Theatre of the Dead #12 - House of the Dead (2003)

Director: Uwe Boll Stars: Jonathan Cherry, Tyron Leitso, Clint Howard, Ona Grauer

Review:

Finally we come to this: the infamous Uwe Boll's House of the Dead. Aint that bad. It is so significant in the history of the zombie genre that it makes the new low that nobody had gone before, or even among movies in general. Definitely there maybe Z / zero-budget movies that were worse, but it may be the worst movie that travelled the distance over half of the earth to land on my videostore for my torment.

As other movies of Uwe Boll, House of the Dead is a movie adaptation of the videogame in the same name. I played the first House of the Dead at a very young age, probably 10 or 11, and I could remember nothing from the plot, just shot, shot and shot some more. So saying this movie has nothing to do with the game would be unfair. But indeed it is.

Zombie bitch flying over for taking a single shot. O wow.

A group of young people wanted to get on an isolated island for a rave party, but they were late for the ship. They hired a captain to take them on the island by his boat. "Forget it. Do you know what the natives call the island? Isle de Morte! Whichs mean island of death in Spainish." The captained said to the kids. "And if this is some lame attempt to hit me up for more cash..." "It aint. There ain't enough cash in the world to make us go back there." The captain firmly replied. "$1000". "Ok." O wow. So it is a lame attempt to hit for more cash afterall.

Zombie fighting Power rangers. 

So what do you know, there are zombies on the island and the kids try to survive. Havent we seen this somewhere before? Go to an island, where zombies are there. Hmm....Zombi 2? Yeah it would make more resemblance to Zombi 2 than to House of the Dead. It even have the zombie underwater fighting scenes just like in Zombi 2, but of course this is much lamer.

To tell how stupid the plot is, one needed to talk about the movie frame by frame, which I would not do that. I cant even analyse it under the framework of this review series since it is so stupid and inconsistent throughout the whole movie. So I may well talk about why this movie sucks so much.

1. Dumb characters. The movie always mention that one character "has a smile of Tom Cruise and the brain of Rainman." Firstly Rainman is austic but not stupid. Secondly that character is not much goodlooking. Thirdly he was not much dumber than any of the others. So at the end when he had his face ruined by zombie acidic saliva (o yeah), I feel nothing at all.

2. Stupid dialogue. The kids found an old house on the island, and one said "What is this....?" A house. You are too stupid to figure it is a house? When a pair travelling though the wood, one suddenly said "What is it!?" "I couldn't hear anything." "Me neither". Then what the fuck is what!? Such dialogue is throughout the whole movie.

"What is this...?" 

3. The action music. Whenever there is a chase scene or action sequence, there is techno or rock music, which does not adds to the tension but plainly annoys me. I did not found it cool or anything, but a lyric from Eminem pops in mind "Who listens to techno? Now let's go."

4. Game footage for changing scenes. Do I even need to say why?

The scene I hate the most is the action sequence in front of the house the kids find, in which they fight off a bunch of incoming zombies. It does a 360 degree camera close-up on each and everyone of the character, which stretches the sequence so long and so boring. It makes me feel like the power rangers, but even power rangers are more fun.

The camera spirls around her as she stands still. More like a catwalk show than a gunfight.

House of the Dead is one of my most hated movie of all time, and I was not even a fan of the original game. Uwe Boll really knows how to make shitty movies, and have done a really good job by far. When does the hurting stops?

Cinema Extreme #2 - Suicide Club (2002)

Director: Shion Sono Stars: Ryo Ishibashi, Masatoshi Nagashe, Mai Hosho

Review:

I have doubts to put this movie in the list of Cinema Extreme, as despite how thought provocative it is, it does not receive much ban from release. However the notorious opening scene does shocking and stunning enough to the point of anti-humanity, and I rate this as lying on the boundary of extreme cinema.

Girls ready to jump off onto the railroad.

The opening scene shows a mass suicide of 54 school girls. They were chatting happily on a train platform, and when the train comes they held hands and jumped to the railway together. This scene is powerful not for its gore factor, which we have seen something much exceeded, but the whole idea. Cute school girls kill themselves happily, under some teenage adorable background music. It sparkles all sorts of questions. Do they think suicide is hip? Do they think being death is much more happier than they already are?

