For those wondering if they were going to get a chance to see how HHW was well here is a photo album of our weekend. It’s on my facebook so if we’re friends on there you’ve seen it. If not check it out:
And here is some old pics of our screening in Oct.
We had a great time at Horrorhound and it seriously was the best time we’ve had at HHW. Thanks to Bloody Good Horror, The Obscure 80′s crew, NOTLP, Brother D and Miss Bren, Mike from Cadaverlab, Metal Mikey, Scott, Patrick From NY, Andy from Destroy The Brain, Lord Dward, and any and all of you that stopped us to say hello. We had a hell of a time. We drank way to much and met some way awesome people. Listen later this week for a HHW recap.
At long last Warner Brothers is opening it’s vaults in a “on-demand” style of distribution. the DVD market has been lagging with overproduction and the rise in blue-ray sales, Down by nearly 7% in the last year. while this new service is not expected to eclipse new release it should bolster the market by making old and obscure films available to those of us who want them without wasting resources and retail space.
Warnerarchive.com has an initial 150 titles available; Including “My Blood Runs Cold”, “Doc Savage: Man of bronze” and” Countdown” staring James Caan and Robert Duvall. After this release the archive will be adding 20 new titles from film and television per month, which fans are invited to vote on the website on what should be released next. all DVDs have a price point of $19.95 plus shipping and can be downloaded to your computer.
It is unknown at this time if Warner archive will be offering DVD extras or supplemental material on any of these releases.
Source: Reuters
An interesting and possibly unprecedented debate has arisen in the cinematic world over the past few weeks. Similar arguments occur whenever two films dealing with similar themes gain a degree of prominence among movie buffs. Never before, to my knowledge, has such a dialectic centered upon comparisons between an animated Disney feature and an R-rated live action counterpart.
Fandom is embroiled in precisely the situation described above following the release of Watchmen, by 300 and Dawn of the Dead director Zack Snyder. The film’s dystopian vision of the effect exerted upon Cold War-era America by the influence of masked vigilantes seemed to immediately invite comparisons to Brad Bird’s 2004 animted phenomenon The Incredibles.
Let’s dispense with the most obvious similarity before going any farther. The outlawing of superheroes serves as the preamble to both stories.
Having set that rather superficial resemblance out of the way, several deeper parallels come to light: the major plot element that someone appears to be killing off former heroes, the theme of pure intelligence and technology getting the better of traditional heroics (at least temporarily), and even the exploration of the factors which qualitatively separate superheroes from everyone else. (There’s even an explicit admonition regarding the perils of capes, albeit handled humorously in The Incredibles and tragically in Watchmen).
Still, however many similarities the two movies share, they are far overshadowed by the thematic and tonal differences that distinguish them. The heart of the contrast between The Incredibles and Watchmen lies in the fundamental difference between the kind of story that each movie is trying to tell. The Incredibles is essentially a nostalgia trip that glorifies superheroes, employing them as symbols of excellence set against an (excuse the contradiction) extremely ordinary world. Watchmen, on the other hand, has a diametrically opposed agenda. Rather than venerating superheroes, it relentless deconstructs them–exposing all of its characters’ flaws and vices while asking the central question: “was handing over responsibility for our lives to these people really such a good idea?” As if to drive home the movie’s radical opposition to The Incredibles’ elevation of superheroes, one of Watchmen’s central characters remarks near the end, “your only triumph was failing to prevent humanity’s salvation.”
The dichotomy between the two movies seems to have been noticed, at least subconsciously, by those who argue over which is better, usually manifesting itself in the form of complaints that Watchmen is excessively dark and gory. However, gloominess in and of itself doesn’t necessarily constitute a flaw if it serves the story. Similar objections that Watchmen is simply dated due to its setting in the 1980s carry even less weight. After all, in order to make the case against this film, you’d have to admit the same fallacy of every period piece. At first glance, The Incredibles might seem like a period film, but upon closer inspection, the actual time in which the movie is set is left ambiguous in the theatrical version. The story of Mr. Incredible and his family takes place in an idealized version of suburbia peppered with an abundance of anachronisms to amplify the wistfulness factor.
