Another One For The Fire.

The ongoing Zombie Month Movie Marathon over at the Inevitable Zombie Apocalypse got me in the mood to watch a zombie flick or two, so here’s one I watched last weekend.

Any horror fan worth his salt knows that in the mid-to-late 2000’s, it was the French that dominated the extreme. Starting with Alex Aja’s High Tension in 2003, we were assaulted with no-nonsense pulse pounders such as Them & Frontiers. By the time Inside rolled around, there was a clear sense of one-upmanship happening within this tightly knit group of directors and horror fans were left wondering what could possibly top Bustillo & Maury’s nihilistic bloodbath. The answer was Pascal Laugier’s Martyrs. It was a film so vile and unapologetic, that it left people feeling as battered and bruised as its protagonist.


So the question again became, what could possibly top THAT? There were several French projects making the rounds at the Cannes film market early that year, but none matured into ‘the next big thing’. It appeared that the French New Wave had finally peaked.*

However, there was one called The Horde that showed promise.


A rogue foursome of cops sneak into a run-down tenement to take out a gang of drug dealers just as the city is hit by a zombie outbreak. In order to survive, the two sides band together in order to fight their way out.

It sounds like a lock, doesn’t it? It’s cops vs. gangsters vs. zombies! What could possibly go wrong? Weeelllll…

I think the prominent problem with The Horde is that the filmmakers just aren’t as skilled as the ones that came before them. High Tension was a brilliant mix of gore, sound design and, well… tension and the first half of Inside is a fucking work of art as far as I’m concerned. I found the editing in The Horde very disjointed and it often seemed like the camera wasn’t where it was supposed to be. It’s fairly unremarkable overall, staying at the same level throughout before ending rather clumsily. All the characters were pretty one-note, as well. Now, in a film like this, I don’t need my zombie-fodder to be multi-dimensional, but I do need them to be distinguishable. The only person who really showed any real colour here was Jo Prestia, and that’s because… well, it’s Jo motherfucking Prestia. Anyone who’s ever seen Irréversible is never going to forget that face.

If you see this man on the street, run the other way.

Okay, I’ll give Yves Pignot some credit too. His comic relief as old-timer René was worth a few chuckles. To be fair though, there is still some fun to be had. The thing about zombie flicks is, like slashers, they are a bread & butter genre. There is very little you have to do to make them palatable to people (myself included) who eat this shit up. Characters hole up in a location, the zombies attack, there’s gore-a-plenty and they do or don’t make it out. That being said, I think we should put a moratorium on a few things from now on. First and foremost, I don’t care what universe you’re from; we have all evolved enough as a race to know that to kill a zombie, you shoot it in the head. With Shaun Of The Dead & Zombieland fully penetrating the mainstream, this should be as common knowledge as a wooden stake or silver bullet. I don’t want to see characters wasting their entire arsenal before they figure out - or even worse have to be told – that they have to aim a foot or two higher. Secondly, if you’re bit, you’re dead. Off yourself right away and do everyone a favour. I can be a little more forgiving on this one, because they are always extenuating circumstances, but it’s time to face facts. Losing a loved one is hard, but so is having them rip into your throat as soon as they turn. Do the right thing, people.

All right guys, look alive!

The zombie flicks that persevere are the ones that bring something new to the table and/or raise the bar creatively. Though I liked it, The Horde seemed like a missed opportunity.


*The ‘shocker’ of 2009 turned out to be Antichrist, from Danish director Lars von Trier. This year’s frontrunner is from Serbia. If you haven’t heard about it yet, trust me, you will.

The Rest (Part 1 of 2)

The Horror Section was initially begun as a visual archive for VHS horror, namely the five-hundred or so titles that populated the video store I worked at from 1990 to 1994. Sure, my humble blog has grown from that, but the Coverbox Wednesdays segment was always the main focus. So here, after two-and-a-half years, we are at its bloody conclusion. Join me now, as I post the first part of the remainder now, with the remainder coming on the 23rd.