Well what else could have happened?

Next we see people committed suicide all around Japan. People hung themselves together, stab himself in the neck, stuck her head into a burning oven, and chop up her own hands while preparing dinner. The police were on investigating but could have any leads except for a bag appearing in the scenes that contained human skins of the suicide victims stitched together.

Aghhh!!!The lights are ON!!! Wait....what?

It does builds up suspense and keeps us want to understand the whole affair. Why? Who is behind all these, and why stitch the skins together and give it to the police? The answer is quite obvious since every victim we saw them listen to a song from a teenage girl group. You know there is connection but what and why? Why do some teenage girl pop group want people commit suicide? The people receives call from a stranger, who is coughing, and claims he/she knows the truth and predict the next suicide event. And all that leads to big disappointment.

I thought all hope was lost when the movie suggests it is these punk rock dummies were whose behind.

It turns out the prediction was incorrect, and why is he/she coughing is never explained. A girl, whose boyfriend is a big fan of the pop group and a suicide victim, found out that the poster of the girl group contained a stupid sublimal message of suicide, by a stupid way of decoding it. She meet the girl group in their concert location, and the kids asked "Are you connected to yourself?" "You are connected to your boyfriend even if you died." "Why are you still living?" Ummm.....why not? So this is why they commit suicide? They are connected to themselves? What the fuck does that even mean?

No. I come to kick ass and chew bubble gum, and I'm all out of bubble gum.

I rather the reason goes unexplained, and in that case we make up our own reasons. Japan is the country that the suicide count topped the world, and there is a whole million of reasons for that. But this is not one of them. This is just confusing and stupid. Nobody aint kill themselve because a bunch of little kids asked them about question of life. What do the little kids know. Fuck off.

Some scenes stretches too long when there is nothing actually happening, like the police went to the train station platform to prevent mass suicide as predicted by the stranger on the phone. Nobody really jumped on the railway and we wasted about 15 minutes of screen time.

I would not put this movie in the "Good movie" catergory, but then, extreme movies tend to be bad. There is no consistent character and once the character was nearly established he dies and the narration was handed off to a character we barely know. Also I wasnt much scared since I know the movie title is Suicide Club. They commit suicides, and would not hurt me even if all of them dies.

Noir de Noir #2 - Strangers on a Train (1951)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock Stars: Farley Granger, Robert Walker

Review:

Checking through the Film Noir element checklist, Strangers on a Train got some ticks and got some crosses. A crime plot, check. Use of shadows and silhouettes, check. Narration, nope. Femme Fatale, nope. Bad ending, nope. So I would say it barely considered a Film Noir, but close.

A tennis player Guy Haines (Farley Granger) meets a complete stranger fan of his, Bruno Anthony. Bruno is a very talkative person who knows no boundary, and talks about Guy's unhappy marriage situation. Guy was to marry another woman, but need to get a divorce first. Apparently Bruno is also very trustful to strangers, as he tells Guy about how much he wanted his father dead to succeed his wealth, and propose "What if I do your murder and you do mine?". In that case there would be no motive for the actual murderer, and perfect alibi for the suspect.

Guy's wasnt the material to kill anybody, but Bruno, being a rich spoiled brat, doesnt think it was such a big deal. He killed Guy's wife, and demands that Guy holds up the other end of the bargain. Guy refused and he stalked him, threatened him and enters his life. On the other hand the alibi for Guy when Bruno committed the murder was not such perfect, that his witness doesnt remember him. Now Guy has to fight for his own innocence.

The crime plot here is interesting, though not as clever as it sounds. Firstly is what happened in the movie. What if the other one does not follow the contract? What do have against him? Well in here Bruno got Guy's unique lighter, but he obtained it accidentally. If not so, what you gonna do then? Besides, wont the police suspects that the prime suspect hired a hitman or something, instead of straightly assuming that man who benefits the most is innocent?

