30 Days of Night: The Review

Written by Steve Niles ,and first published in 2002, 30 days of night tells the story of the town of Barrow, alaska, as it settles down for the 30 days of night the town goes under, being in the artic circle. The sun will not be seen for a month and a group of vampires have become aware of this and choose to use this to the full advantage to feed.
The film opens with a large boat, possibly a whaler, frozen in place amongst the ice and the camera pans back from that to show a man in poor condition who has taken a lifeboat and rowed to shore. as the sleepy northern town settles in for the month the dogs are all killed, the cell phones are all stolen and burnt adn the helicopter is taken out of comission. Then just as they learn they are trapt the vampires move in.
Right off the bat i must say that personally i wasnt frightened once. Though many in the cinema jumped and in fact after a scene were a vampiric little girl is beheaded with an axe many ran from the cinema. Am i just desensitized?, quite possibly. i know i chose to see this over saw 4 as i dont see that as scary, just cheap exploitation cinema. I telling you this just in case i make the movie come off as boring, which it most certainly was not, i just did not personally find it scary. So just keep that in mind as you read on.
The people i viewed the film with had mixed reactions, some felt that it opened with too slow a start up to the plot proper, others felt it ended to quickly. However all were in agreement that this was superior to 28 days later. and as shocked as i am to say this, im inclined to agree.
to get to that point ive got to start with the camerawork, which was inconsistently superb. between every run of the mill horror shot there was vast wide shots of the snowy wastes and a fantastic arial shot pointing directly down for a good minute, travelling over the town as you saw the chaos in a top down way. following no character ,you would just see vamprires crowd around a person, the spark of gunfire ect. and later another shot of the town, still, with piles fo red and gore on the snow were the remains of what used to be a human lay and no signs of life. a third and final example was a woman, walking through the town the camera low, looking up at her, with it close focused, adn all you could see was the blurred black outline of vampires cralwing along the rooftops, stalking her.

In short .camerawork a little more special than your average friday night horror film.
The plot however was a little simple, not bad, just one of those plots that theres no other way they could have done it. its ironic that before it was made into a comic, this was an idea niles submitted as a movie plot but was deemed to gimmicky at the turn of the century. the only major problems i have was the fact that a few questions were left unanswered, like were did the old man go?, though you dont begin to ask these questions till after the movie has finished so it doesnt disrupt the viewing experience in any way. it was nice to see a faithful ending akin to the comic book one in an adaption for once.
The origional score was virtually unnoticable, but had a good synchronicity with the action ,or lack thereof, taking place on screen. however this was mostly due to the booming surround sound of the theatre experience, and when viewed on dvd at home the same might not be said.
The acting ranges from extras in buffy to extras in dawn of the dead. whilst each actor gave it there all the characters themselves all came off as typical horror movie staples, for example the "lets get out of here and run and some of us will make it" thats been a staple since legendary bastard "harry cooper" from the night of the living dead. This may in part be why i didnt jump once. the actors do good jobs, but you never get convinced there doing anything but acting. I want to be drawn in by the sotry and be shocked into thinking the vmapire might lean over the back my chair and bite my throat out. but this key facotr remains lacking. you have isolation, a formiddable threat vastly superior to the protagonists, no help is coming and its in alaska in the 30 days of night, in principle you have a damn scary movie, however in practice this remains lakcing, the occasional jumps but to be honest i was scared more in resident evil 3: exctinction.
Keep in mind what i said at the start though, just becuase I did not find it scary does not a bad film make it. the story was good, the action was almsot nonstop and it never had a "okay, i can go and miss this and have a wizz" moment. This is one major factor in why i found this superior to 28 days later, another enemies with contagious blood horror movie, in that the last half is utterly forgettable cliche'. wereas in night it was ,at times, a little predictable. but hey its a vampire movie, some staples and cliches are there for a reason to allow the plot to work. also as i said you dont think of any of this during the viewing, only after. when vieing this in a cinema you will have a good 2 hours of solid nonstop entertainement that, wether it will become your all time favourite horror of the last 7 years, or just a so-so one off viewing, i dont think anyone will be dissapointed by this movie.

i give 30 days of night a solid [8/10]

Just a little rant on slasher antagonists

What the hell happened to good slasher movies?!?