You can never go wrong with zombie chickens!


Great PG horror!


Yes, before he fought The Demonic Toys, he had his OWN movie.


Dodgeball anyone?


Classic sci-fi horror, often imitated, but never duplicated.

Out After Midnight.

Last Friday at the witching hour, I took in some horror shorts, as part of the Worldwide Short Film Festival. I was glad to get out for this year's "Creepy" programme, as last year I was occupied with Snip, my 2009 Film Race short.

Coincidentally, there were two shorts in the programme this year that were made as part of the Bloodshots 48-hour film challenge. The first was one was called Jack, which was entertaining, but I think it would have enjoyed it more, had I not already seen Jason Eisner's Treevenge. The second Bloodshots entry was called Chloe & Attie. I loved the look and sound design of this piece. It took the majority of its eight minutes to get going, but it hooked me by the end. Here's the trailer.

I really liked Peter Hatch's 5 Minute Dating, which was about a disfigured man who goes speed dating. The makeup effects were top notch and had a solid finish. I wonder if the writer of this short had a bad dating experience once and this is how he exorcised his demons.

The two animated shorts in the programme were among the strongest. The first was Mrdrchain from the Czech republic. The guide says it best when it describes it as "slice 'n dice animation". I love abstract stuff like this and it certainly didn't skimp on wonderfully grotesque imagery. It had a happy ending though... I think. The other one was a UK stop-motion animation curiosity called Battenberg. It's safe to say I loved this one. There's something about this style I've always dug, ever since I saw Jan Svankmeyer's Alice as a teen. Below, is a short clip for Mrdrchain, followed underneath by the trailer for Battenberg.

My favourite short of the night was likely Jonathan Van Tulleken's Off Season though. A simple story about a man and his dog robbing cottages during the winter gets creepy quickly. This one was pretty awesome and the only short that eve that actually got a physical reaction out of me. To check out of a clip of Off Season, click on the image below.

So, keep your eyes out for them! For more info on the WSFF's Creepy programme, click here.

Don't Kill The Messenger 64

I'm up a little earlier today, as I've got to get into town for a meeting in the afternoon. I've got some meaty things to talk about today, so let's go.

These Dead Are Made For Walking.

So, since I last talked about it, there's been a lot of progress on the upcoming TV adaptation of Robert Kirkman's epic zombie comic The Walking Dead. At this point, most of the major players have been cast, so let's go down the list.

Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes.

I have to say I'm glad they went with a relative unknown, as I was never really happy about the rumour it was gonna be Jonny Lee Miller. Lincoln to me is a blank page who, up to this point, is basically only the guy who did THIS in Love Actually.

Now, obviously if he's a good actor, having been a well known character previously wouldn't have mattered - like Michael C. Hall's Dexter and David Duchovny's Hank Moody have made us forget about them as David Fisher and Fox Mulder respectively - but it certainly makes things easier for the audience having a fresh face to play the extremely complex character of Rick.

Sarah Wayne Callies as Lori Grimes.

Since I never watched Prison Break (it always seemed like Oz-lite to me) I have no knowledge of Callies. From her pictures, she sure looks like Lori though. I willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.

Laurie Holden as Andrea.

Though I love Laurie Holden, when I first heard she was cast as Andrea, I was a little surprised. I always pictured Andrea as being in her mid-to-late twenties, which Holden may have been when she was playing Marita Coverubius on X-Files, but certainly not now. I guess the increase in the character's age doesn't make too much of a difference, I was just initially shocked, that's all. I must admit, envisioning Holden with a sniper rifle is pretty badass.

Jeffrey DeMunn as Dale.

Although, he's not as heavy as Dale is in the comic, DeMunn is a good choice. If there is indeed some Darabont nepitism going on here (DeMunn & Holden were both in Darabont's last project The Mist), then we are fortunate that he always works with great actors.

Steven Yeun as Glenn.