There was a lot of usages in shadows and silhouettes in the movie. The presence of Bruno, who stalks Guy to pursuit him killing his father, is in an alternative sense a shadow of Guy. It usually sets up thrills and suspense, but I sort of distracted with the slightly comedic moments, like in the tennis scene which the whole is looking left and right tracking the tennis ball, while only Bruno is looking right at the audience. It shows how tennis is perceived in general American people and is a bit thrilling for Bruno to look at us.

However Bruno is a character that is too flamboyant to be scared of. He is laughing and joking and acts like a spoiled brat. Every scene when he and Guy is talking I feel the homosexual overtone, even more obvious than in Rope (1948). Despite he looks like at least 30 years old, he is a spoiled kid. With such clumsy and native character I cant sense any menace a villain should have.

Strangers on a Train (1951) can be classified as one of Hitchcock's earlier work, before he become fully a widely considered master. The visual style for some scenes just scream noir, but the tone and story does not back it up. It does remain an entertaining movie but not a significiant piece in the whole Hitchcock collection.

Cinema Extreme #1 - Caligula (1979)

Director: Tinto Brass, Giancarlo Lui Stars: Malcolm MacDowell, John Gielgud, Peter O'Toole

Review:

There are movies that are extremely gore and full of violence scenes, like Braindead (1992). But there are movies that are so offensive, that it ceases being entertaining and become an endurance to sit through the end. The only achievement is not enjoyment but able to say "I have watched that film".

Caligula (1979) depicts the exaggerated sexual and cruel side of the Ancient Roman Empire. This notorious movie stars some really big names: Alex from A Clockwork Orange (1971), Father Karras from The Exorcist (1973), and Lawrence from Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and tells the story of Caligula, who was the fourth emperor of the Roman Empire. He killed his father in his deathbed to success him, and killed his right-hand man to clear any threats for his power, and started his tyranny rule. A story that has happened more than a thousand times throughout history.

Is he really pissing or there is a hose...? After all those penises cumming I'm not surprised in any case.

What is special about this movie is its portrayal of the exaggerated Ancient Roman Empire. Almost everyone except the royal family is naked. Penises and clitorises can be seen everywhere. Any man can have sex with any women, and any woman can have sex with any woman in this movie. There is a scene that Caligula ordered all member of the senate to prositute their wifes for everyone who can pay 5 gold pieces, and committed incest with his sister. Although there is not man-to-man sex, there is a fisting scene in which Caligula shove his hand up a guy's ass.

The guy is getting fisted up his ass. The one lying in the left in his new married, and just raped wife, by Caligula.

This movie is also cruel in torture. We see a guy got his penis tied by his shoelaces, though I aint sure that shoelaces exists in Roman times, and was shoved tonnes of wine into his mouth. After it's done, the emperor stick a sword through his stomach to let the wine flood over. There is also torture in humiliation which is so cruel that it almost anti-humanity. There is a scene that a naked woman was tied up with her legs wide open on a open stage, who is giving birth for all the audience to see. And the naked woman is the wife of Caligula, the supposed queen, but Caligula put her on stage as a show.

But the scene that I found most amazing in the head chopping machine. After I got aroused by a sex scene it cuts to a head being cut off. The huge contrast stunned me and here comes the head chopping machine. Victims were buried in the ground leaving only their heads on the floor. The machine is like a huge wall with mowers at the bottom, without the safety shield. As the wall moves forwards, it cuts off the head. People throws fruits and vegetables to the heads to humiliate them. The visual is so stunning that the wall have a freezen screaming face scripture stuck out, and people dying underneath surrounded by aroused mob.  It shows how human lifes were insignificant by showing people gone through such big way to build such a machine to just kill for entertainment. The only word I can sum up this whole scene is "anti-humanity".

The artistic style is so Roman, and the face scripture is as if they were crying.