The case in point which sparked this post was urban legends 2: final cut, i was sitting watching it and ,scine taking 2 years of film class at college, ive found myself analizing films more than i should which often ruins a film for me, but in this case i just couldnt shake off the really pathetic writing, and not pathetic as an insult i mean pathetic like it could be arsed to try.
Now im something of an amatuer film maker myself, stress the word somethign here folks, so i pretty much left halfway through since i pretty much guessed the ending and didnt really care if i was right or not as i was on a tangent at the time and sat down in fornt of my pc and got to writing a rough outline for a script.
So what would i make a slasher film like?
A:dont make the killer wear a mask, just make him some long haired, bearded wacko
B:Make him fucking RUN!!! - sure, meichal myers can pull it off, hes clinically insane, but just some random guy whos angry at the world and got hold of a knife? hwy the frigg isnt he running like the clappers after the victim instead of letting them narrowly get away till they trip.
C: and why do they allways trip?!?

Theres so much more i could write about whats wrong with this tired subgenre, but the long and short is it needs some reinvigoration, not a bunch of myers clones, what about a quiet mountain town under seige from a pyscho with survival training or an army vet or something, evadeing the police and setting traps and stuff, isolating them by cutting the phone lines ect and wrecking the cars, its just basic writing, isolation, vunerability, supposed invulnerablility of your enemy and the mystery of why the killer is doing this, just takes these facts and craft a script to your own suitings, theres so many possible ways to do a slasher film that arent a bunch of horny, drunk teenagers getting picked off one by one by a relative of the protagonist.
what about a psychotic college proffessor, get a bad grade in his class and hell get you at night, theres like 4 ideas in this article to use, i mean this is a rant but damn guys and gals, speaking from one writer to any of you writers reading this, we can do better.

Anyone else care to rant on the topic then post a comment, im done, back to my own script....

Resident Evil 3:Extinction

Okay, okay, i know these films dont have a good rep amongst horror movies. but this ,im happily surprised to say, is easily the best of the trilogy and superior to more big budget films like 2004's dawn of the dead remake for example.

So heres the basic outline. The T-virus wasnt contained in racoon city , it whent global. After it turned the worlds population into zombies ,apparently the T-virus is a little more tame in the movies, that or hunters, lickers and giant pythons would be too expensive, and after the people were all gone it turned onto the planet itself. plants died, the oceans dried up, the harsh desert that remained is slowly taking any signs of man below the surface whilst the walking dead scour the earth looking for the few surviving humans alive.

So just a bit post-apocalyptic then.

I have to say whilst the number of monsters was dissapointing there were some nice touches to the resi mythos in there. Zombie crows, including a homage to "the birds". wesker makes his appearance as the (supposed) head of all that remains of umbrella inc. a tyrant (finally) and claire redfeild making an appearance to name but a few.

The structure of the film shines compared to the others.Its concise and every shot appears thought out,.So there arent parts you could skip on a dvd .Its all ,from beginning to end, releative to the cliff hanger ending to the plot.

My personal view is that its a great movie for a one off viewing in the cinema. but im not sure if its a must own dvd. especially since the person i whent to see it with was literally so bored he kept trying to strike up a conversation with me as it played. I myself how ever was ingrossed in the movie.It does overplay some tricks like the "jump" after a silence, or a character looking across the screen and behind him to the side comes a zombie, i mean sure its been done before but its remained effective here throughout.

So can i recommend this?...yes. wether your a fan of the games or just horror movies even as a stand alone film resident evil extinction is one of the most enjoyable horror films of 2007 thats a bit of brainless fun and action that fans of transformers or 28 weeks later will enjoy.

[7/10]

Halloween 2007 - Two Sides of the Story

Rob Zombie's recent remake (or reimagining) of John Carpenters classic 1978 slasher, Halloween, has been derided with criticism, both from journalists and the internet community. On the other hand, the film smashed Labour Day box office records, making it a financial sucess. There are two ways of looking at this film, the first is to view it as a Rob Zombie film, following the likes of “House of a 1000 Corpses” and “The Devil’s Rejects”, and the second view, the way most people are looking at it, is as a Halloween film. Indeed the film is both of these things, but when considering them separately, you get a very different view of the film.

Halloween 2007 is instantly recognisable as a Rob Zombie picture. The way the Myers family is set up is reminicsent of the Firefly family from Zombie’s previous films, there appears to be very little love between them, and their derogatory conversations could easily of been lifted straight from a scene with the Firefly’s. The film has a distinctly gritty feel to it, helped in part by the way it was shot. The movie appears to have a subtle sepia effect, especially earlier on, similar to The Devil’s Rejects. “House of a 1000 Corpses” featured fast paced, music video style editing, with brief scene’s of murder and scantily clad women being interwoven with the movie itself, distorting the narrative and slowing down a story that otherwise would feel rushed. The editing in “The Devil’s Reject’s” was certainly a step in a more conventional direction, but had less quick cuts, and Halloween follows this, and is in fact shot in a very similar style, which instantly places the movie in Zombie territory, showing signs that he is on his way towards auteurism.