The fact is that we’re dealing with two films: one an attempt to directly translate an original concept for the screen; another based on a satirized form of the initial concept. You’d be dealing with pretty much the same set of circumstances comparing a recent cover version of a Velvet Underground song to a Weird Al Yankovic parody of the original. That isn’t to say that The Incredibles isn’t a stellar film and a work of art (as should be clear to those who’ve seen by X Box Live avatar). The world that shapes, and is shaped by, the story is simply 180 degrees from the setting of Watchmen. There are many valid reasons for this divergence, but the primary explanation is the simple fact that Watchmen was published first. A product of the Cold War paranoia that dominated the time of its conception, all its characters have to look forward to is the looming dread of inevitable nuclear war–a sentiment shared by many of its readers. Arriving after the fact, The Incredibles presents an equally topical criticism of our own times. The omnipresent threat of global annihilation has long since given way to a pervasive sense of malaise that in many ways represents the anticlimax at the end of the Cold War. Instead of a world taken to the brink by superheroic meddling, it’s a stultified, mundane existence where only the reemergence of superheroes can overthrow the universal enforecement of mediocrity.
So i’ve taken a position blogging for CHUD.com. CHUD is a decent sized film website that has web traffic that we could only dream of. So I figured it would be a good way of promoting Drunken Zombie while also being able to talk about things that don’t fit into Drunken Zombie. But don’t worry. Any reviews or blogs about horror stuff will also be posted here but maybe delayed a few days. But yeah stop by and check out my first blog post about the Script review of the Nightmare On Elm Street remake that was just posted today by Latino Review.
We talk about the Wes Craven film SHOCKER during this episode. Follow along as many jokes are made. Also we berate Uncle Randy for having dinner with his ex girlfriend, surprise Dave with his own theme music, and the gang was pretty prolific in their Horror Fix this week so get ready to hear about some movies.
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It’s a light week again, well, really I’m swamped at work and can’t be bothered to find more trailers. Let’s get right to it.
Now, I’ve seen this film repeatedly referred to as a comedy. Well, this trailer is seriously lacking the funny. Yet, with that said, it still looks pretty darn interesting. Iceland gets in on the country-folk-torturing-and-killing-people-who-have-wandered-into-their-territory genre but adds a nice new twist to it by setting the film on a boat. Gunnar Hansen, Leatherface himself, makes a very brief cameo in the trailer so it looks like they got their inspiration from the right place too. All in all, put me in the interested category as the trailer manages some nice low key creepiness and promises plenty of the harder stuff as well.
That’s it for this week. As always thanks to twitchnet for pointing this one out. If you want to discuss this film just head over to the forums.
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For our 60th episode we talk about the Lance Henricksen classic Pumpkinhead. Also Brian sits in with us (Lemon Police on the Forums). We do a LOT of voicemail and emails, chat about The Grudge, and even though we didn’t plan on having a surprise picture during this episode one shows up in my email anyway from a very strange website. Check it out below.
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Well, it looks like it’s a really good time to like vampire movies from Asian. Not only is Blood: The Last Vampire on its way but so are another two Asian vampire flicks. Let’s check them out.
This is the one I’m really excited about. From the director of the Vengeance trilogy, (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Old Boy and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance) we have this new Korean film featuring the star of The Host. Long story short it’s about a priest who becomes a vampire. Things obviously go badly from there. Check out the trailer.
This other film is sure to get confused with Blood: The Last Vampire, what with the very similar title. However, it goes in a completely different direction, with a far more exploitative and sexual focus. The imagery seems to be much more typical of vampire movies, take that as you will.
With Asia and vampires out of the way, let’s talk about Britian and serial killers for a minute, shall we? You see, I’m tempted to call this new movie just another torture porn/Saw wannabe but the problem is I’m actually pretty fascinated by the concept. A man and his girlfriend are driving along when the man spots a woman trying to escape from a truck in front of them. He calls the police but chooses not to become directly involved. Until his girlfriend disappears and he notices the same truck leaving the scene. It looks like what follows is an intense chase that becomes a game of cat and mouse. Add to that, tense moments in the trailer and I’m actually enthused. We’ll just have to see if my excitement is justified.
That’s it for this week. Thanks to twitchfilm for pointing out some of these movies. As always if you want to discuss any of them just head over to the forums.
Many of us have been waiting for Sam Raimi to put Spiderman down and do some more horror films so when it was announced that his next film was going to be Drag Me To Hell no one was more pumped than me. The trailer has hit the web and from what I have seen I am excited. Some have not liked it but I think it has some interesting imagery that I want to see where it all goes. So we’ll see when it hits theaters. Check it out below.
For our closing installment of our Hammer Horror series we go full circle and watch Horror Of Dracula. Also we again surprise Randy with what may be a new T-Shirt design, Randy also gets a call from a gypsy, and we talk about Watchmen. Check out the new shirt design below.
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And we’re back. This time with two new trailers for previously covered films and one entirely new trailer with an interesting visual style. Let’s get right to it, shall we?