Over 80% of screentime in this movie is sex, which makes it to be straightly a porn. Does it have any underlying meanings, besides the trivial man is bad, Caligula is insane message? I do not think so. Many film critics have bashed this film as trash, but I think they just could not get over with the overwhelming sex and heartless torture. However to the other side of the pole, I fail to see anyone who could consider this as their favourite film, other than being different from others. As most films in the cinema extreme, the only gain from the experience is the shock, disturbance, memories of the crazy images, and the claim, "I have seen Caligula".

Theatre of the Dead #11 - Resident Evil (2002)

Director: Paul W.S. Anderson Stars: Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez

Review:


Resident Evil (2002) actually came out before 28 Days Later, but I do not consider that it is this film which revived the zombie genre. It just could not be.

Resident Evil is a survival horror video game first release on the Playstation, and spawned many sequels. Not being an extreme hardcore fan, I am still able to tell this movie adaptation is nothing like the game.

Naked Milla Jovovich is so memoriable in The Fifth Element (1997), they think she have to be naked here.

The movies opens telling us Umbrella is a super-power corporate that deals with military weaponry. A testube breaks and whole office were shut down by a fire-drill, which release poison gases to kill them. Later we see Milla Jovovich wakes up naked in a bathroom, and cant remember nothing. Gamers of the first game may think, so she is gonna explore the place, which is a mason, like in the first game. Nope. She met a self-claimed police officer outside, and a bunch of special forces arrive, and took them down to the lab, in which the mason is just a cover for an entrance. So 90% of the story went on in the underground lab, and the mason is just for show.

The A.I. killing the special forces with lazers. It killed several guys with a single beam and the leader with this.
Why not just the net beams at the first place?
Even better, why didnt you gas them like the others, especially after they take off their masks?

I am not a movie-watcher that usually nitpick plotholes, but I just could not stand this movie. Okay so the mason was a cover for a secret entrance to a highly confidently labratory? Why would you build such a big mason out of nowhere in jungle to cover it up? Why wouldnt you build something that nobody would be willing to visit, like a small wooden house or a public toilet maybe? The special forces found that the map was different, in which a place the map showing should be a dinning hall, turns out to be a place to store monsters. "Maybe Umbrella kept secret from you." Ok. So why they send the special forces down which they can just look and see for themselves? The supercomputer A.I. for the defense apparent enjoy playing pranks and watch people feeling they have a chance before kill them. The laser scene was always mentioned, but in the opening of the movie, when the women stuck halfway at the door of the lift, the computer could kill her moving the lift to the ground. But no. She stops right before the women hit the floor, then move up the lift so the ceiling could kill the women.

Why stop there? You were gonna kill her anyways. Why stop there and go up again?

And the most incomprehensible plot point is that, why does Spence break the T-virus in the lab? He wanted to steal the virus samples for himself. Just take it and leave and everything would be just fine. But he had to throw it to the table and broke it intentionally, just to activiate the security. Brilliant.

So this movie has nothing to do with the game. The game relies on solving mysteries and discovery, but this movie tells us right in the beginning that Umbrella is behind all this. So much for the mystery. When I first saw it I thought Millia Jovovich is Jill or Claire, but no, she is Alice. Who the hell is Alice!? None of the characters were from the game. One character dies and the Michelle Rodriguez character, who fond of him apparently, feels very sad and could not let go. The sorrow music sets in and I could not feel anything. Hell I cant even remember his name.

Day of the Dead reference at the end of the movie.

Also another bad horror movie omen: rock music during action scenes. It is not cool. It's just loud noises and means nothing. Stop putting rock music over anything. I have seen a video on Youtube which put rock music over Pokemon videos. It is stupid and not cool. It's just not.

Resident Evil movie also spawned many sequels, and like any other movies series it shunk deeper and deeper in stupidity. Comparing it to Silent Hill, the Silent Hill movie is superior in so many levels that it does resemble the game in some way. This one? It is just not Resident Evil.

Theatre of the Dead #10 - Shaun of the Dead (2004)

Director: Edgar Wright Stars: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Kate Ashfield

Review:


Shaun of the Dead (2004) is a zombie comedy that not only make fun of zombies like its predecessors such as Braindead, but also plays around the cliches also. I would not say this is a spoof on the zombie genre, since apparently the director Edgar Wright like the zombie cliches and pays homage to them rather than makes fun of them.