On the other hand, as a Halloween movie this film is almost certainly going to be seen as a let down, that is not to say Zombie hasn’t done some things right though.

The casting has certainly been hit and miss. Fan’s have applauded casting Danielle Harris in the series again, albeit as a different character, and similarly, when Malcolm McDowell was announced as Donald Pleasence’s successor the feedback was largely positive, but we will come back to that later. A somewhat debated casting was that of Tyler Mane in the role of Michael Myers himself. As an ex-professional wrestler, Tyler Mane certainly has an impressive physique, and was a step in the right direction following the last few Myer’s seeming small and defeatable. However Zombie pushed it too far, and as a result we have a Myers who towers over everyone else, and just isn’t believable after earlier seeing him as a small kid..

The main let down though has to be the character of Dr. Sam Loomis. McDowell does not deliver as one would expect in the film itself, partly due to the script, which see’s him regurgitate a lot of Pleasence’s speech from the original, but at inappropriate times. Part of the blame however, does have to fall on the shoulders of McDowell, who at certain points in the second third of the movie does not seem to understand the role of Loomis. This only seem’s to prove that something iconic cannot be replicated.

Something that has been met with a mixed reaction in the film is the death of Dr. Loomis. Personally, I think it was an act of pure brilliance. Zombie has said from the start that this movie would be his only entry in the Halloween series, and he has also said that it was more of a reimagining, and this is where it comes to fruition. Such a bold step on Zombie’s part certainly created controversy and added to the film. For the last period of the movie you are really left unsure as to whether anyone will survive, something that a horror movie hasn’t made me feel in the last five years.

Criticism’s such as the decision to make Myers run in the film and make him seem more human do not deserve to be addressed. Zombie has said from the word go that he would be showing a more natural side to Myers, and he is certainly a different beast from the one seen in previous entries. “Rob Zombie’s Halloween” certainly brought a grittier, raw edge to the series, and surpassed many of it’s other sequels, but people interested in Halloween and not Rob Zombie are almost certain to come away dissapointed.

David Moody's 'Autumn'

-Within minutes a virus ravages the United Kingdom and 99.9% of the population is dead, coughing up there own blood as there throats swell and choke the air out of them they drop dead one by one, men, women ,children, none but a select few are spared.
This all occurs on the first page of David Moody's fantastic horror novel 'Autumn'. Moody tells the tale of Micheal, Emma and Carl, 3 people out of a handful who remain unnaffected by the plague of unkown origin that has killed everyone they ever cared about.
The survivors of the plague that inhabited the city of Northwich spend the first few days huddled together in a local community center ,mourning there loss' and wondering how the situation could possibly get worse.
Then a few days later the bodies get up and start walking again.
'Autumn' is an apocalyptic zombie novel. Though dont expect your typical zombie flesh eaters. Autumns zombies are silent creatures, walking constantly, if only becuase they dont know how to stop. Driven on by the most base of instincts at work they shamble onward in silence, ignorant of the world around them.
At least this is how they are at first. but slowly the minds of the rotting corpses begin to kick start up again, slowly but surely they gain rudimentary sight and hearing again. They become aware of the world around them.
Of the deterioration of there own bodies.
And of the creatures around them that are like them but not.
And for that reason alone the bodies know they are a threat and become increasingly agressive towards the survivors. Soon enough the survivors are running for there lives against the animated corpses of the very people they are still mourning at having lost.
Moody tells this tale of survival in a nightmarish world that, to me as an englishman, seems all the more real and frightening as it is set in the United Kingdom. Rather than the typical locations for stories such as these, the United States. So being from england, this grounds the story a little more into reality. The locations seem more realistic, it makes you think "hey i know a place like that" or "how would i escape my area if the dead began to walk and harbour a violent hatred for the living?". It is these touches that makes the hopelessness of the protagonists' situation really hit home. There are 3 of them and millions of bodies.
The novel is smartly written, not on par with King, the master of the genre, but its a cut above the usual Zombie novel, definatley on level ground with the early work of Dean Koonz. Its not too long ,nor too short and best of all Moody lets you download the novel as a pdf. file for free from www.theinfected.co.uk
So this novel ,toted on the back as "an equal to Romero's night of the living dead", is definetly a novel worth any horror fans time to check out.
and it is free so you dont really have a reason not to.