The concept for Spanish film is certainly not the most original. A group of people out in the woods playing paintball find themslves under fire from someone with a real gun. It’s been done before, many times to be honest. And yet there’s something about the trailer which is oddly fascinating. You see the entire thing is shown in first person POV in negative. It’s such an odd stylishic choice that I’m now curious to see what the film actually holds.
Jake West new films is back with an “official” trailer. Apparently, official means basically the same with a some of the lame attempts at humor cut out.
If you’re interested twitchnet has been kind enough to post the trailer here.
I can’t tell you how excited I am about this film. Well, yes, I can. I’m very excited and the new trailer only adds to that. It filled to the brim with slice, dicing and people getting their heads cut off. What more could you ask for?
That’s it for this week. Thanks to twitchfilm for posting the Doghouse trailer.
“I can handle anything.” Famous last words from Producer Amanda as we settled into our theater seats to catch an early screening of the latest remake. I had explained to her that the original movie had some pretty disturbing rape scenes and just over all brutality. She had never seen the original. After we left she said “Maybe I couldn’t handle the rape scene as well as I thought.”
The movie starts out with an escape from police custody by the criminal Krug. His brother and girlfriend bust him out of a police car. We find out right away that these three are pretty depraved individuals. Cut to a hospital where a doctor is just finishing up his shift before him and his family go on a summer vacation to their house in the mountains. His daughter Mary is a swimmer that seems to be obsessed with her swim time. They get to their mountain house that is sort of secluded and Mary decides to go hang out with her friend Paige that lives in the small town near by. The parents say it’s okay but the mother is a little nervous as a year ago their son had passed away. Paige turns out to be a bad influence on Mary and talks her into going to buy some weed from a kid in the store. They follow him back to his hotel room and we find out that he is in fact Krug’s son when Krug and the rest of his group come back to find the girls in their room. Krug’s escape made the paper is afraid that th girls will rat them out. Paige tries to make a run for it but Krug’s brother Francis knocks her out.
They take Mary’s truck and begin to drive into the mountains with the girls in the back seat. Mary tries to make a break for it by burning Krug’s girlfriend Sadie with a cigarette lighter. This only gets the girls beaten. Paige makes a run for it but is eventually caught by Francis and Saide. After a pretty brutal rape scene Mary tries to make a break for it by jumping into the lake but Krug takes some shots at her and hits her in the back.
The group decides to seek out shelter when a bad rain storm comes in and it just so happens that the only house they can find is the one belonging to Mary’s parents. At some point Mary is able to swim back to her house and crawl up onto the porch. I wish that I was actually spoiling this for people but that part is in the stupid trailer. The parents then realize who the people are staying with them and enact their own revenge for the pain they have done to their daughter.
I actually really enjoyed this film. It is in no means going to have any sort of social impact like the original did but all in all it was a good film. The acting is actually pretty decent. There are a few scenes where you just have to roll your eyes at the obsurdity of some of the scenes at the beginning but once the brutality starts it’s not hard to buy into the fact that the girls are terrified. One difference is that this film’s focus seems to be more on the parents taking revenge aspect. If my memory of the original serves the parents getting revenge is more of just the conclusion of the movie where here it’s more of where the story is trying to get to. It plays a much larger part to the story. The villians in this are truely dispicable. By the end you can’t wait to see something bad happen to them. That being said I liken this movie as being set up almost like a reverse slasher film. Everyone has said that the latest FRIDAY remake that you hated most of the kids and wanted them to die. In this you set up the characters (this time the killers) and they are horrible and you want them to die. Enter the slasher(s) (this time the good guys) and you root for them to enact sweet savage revenge on them. It works very well for this movie. The main theme in the movie is about family. We see it in different aspects in the film. The dynamics between Mary and her parents and then Krug and his son play on all different aspects of family connections and how different some connections can be.
This is definately a remake that some people can understand. LAST HOUSE is probably one of Craven’s least popular films among common movie goers so it’s a good one to update and be able to reintroduce to people. The plot is pretty much the same with some small tweaks in the how the story plays out. I would have thought that the producers would have known better than to give away the spoiler of Mary living through her gunshot as it could have been a very effective moment in the film but instead it loses some of that since you know going in that she is coming back.
While this isn’t going to be the best horror film out there it is a good horror choice to see. It’s an updated version of the story that adds something a little different. Most remakes any more don’t do that and it’s nice to see it work here.
For the 3rd part of our Hammer series we talk about their version of The Mummy. So far we are 2-1 in our Hammer movies. Hopefully we’ll end it on a good note next week with The Horror Of Dracula. We talk more about 42nd Street Forever, Rory challenges Randy’s infertility, and we unveil a new Monkey picture for Randy from Crazy Lawn Mower Guy. Check it out below.
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