Shaun is an everyday un-successful guy in london. He has a boring job, disrespected by his co-workers, have a friend that everybody hates, and broke up with his girlfriend because he goes to the same pub with his best friend on every date. And one day when Shaun was doing his daily routines, zombies rages.

The zombies are in the Romero type so actually they does not poses whole lot of threat to our heros. Shaun didnt even realize the street were occupied by the zombies when he went out to buy a bottle of milk. Besides the comic routines, we actually see more deeply of the characters as the disaster go on. Shaun's best friend is an unemployed bum, who is fat and dirty. However as disaster strikes he seems not affected and keep on his fucked-up attitude even to the end of him, which makes him somehow courageous. The male roomate of Shaun's girlfriend had always been despising Shaun and thought he does not deserves her. However now with the involvement of zombies he turns out to be a selfish coward, and cares nobody other than himself. All he has is his good mouth. Of course Shaun becomes the leader, tries to get the group out of trouble and gets the girl. That went without saying.

This movie contains references to other zombie movies everywhere, and I am not able to spot all of them. A obvious one would be a guy being torn apart by the zombies, which appeared in Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead. Also there's the "We're coming to get you Barbara" line. As I have put it, these scenes reminded us of the classic zombie films, but not much of a parody or spoof of those.

As far as zombie comedy goes, this movie certainly contained some sad scenes. Most zombie movie ends up with most of the main cast being killed or turned into zombies and this one is no exception. Come to think of it, Shaun's stepfather died after resolving their hatred, his mother died in his own hands, his best friend was bitten and left for dead, and even the bartender of his favourate pub died. That is harsh man.

Shaun of the Dead would become an example on zombie comedies to come, rather than like the classic zombie comedies which mostly rely on slapstick humour.

Theatre of the Dead #9 - 28 Days Later... (2002)

Director: Danny Boyle Stars: Cillian Murphy

Review:

Correct me if I am wrong, but throughout most of the 90s I have not seen and could not find any significant zombie movie. In 2002, the zombie genre was revived by the movie 28 Days Later.

The movie opens with a group of animal rights activist attempts to free some monkeys that were used in scientific experiments. "No! You dont understand! They are infected!" "With what?" "Rage..." Actually it is a virus, that it is highly contagious, that if any blood of the infected gets into you through any orifice, it would turn you into one of them. One of the activist opens the cage, and gets bitten. Several seconds later she gets up and bite the others, and the story actually starts 28 days later of this event.

Jim on an empty street.

Our protagonist, Jim, woke up from a coma in a abandoned hospital. He wandered around and meet the zombies, but saved by two guys with molotov cocktails. They saw some lights outside a flat on a resident building, which supposedly there is no electricity. They met a father and a girl, who have a radio. Despite radio station has been shut down, there is a broadcast about the salvation of the infection by the military. Without water supply, they decided to go visit the source of the broadcast.

Up until 28 Days Later, the virus theory had not been proposed on a movie before, which I'll take it as an inspiration from the video game Resident Evil. However from this point on, there is virtually no development on the cause of zombies, and we took it for granted. Virus theory is the most scientifically possible explaination but there is no more imagination and originality, resulting in many repetitive zombie movies to come. The zombies are also more or less the same. They can run, which adds to a lot of intensity to the chase scenes, in which the Romero zombies actually you can just dodge them.

We watch the zombies closing in with the shadows.

The main theme of this movie is solitary. The scene that Jims woke up alone in the hospital, wandered around in streets which normally would be occupied by hundreds of people, adds to the mood of solitary. When they meet the father and girl, they treated them as guests with alcohol that they had been saving. They were also desperate to see other people, since they could not stand with the loneliness. They drove off on an empty highway, but they were much mild tampered since they have each other. These all surrounds the main theme, and brings a more artistic style to the zombie genre which it have not been done before.

Maltesers?