This guy's so green, I couldn't even find his picture to put up here. As much as I would have loved to have seen Ken Leung (Miles from Lost) play Glenn, he probably is a bit old for the part. What a break for Yeun. I hope he doesn't mind shaving his head!

As many characters that have been cast, there are several of great importance that still need to be made flesh, like Tyrese, Michonne and The Governor. Depending on how far along they are planning to go with the first season, they may not have to make those decisions until later though.

So in addition to casting, there has also been other stuff coming out this week. Having KNB EFX to do the zombie effects is awesome, and here is the first pic released of what they have in mind.

Also, click here to see a zombie decay demo put together by designer John Wheaton.

And now onto the promo, where Frank Darabont & Gale Ann Hurd discuss what drew them to the project and what they want to accomplish by bringing The Walking Dead to the small screen.



I'm officially stoked. See you all in October.

Another Look Back.

Jason Bene over at Killerfilm put up another great installment Late Night Classics this week. This time around he spoke with writer and director C. Courtney Joyner about his time working on the 1988 horror flick Prison. Here's a snip.

Jason Bene: Irwin Yablans had already produced the hits Halloween and Hell Night, and then decided to do this horror film set in a prison. How did you get brought on the team as one of the writers?

C. Courtney Joyner: Mike Vargas was a friend of mine from college and his father had actually been one of the investors in Hell Night. Mike went to USC with me and Jeff [Burr]. After we got out of college he actually asked me to work on a treatment for a futuristic prison story. He was then working for Irwin Yablans as an intern because his dad was still thinking about investing in movies. Irwin had started a new company called Voyager and Mike recommended me. I had written a spec script that I tried to sell with Jeff as director. It was called The Nightcrawlers, which was a kind of animalistic vampires in the sewers of Los Angeles kind of a thing. They read that and asked me to come in and see about writing the movie.

Jason Bene: How much of the horror elements in Prison is stuff that you brought to the table?

C. Courtney Joyner: One hundred percent. The thing was Irwin had the idea of doing a horror movie set in a penitentiary when he was over at Lorimar Productions. He was over there at that company and they had a deal with MGM. He actually had a script developed which he gave me to read, which I believe was at the time was called Horror in the Big House. I thought that was kind of a throwback to Chester Morrison and Bart McLean. Whoever the writer was, he was a big television guy, had taken the idea of Halloween in a penitentiary to the super extreme because he wrote a script about a maniac with a knife in a prison. I was like, “Irwin, the problem here is everyone in a penitentiary has a shiv, what are these guys afraid of”? This has to be supernatural. Poltergeist had just come out and kind of reinvigorated the idea of haunted house movies and ghosts and supernatural things. A movie that had taken us away from the Friday the 13th maniac, Don’t Look in the House route. I said “no, we’ve got to go supernatural”, and that was kind of the start of the whole thing.

For the full interview, click here.

More Zombie Action.

Cory has begun his yearly Zombie Movie Marathon over at


I really have to admire his gumption to write one review a day - for anything, let alone zombie flicks - for an entire month. So far, he's put up some thoughts on films such as the original NOTLD, the micro-budget flick Colin & [REC]2. He's really dipping into the well for some of the titles this time around, but I can't wait to hear his thoughts on Dead & Breakfast, The House By The Cemetary and Deathdream. My favourite thing though, is that he's trying to put up a zombie short each day, as well. I see a lot of shorts at festivals and such and they often disappear, so it's great that Cory is giving them some exposure. To keep up with the festivities, go here. And who knows, maybe I might be able to slip in one or two here over the next few weeks.

Blood, Boobs & Beasts.

You know, you gotta love Toronto if you're a movie fan. Or more importantly, a b-movie fan. Over the past few years, several rep theatres and clubs have sprouted up to cater to the esoteric. The giant multiplexes with their IMAX and 3-D are all good and well, but I would like to see a 35mm print of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 or Brian De Palma's Sisters, just as much. Coexistence is possible, and my fair city is taking great strides to prove it. The reason I bring it is up is that another such institution has arrived on the scene. In addition to the Trash Palace, The Toronto Underground and one I can't speak of without having to kill you, comes VHS Theatre. As midnight approached on Wednesday night, DirtyRobot and I joined about half-dozen other souls at The Comedy Bar on Bloor, to revel in the incredible awfulness of Don Dohler's 1982 alien-run-amok flick Nightbeast.

