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Showing posts with the label zombies

THE WALKING DEAD DISCUSSION - PODCAST

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We talk briefly about the first few seasons of The Walking Dead on The Big Rewind .

LET'S PLAY BLOOD (DARK CARNIVAL)

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The fourth part of my Blood Let's Play.

LET'S PLAY BLOOD (PHANTOM EXPRESS)

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The third part of my Blood Let's Play. Get off. My. Train!

THE MUMMY - REVIEW

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After several false starts, it's looking like our beloved Universal Monsters might just finally get the reboot franchise they were promised years ago as The Mummy kicks off the new "Dark Universe" which would lead to an Avengers or LXG -style team-up. The reviews for this new remake haven't been kind but the presence of Tom Cruise in the lead role with the likes of Johnny Depp and Javier Bardem set to star in further movies might just help confirm this franchise as a done deal despite its lukewarm reception. The original The Mummy was a moody horror film and the Brendan Fraser-starring reboot more of a fun adventure series while this latest effort tries something in between: part-tongue-in-cheek actioner, part-creepy monster movie, this new Mummy certainly has an uneven tone, something that might have alienated some viewers and critics. The plot sees a couple of thieves uncover a hidden Egyptian tomb in war-torn Iraq where they quickly scoop up a mysterious sar

THE WALKING DEAD (S.7) - VLOG REVIEW

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I talk about Season 7 of The Walking Dead .

LIFEFORCE - REVIEW

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There was an obvious way to adapt a novel geniusely called "The Space Vampires" : Planet Terror -style, with Grindhouse tongue-in-cheek mayhem and gallons of blood being thrown at you. Director Tobe Hooper, it turns out, was the right man for the job when it came to turning The Space Vampires into Lifeforce , a much more interesting take on a pretty silly premise. The movie sees astronauts reach a planet, fly through its space colon and uncover a bunch of giant bats and three naked people in glass coffins. The plan? Bring all that shit back to Earth, of course! Because war, disease and poverty aren't quite enough: we need space vampires in our lives. Soon enough, one of those alien beings wakes up and causes mayhem. Turns out, those good-looking weirdos from outer space can literally suck the life out of you through intense electrical make-out sessions and turn you into one of them. It becomes up to a total of two dudes with bad haircuts to try and sort out this whol

PARANORMAN - REVIEW

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With Aardman, Henry Selick and Tim Burton currently the main guys still pushing stop-motion animation forward in a big way, I was surprised to learn that ParaNorman is not actually by any of them. From Sam Fell, who brought you The Tale Of Despereaux and Flushed Away (both of which I personally wasn't too keen on) ,  with co-director/writer Chris Butler being one of Coraline 's main art peeps, it looks like the stop-motion masters finally have some new competition in town. ParaNorman is a supernatural horror/comedy which takes the familiar "I see dead people" scenario and gives it a fresh, yet very much retro, makeover. As a matter of fact, the film kicks off with a Grindhouse-style fake horror B movie trailer which sets the tone beautifully. It's a shame the film softens a bit when it actually gets going but that's not to say that it forgets its dark and twisted roots. Far from it. Check out that scene where Norman is trying to take some book which his

ZOMBIE WOMEN OF SATAN - REVIEW

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How do you make a good zombie movie? For one thing, not having a circus dwarf take a shit in the woods for 10 minutes half-way through your film is a good bloody start! Also, repeating awful jokes again and again doesn't help, as does making your film for £6.95. To be fair, for such a low budget this is pretty ambitious stuff and some of it works albeit on a very (VERY) trashy level. Made in the UK, Zombie Women of Satan aspires to be a Troma-style Grindhouse gore-fest but falls way short in that it has no real style or at least some good jokes. Instead we've got a lot of terrible actors trying to be funny and 90% of the time failing to do so. Thankfully though, this is quickly followed by ridiculous gore: the film's one saving grace. The practical gore effects are actually not too bad considering the no budget nature of the film. Also, the idea of burlesque performers fighting zombies is not too bad and there are quite a few genuinely unpleasant, disturbing moments.

I AM OMEGA - REVIEW

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The prospect of Mark Dacascos kicking zombie ass in a post-apocalyptic city in an I Am Legend B movie was almost too glorious to put into words. Sadly, the only ass I ended up kicking was my own, for putting myself through such a dull, sluggish watch. Production company The Asylum have had the odd nice, creative surprise: Sherlock Holmes battling dinosaurs being one of the highlights. Here though, they've somehow managed to make a sci-fi epic with a martial-arts master fighting zombies about as boring and uninteresting as it could possibly get. An achievement in itself? Yeah... The sad thing is that had the film stuck to Dacascos and the creepy army guys things could have potentially become somewhat entertaining but Jennifer Lee Wiggins' insufferable tacked-on love interest, which comes in about halfway through, is just a pain to sit through. The bad acting coupled with the annoying little comedy routines she gets with Dacascos are definitely not the film's shining mom

FIDO - REVIEW

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With the likes of Shaun of the Dead , Planet Terror and Zombieland , I think it's fair to say the zombie genre is back on track and is better than it's ever been. Here we have another welcome addition to the new zombie comedy bandwagon with Fido, a colourful Tim Burton-esque tale of 50's suburbia, propaganda, paranoia and human zombie pets. The post-apocalyptic story is pretty brilliant in how it's set up and reaches glorious highs of genius. The scene where the main kid hacks an old lady zombie to death with a shovel, silhouetted in front of a giant Wolfman -style full moon is one of the most satisfying scenes of the past few years and I'd gladly watch it on a loop. An unrecognisable Billy Connolly feels a tad wasted as the titular Fido zombie, who doesn't so much say his lines as grunt them. Then again, this gives the character a welcome Edward Scissorhands -esque simplicity and innocence. Connolly's always a welcome addition but anyone

PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES - REVIEW

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Using pretty much exactly the same sets as The Reptile , Plague of the Zombies is Hammer's only zombie venture and is well worth a look. Infinitely more threatening than The Reptile, the film starts pretty much exactly in the same way with mysterious deaths, funerals, grave robbing and generally sinister goings on but it soon introduces some nifty antagonists. The genuinely unpleasant group of fox-hunters, led by Alexander Davion, terrorise Diane Clare's innocent daughter, John Carson's shady Squire is a constantly untrustworthy presence, and then of course there are: the zombies. Unfortunately they are a little disappointing in that they are reduced to lumbering mine-workers with bad skin and only truly shine during one terrific dream sequence. Jacqueline Pearce's beheading, however, is an unexpected (but welcome) gory moment. Unlike The Reptile, this feels more focused and less clumsy in its approach. The lighting and editing feel more polished and