Despite I myself enjoyed this movie, some people called it a bullshit movie and counted the top 5 bullshit moment in the movie. I do agree that this movie is full of bullshit. The biggest problem with me is the military. In my opinion the movie should have ended right before they reach the military base, and the plot with the military was so stupid it ruined the whole thing. It turns out that the military sends out broadcast to attract people to them for pussies. Yes I am serious. These nymphomaniacs could not stand 28 days without pussies.

Also when Jim turns against them, he suddenly became a super-human that can takes out a group of well trained and armed troopers, with his bare hands, and before that we see him crying for his companion to wait for him. Another bullshit I do agree is that the movies contains embedded advertisements everywhere. When will the manager understand that we consumer will not buy a chocolate because a character in a movie eats it?

From this point on the zombie genre came back full force, but in quantity not in quality. 28 Days Later may have been the most decent zombie movie in recent times, and ironically it is the first to bring the whole genre back, which means it's all downhill from here.

The Hangover (2009)

Director: Todd Philips Stars: Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Heather Graham

Review:

"After Hangover (2009), everybody is trying to copy the formular." Apparent even the movie plagiarizes itself with its sequel, which have been criticised of being basically the same movie. So why not see the first one instead?

Four friends, Doug, Phil, Stu and Alan went to Las Vegas for a bachelor party to celebrate Doug, who is getting married two days later. They went up on the roof of Caesar Palace, and took vow to forget everything that happen in that night. The next shot we see them lying unconsciencely in a trashed hotel suite, with the gloom missing. There is a tiger in the bathroom, an infant baby in the lock, and Stu lost a teeth. "Where happened last night and What the fuck is Doug?"

Someone said it is hilarious but that was not me. The problem with the jokes is that you could have guessed it like several seconds before. Soon Father-in-law very specifically told Doug to take good care of the car, and you know later in the movie it would get tossed. Alan, who have some mental problems I presume, asked the reception girl "This is not the real Caesar Palace is this?" You know that must be stupid, specially coming from a character that is established to be stupid, and you know the joke already. Later on some chinese gangmembers showed up and told them to give him 80 grands in exchange for Doug. A guy was lying in the back seat with his face covered. Misunderstanding gag. Got it.

Although there does exist a few scenes that had me laughed. When they took a toast on the roof, Alan gave a speech about their friendship and cut his hand with a knife. "Blood brothers". That is really out of place and really funny. 

I was hoping a story would be pieced together, since we see Phil try to connect all the pieces of information together, writing down what happened at what time. Unfortunately however, all the pieces were incoherent and independent. There was a tiger in the bathroom because they stole it from Mike Tyson. Stu lost a teeth because Phil bet he is not a good enough dentist to pull out his own tooth. There was naked chinese man in the trunk because Phil won money with him and thought he was his lucky charm. Ok that is funny I'll give to that.

The characters are also pretty shallow. Alan is sort of a comic relief, Phil does not have much interesting to say or do, and Doug disappeared most of the time. The trip to find out the explaination of the situation is a comedic routines but not something that develops the characters. Except Stu though. Before this trip he was in relationship with a really mean dominatrix. During the black out he married a stripper, and found that actually the stripper is a much better girl, and decided to broke up with his girlfriend and date the stripper. I like how understandable the stripper is to a point that is sympathising, that it is Las Vegas and their wedding was just stupid, and Stu just could not treated the wedding as if it never happened. I was going to use the word "battling", but actually there is no battle. Who would want his original girlfriend even without the stripper anyway.

The Hangover was highly successful commercially and critically, but I did not watch it when it first came out nor have a high expectation, since I usually do not find American comedies all that funny. I am not someone that always demand inner meanings, implications or artistic values, and I do enjoy movies like Scary movie (2000), but this is just not such hilarious and I did not laugh that whole many times.

Noir de Noir #1 - Double Indemnity (1944)

Director: Billy Wilder Stars: Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson

Review:

Film Noir is a term used to describe a genre of crime drama with certain common story elements and visual style.  Strict definition of film noir would be a research topic in film school, but some movies are more noir than the others. An american crime drama with characters all having plans on each other, suspicious silhouette, narration spilling rhetorical words, would most likely be a film noir. Recent movies seldom falls into pure Noir catergory, but usually blended into other genres, such as action (Sin City, 2005), or science fiction (Terminator, 1991, according to some opinions as techno-noir). 