The brainchild of Toronto film aficionado Bub Logan, VHS Theatre came about when he just decided to step up and give the format that was once king some love. 35mm is awesome, but let's face it, a VCR is a hell of a lot easier to acquire and operate. And that is exactly what sets VHS Theatre apart. Yes, we were actually watching said movie on video tape, distorted sound and tracking lines intact. Oh, it warms the cockles of my heart just thinking about it. I wish I could better articulate what makes these old crusty titles so enjoyable to watch, despite their overwhelming flaws. Perhaps after you watch the trailer below, you will get the gist.

This screening of Nightbeast was a test run, but there's already another queued up. Next Wednesday night ushers in a viewing of Antonio Margheriti's Ark Of The Sun God, which Bub described as a cross between Rambo and Raiders. Umm, yes please!

With Suspect & Eyesore pitching in, Bub has a never-ending supply of titles he could showcase, but I aim to let him know he has any of these goodies at his disposal, as well.

I'm liking the way this summer is looking, folks.

Weird Science

After what seemed like a very long time coming, I finally got to see Vincenzo Natali’s latest film Splice at its Canadian premiere last week.


In the name of scientific discovery, two maverick scientists (Adrien Brody & Sarah Polley) splice together human & animal DNA to create a new life form. It doesn’t take long before things get beyond their control.

I have to say I was a bit taken aback when the credits rolled on this one, as it was definitely not what I was expecting. Everything I had seen of Splice up to that point led me to believe I was walking into a science gone wrong creature-feature, and yes, it is that, up to a certain point. Isn’t it funny that when it veered off from expectation in its third act, my initial reaction was disappointment? Despite that, I have to applaud Natali for bucking the system and giving me – if only for a few sequences – something that I won’t forget for a while. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised about how things played out, as one of the director’s biggest influences is David Cronenberg.

Whatever you're thinking of doing... DON'T!

As a film, Splice is well paced and since both characters throw out the ‘what not to do if you’re a scientist’ handbook early on, there was really only one scene that teetered on the brink of implausibility. It looked great and the designs of Dren’s many life cycles were some of the most striking I’ve seen in a while. I thought, for the most part, the CG was skillfully handled, but it obviously became easier to swallow once they were being mapped on an actual actress. Speaking of which, I want to mention Delphine Chanéac, as I thought she did a fantastic job as Dren.


It was also good to see Brandon McGibbon, who appears as Brody’s younger brother, as well. He & I shared the stage once or twice in our youth and it’s awesome to see that, after years of commercials and short-lived Canadian TV shows, he’s finally breaking through.

Splice is a simplistic film, but it took me seeing that the cast list was only seven people long for me to realize that. The themes and the questions raised make it seem a lot more grandiose, even if they are not always satisfactorily explored. I’m really interested to see how people react to Splice - and namely its last act – when it hits the three thousand screens that Warner Brothers and E1 Entertainment fought to procure this weekend. There has been nothing in their marketing campaign to suggest where this film’s subject matter goes. Myself, I’ll take a film that actually shoots for something over manufactured studio dreck any day of the week. But will the masses?


Regardless, I don’t need a cautionary tale like Splice to tell me that eventually, science, and our predisposition to mess around with it, is going to end us all.

Ain't That The Truth...

Here's a link to a funny article that's been burning up my Twitter feed this morning. Devin Faraci over at CHUD.com puts forth the question, 'what if JAWS had been made today?'

His observations, which include it being retitled Jaws: Rise Of The Great White and Sam Jackson cast as Quint are pretty bang on I'd say.

For the full article, click here.