zombies descend upon a gaggle of pretentious film majors, 67 year old Romero may be forcing himself to err on the side of the young and hip in a desperate attempt at relevance. Boyle, meanwhile, spent some of 2007 suggesting the possibility of a third and final installment of his franchise titled, of course, 28 Months Later.

These days, everybody has to have a trilogy.

28 Weeks Later

Arriving on DVD last week was "28 Weeks Later," the sequel to 2002's inventive "28 Days Later," the fearless and inventive Danny Boyle directed digital video zombie thriller set in a London overrun by humans infected with the rage virus. With a different director, and slightly altered stylistic approach, the sequel initially caused me worry, although it delivered in a way that few modern horror films do. But is that really saying all that much?

Perhaps my only complaint is the film's use of the "familiar zombie" motif. Don't bother Googling that phrase as I just made it up to describe a zombie film's use of a recurring zombie to heighten tension, drama, and fright. In "28 Weeks Later," this part is played by Robert Carlyle, who begins the film as a cowardly husband who leaves his wife to die in a cottage on the outskirts of London in the aftermath of the initial viral outbreak. The film then flashes forward several months, and Carlyle is reunited with his two children, who were safely away at boarding school during the events depicted in the first film. Their reunion takes place at a U.S. Army run facility through which citizens are being repatriated back into England. Ultimately, after a number of plot developments I'll excise for my purposes here, Carlyle is infected and begins another outbreak of the virus. The thing is, Carlyle keeps reappearing and pursuing his children as they attempt to escape the facility and the U.S. Army's zealous attempt to exterminate all those who are infected as well as those who simply might be. Again and again, Carlyle resurfaces until a final encounter in an abandoned subway station, where he has somehow tracked his children and their remaining protector, though it is far from the original facility. How did he find them? Coincidence? Happenstance?

I think not.

The problem with this device is that it elevates the zombie character into a identifiable villain. Zombies, by their very nature, are anonymous members of an advancing horde of corpses. If we individualize them, they lose that which makes them the most frightful. Certainly, there is some drama and horror to be had in watching a character become infected and briefly chase his former friends and family. But allowing that to continue throughout and over the course of the film dilutes the concept and strays too close to the slasher-film genre where an all too familiar enemy keeps coming and coming and coming until the narrative's end.

Other zombie films have made attempts to individualize the zombie. In George Romero's rather dull 1985 film "Day of the Dead," we see the theme carried out to its extreme as a captured zombie regains some of his personality and relearns his human response system. Building upon that, in Romero's far more recent "Land of the Dead," a single zombie essentially becomes the ringleader of a throng bent on attacking a fortified city. Romero seems fascinated with the natural evolution of the zombie, from its origin as an anonymous corpse to its elevation to some type of primitive sentient being. I think, therefore I eat brains?

Of course, I'm a zombie movie heretic for preferring the fast moving zombies to the slow dull plodding ones of Romero's films. I'm really only a fan of Romero's original 1968 "Night of the Living Dead," which is the grandfather of the genre and as suspenseful as can be. Its first sequel, "Dawn of the Dead," was intriguing in parts but way too lengthy and slow moving for my tastes (and by today's standard's the anti-consumerist message couldn't be more heavy handed). And yes, I know that technically, "28 Days Later" and its sequel are not technically zombie movies as the films are about a virus with infects the living, not the dead.

Oh, well.

Slither (2006)

Should a film which is an homage to a bad genre film itself be a bad genre film? Or, rather, should the modern cinematic enterprise paying tribute to earlier schlock attempt to transcend the genre and become a both a better film and an homage to something fun and frivolous? The latter approach seems to be that of Quentin Tarantino, while the former is, alas, that of the producers of 2006's Slither, an attempt to make a fun b-movie homage which is quite unfun.

Now, with a film about alien mutant slugs infecting backwards townspeople, you might reply, well, caveat emptor. (Wouldn't it have been swell if I knew the Latin for "let the renter beware," or even, "let the Netflix subscriber beware"? I only made it to Latin II.). But, I had some level of faith in the film, as it featured Nathan Fillion as the protagonist sheriff, and as nerds can attest, he turned the doomed television show "Firefly" into a fun adventure (so fun for some, in fact, that they still refer to him as "the Captain" five years later, which is rather sad, don't you think?). The always lovely Jenna Fischer (Pam from "The Office," for those of you not already obsessed with her) cameos, and it is her husband, James Gunn, who wrote and directed the project. (The two of them, though, are not so lucky in love, as they recently announced that they would part ways.). All I knew of Gunn was that he wrote the recent remake of "Dawn of the Dead," and you can't go wrong with zombies, at least these days, right? (Actually, it turns out he wrote the two live action Scooby Doo movies, which, really, is not the sort of project that aspiring writers go to Hollywood to draft, is it?) But I didn't know that until after I watched Slither, and in the absence of that knowledge, could I go wrong?

Yes. Slither was awful. The "humor" is that one note, juvenile dreck that lost its amusement at puberty. It was the kind of film that aspires to be so bad that it is good, fails in that attempt, and is forever consigned to Showtime or Cinemax. (Or The Movie Channel, but I'm not sure that premium movie channel still exists, does it?) You can guess the plot: a small town full of stereotypes is invaded by aliens, and the characters conform to their stereotypes to their detriment until they blunder their way into victory. Really, if I want to watch a horror film this bad, I should just rent something from the 1980s, like Prom Night II or Night of the Demons, attempts at film-making which don't disguise their utter awfulness with the pretense of homage. Why do I bother?

It still doesn't surprise me that bad movies are perpetrated. What baffles me, though, is that this film received multi-million dollar financing. Gunn got to write and direct a film, and someone paid him to do it. Some producer wrote him checks to bring his vision to screens across America. With that type of backing and support, why not go the extra mile and make a good movie? Ah, but you say, he is making a bad movie from the outset. Gunn obviously enjoyed those silly horror movies from the 1950s, which were bad, and thus, his homage to them must be equally bad. It's all in the fun. But that's not necessarily the case. Tarantino makes films which, in that most postmodern of ways, recreate scenes and lines of dialogue from bad 1970s exploitation flicks, but he cobbles his influences together in such a way that he fashions a creative and compelling narrative which entertains as it robs from that which came before. A little effort, and you're not a thief but an auteur. Why not go that route and at least earn a little artistic respect as you pay tribute to your guilty pleasures? Oh, well.