Double Indemnity (1944) is a prime example of classic Noir, although the term was not even coined by 1944.   It tells the story in flashback of a insurance salesman, Neff, talking on a phone to his superior, badly wounded. He confesses to him that it is he who committed the murder.

Neff confessing on the phone

It all started since Neff went to visit Mr. Dietrichson at his house, but Dietrichson was not in. Instead he met Mrs. Phyllis Dietrichson. On the first sight Neff was already fond of her, and apparently she took the flirt too, so much so that wanted to conspire with Neff to murder his husband, Mr. Dietrichson, for insurance money. Neff tricked Mr. Dietrichson to sign an accidental insurance contract, and came up with a clever plan to kill him on a train since in such situation the insurance company will pay double, "double indemnity". Mr. Dietrichson had to go a business trip, and on the way to the train station, Neff and Phyllis killed him on the car. Neff subsituted Dietrichson to board the train, and jump off half-way. They dump the body on the track to let people think Dietrichson fell off and broke his neck. At first time everybody thought so, until his superior Keyes got suspicious on knowing Dietrichson had a broken leg but did not claim any damage.

Venetican blind shadow can be seen anywhere in the movie: a visual element of Film Noir.

As I have mentioned this movie was made in the early days of film noir, and the style was still in development. We follows the eyes of the murderer Neff, and creates an atomsphere of suspense on the worries of Neff about committing it and his fear of others knowing it. It was done perfectly as planned at the time it was done, but it seems everything had went wrong on his walk of way home. He murders for woman and money, then for a curiosity on whether he can fool the insurance company better than the others, perfect crime, but later only wants to cover it up. It captures the menality of having a guilty conscience and the fear of everything falling apart and transcent it to the audience with style. A worrying man sits under the shadow of venetican blind, talks in narration about his calculations and thoughts, and makes you feel as if you were put in the situation.

Although I do not fully buy the plot a whole lot. Neff has meet Phyllis only twice, and if she took that flirt so easily she is probably a whore, and you want to conspire a murder with her? Neff does not have any thing on her so if she refuses to share the money Neff could not do nothing about it. Later when self-preservation comes to mind, he kills Phyllis without a blink of an eye. Smart. But why didnt you get smart at first? Moreover, why go back to confess when he wants and able to flee to the border?

Anyways, it was an early example in the genre so the Noir style may not be so strong. Though it gets me into the story, personally I do not rate this movie as high as it has been ranked. The thing that Keyes lights a match for Neff at the end, which it was Neff who always light matches for Keyes in the whole movie, seems cliche and could be seen coming a mile away, though you could not blame the movie for it was new at that time. As a whole experience, I was satisified but not stunned.

The Darjeeling Limited (2007)

Director: Wes Anderson Stars: Owen Wilson, Adrian Brody, Jason Schwartzman

Review:

Three brothers that have not spoken to each other for a year went for a spiritual journey in India, to become brothers again. The elder brother Francis have it all planned out, which means sightseeings and meditations. All three brothers have their own reasons of coming to India and hesitations to share with each other. But the journey which the other two brothers Jack and Peter thought to be only a formality to comfort Francis, turned into a quest for facing their past and bond.

Very Indian style train journey, in the Western eyes I must say.

On the first viewing of this movie I get a bit lost and do not know what is going on or what it is trying to tell. Nothing really exciting happens. There are some comedic moments on the Caucasions meeting India culture, but that's it. But on the second viewing I compare it to Lost in Translation (2003), in which both involves people sortof trapped in un-familiar culture, changing from alienated to attracted by the culture, and the establishment of bonds with each other.

Francis (Owen Wilsoon), despite passionate about bonding, was upset about Peter (Adrian Brody) using his belt.

The exposition in the beginning was done in a way with multiple layers. We know the facts by the brothers telling another, ending with the phase "do not tell the other". Besides telling us what they were going through, it shows that they do not trust each other. They have complains with each other that Francis is always trying to decides for the others, Peter is depressed on having a new-born baby, and Jack is struggling with his own relationship. The changing point here is that they came across a group of kids, doing honestly I dont know what in the river, were in danger. They tried to save them but one could not be savaged. The three brothers attended the funeral, and related to the funeral of their father, in which I imagine they did not attend fully.

It is a little hard to review this movie because you do not know actually what you have learned, but that maybe the whole beauty of it. We witness things and encounter situations, and we got matured. Thinking back of what we have learned from those experiences, we could not tell for sure but we have changed.  That is the feeling this movie gave me. At the end they threw away the packages which contained things of their deceased Dad, symbolising they have thrown away their burden and their attachment to their past father.

However the India overtone that many people appreciate did not work out for me, maybe because I am an Eastener and India culture is not so distant to me. It does polish up India a lot, or else I wouldnt think you would stand it. Overall, I do enjoy Lost in Translation more, considering I am fasincated with the Japanese culture so much more. The Darjeeling Limited is for one that would like to take a spiritual journey.

Theatre of the Dead #8 - Braindead/Dead-Alive (1992)

Director: Peter Jackson Stars: Timothy Balme, Diana Penalvar, Elizabeth Moody

Review:

In the mid-80s to most of the 90s, horror comedies dominated the horror genre. Most horror movies at that time are horror comedies. I imagine the mentality goes like this: people getting used to gory stuff and instead of getting scared, they laughed at the scenes. Well, if you not gonna scare anyway, then laugh. Braindead is one of the slapstick horror comedies that came out at the time, but the gore scenes were so exaggerated that it really is the goriest movie ever made.

A manager (?) of a zoo brings back a rare rat monkey from Skull Island. If the monkey bites a person, the person will be turned into a zombie, and go bite other people. It did not really explain why but natives from the Skull Island believed it is related to black magic. Also judging from the theme, that includes a gypsy old fortune teller speaking about dark forces and a blessed necklace that gets our protagonist out of trouble numerous times, I believe the movie suggests it is black magic. A young man, who is not too good with people, go to the zoo for a date. His mom, which have a lot of presence from the mom in Psycho (1960), followed him and got bitten by the rat monkey. So there you go, zombies and more zombies.

Plot does not matter much here, since this movie is all about gore and comedic moments. The opening scene sets the tone of the movie. The zoo representative was accidentally bitten by the monkey on the hand. His workers, who possess native knowledge, screamed "Zingaya" and severed his hand. The workers then noticed he got another wound on the other hand. They screamed "Zingaya" and severed his another hand. The workers then noticed he got another wound on his forehand.

ZINGAYA!!!

There are so many memorable scenes: the Kung-Fu priest, the zombie intercourse and the zombie baby who can take a lot of abuse, and of course the climax party scene. The last 40 minutes or so is just all blood, severed limbs, intestines, and more blood. In the review of Return of the Living Dead, I said there is no way to kill this type of zombies. Well there actually is a way. You grind them into meat pots, which is what they do here. When you see a guy grind all zombies in a party into a mesh of flesh, your care for the plot goes out of the window.

The funniest scene in my opinion: this seemingly clumsy fat guy goes apeshit and chops up a lot of zombies.

It is not that kind of movie that contains satires or deeper meanings, but just plain entertainment from gore and slapstick humor. I am not a big fan of slapstick, but it do set a lighter tone for all the gore scenes here or else I would have puked. I did not laugh too hard nor did I scared a lot, but at least I am entertained. Peter Jackson of course went on and made the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, which is hard to imagine after seeing this.

Oh god.

Up until now we have seen the slow moving Romero zombies, the immortal "Return of the Living Dead" zombies, zombies that can learn to play toys and zombies that just fell down and die to infects others as in Night of the Creeps. We have seen the dead rise up because of radiation from outer space (that's actually is the explanation in Night of the Living Dead), voodoo, re-animation medicine, chemical, alien slug, or it is because hell just full. In the late 90s zombie movies took a rest and when we come back we will jump into modern zombie apocalypses.