Day 245 : 3618534 steps

Again, it's more apologies for not doing what I promised to do. It's just that since my October Zombiethon, I've not stopped watching films long enough to actually get around to reviewing them properly. For example, the last three days I've taken in three French 'horror' flicks, all very different. The most recent was 'Les Diaboliques' from 1954. In brief it was a stunning film but it did let slip the twist a little too early. How brief was that!!?
Before that, I watched 'High Tension'/'Switchblade Romance'. Now, there's a film to cause a rumpus due to it's final twist that completely undermines all that went before. I've read a few reviews online that try to tidy it up but I'm not sure if I'm convinced. I think I need to go back and rewatch it again and see if these theories make any sense.
Luckily, the third French flick doesn't need re-visiting soon. I will admit that 'Inside' was very close to turning me at the end. Okay, so the characters don't always act in a logical way (one criticism that reoccurs is that why didn't the heroine try to escape from the house...maybe the clue is in the title, duhhhh?! Who's to say how we'd act in these circumstances?!), but it definately delivers as far as the gore content is concerned. It was one of those films that, love it or hate it, most assuredly left an impression and that, in my book, is a good thing.....even if it was for all the wrong reasons!

On a lighter note, 'Turkish Superman' is class!!!! :p

Day 236 : Where does the time go?!

Well, I know exactly where it went last month anyway. It started as a little Halloween fun on Facebook. I decided to change my profile pic to that of a different zombie every day for the month of October. On the 1st of that month, a close friend of mine and fellow horror fan came a-calling so we ended up watching 'Zombie Creeping Flesh' again!!! It was afterwards that I decided to set myself a further Halloween challenge, a different zombie movie for every day in October. At first, I wasn't sure if it was feasable but I soon came to realise that there were plenty to choose from and that there was no way I could fit them all in. I did cram in a couple of double-bills so by the end of the month I had managed to view 41 undead flicks!!! Out of those, I had only seen nine and a half of them before (the half being 'Night of the Comet' which I know I had seen some of during the 80's....). The rest were a mixed bag of meatbags, some great, some not so great. Here is the complete list and I will be adding more about some of the stand-out titles very soon. I will just say that out of the whole bunch, it's the 80's Italian movies that I've enjoyed the most. I know I didn't squeeze in the famous Fulci ones (mainly due to me seeing both 'The Beyond' and 'City of the Living Dead' in late September), which are my favourite zombie films (yes, even over Romero! Put that in your crack-pipe!) but even the low budget ones were so daft as to keep me entertained more than any Hollywood Summer blockbuster. Anyway, that said, I'm off to watch something else now which I will hopefully get around to writing about.........soon!

1. Zombie Creeping Flesh (aka 'Hell of the Living Dead') (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082559/)

2. Zombie 4 : After Death (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094620/)
3. Flight of the Living Dead (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0780583/)
4. Sars Wars (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0470402/)
5. Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (aka 'The Living Dead at manchester Morgue') (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071431/)
6. Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068370/)
7. It Came from the West (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1117542/)
8. Zombie Lake (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081027/)
9. Oasis of the Zombies (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0474531/)
10. Poultrygeist : Night of the Chicken Dead (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0462485/)
11. Return of the Living Dead (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089907/)
12. Night of the Living Dead (1969) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063350/)
13. Nightmare City (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080931/)
14. Sexy Killer (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1056416/)
15. Night of the Creeps (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091630/)
16. Dellamorte Dellamore (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109592/)
17. Zombie Strippers (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0960890/)
18. Fido (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0457572/)
19. Mangue Negro (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1329396/)
20. La Horde (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1183276/)
21. Dawn of the Dead - Extended Mall Hours version (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077402/)
22. Redneck Zombies (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093833/)
23. Tokyo Zombie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0451954/)
24. The Dead Next Door (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094962/)
25. Outpost (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0892899/)
26. Dead Snow (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1278340/)
27. Stacy : Attack of the Schoolgirl Zombies (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0368296/)
28. Revolt of the Zombies (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028174/)
29. Shockwaves (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076704/)
30. REC 2 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1245112/)
31. Junk (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0273302/)
32. Burial Ground (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081248/)
33. Last of the Living (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1351177/)
34. Choking Hazard (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0401320/)
35. Wild Zero (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0267116/)
36. The Dead Pit (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0122037/)
37. 28 Weeks Later (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0463854/)
38. Zombie Wars (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0897444/)
39. The Midnight Hour (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089593/)
40. I Sell the Dead (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0902290/)
41. Night of the Comet (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087799/)

BRAAAAAAIIIIIIINSSSS!!!!

Day 189 : A new beginning!!!

So, to cut a long story short, I lost my record breaking pedometer!!!! I was absolutley gutted. I have a new Pokewalker though but it's just not the same as my ol' Pikachu. It happened when I was hungover and I went to pick my son up from school. I am not blaming it's loss for the hiatus that this blog has been experiencing but it is partly invovled. The other part has been that I've just had lots of things to do.
Anyways...back to the main reason I started this blog and that is horror, zombies and other things that go bumping in the night (oo-er!).
Since last I wrote, I've enjoyed and endured many things and it's hard to know where to begin. So much so that rather than try and recall all that I've been witness to I would rather begin anew. So, I'm gonna cut this short and watch the end of a rather dubious Italian effort known as 'Zombi 4 : After Death' which I began watching the other night. So far, some of the FX looked pretty good for the budget but the plot and characters are insane!!!! I'll let you know more tomorrow when I'm good and done with the flick.
I know what you're thinking...'why watch that shite?!!'. Well, I've been working my way through the Italian zombie movies lately. I started with 'Zombie Creeping Flesh' and have since viewed 'Zombi 3' (which Fulci's name is somehow still attached to but there's little evidence of his style on show as Bruno Mattei took over at some point), both of which I enjoyed more than I expected. This is espescially so of the former as I only ever saw that years ago in a brutalised version. Okay, so it's pretty rubbish but good, fun trash!!!

Day 3099 : (4)4828289 steps

Sorry I haven't posted in a while but more reviews soon. What have I been watching, you may well ask? Indeed, you might and so I will tell. Some film reviews coming soon will include the 70's girl gang epic, "Switchblade Sisters", the daft 80's Mad Max meets The Seven Samuri epic, "World Gone Wild" (Should have called it "The MadMaxian Seven!!") and the early 70's creepy "Tower of Evil". Also, some more to come about 'Hammer House of Horror'.
So where have I been? Just doing other stuff such as playing Pokemon again and just this and that, y'know...work, rest and play stuff.
So, expect some reviews over the next few days but for now just an apology and a promise that normal service, whatever that may be, will be resumed as soon as possible.

Day 3079 : (4)4555175 steps

The long over due post....

I've been kinda busy but that doesn't mean I haven't been seeking out things to review. So without further excuses on my part...

Armchair Thriller : Quiet as a Nun

After seeing that Hammer House of Horror I got to thinking about other things that had scared me witless as a child. 'Armchair Thriller' was a show from Thames Television back in the late 70's. I always remembered two things about it. The first was the spooky intro sequence which pictured an armchair (duh!) in a semi-darkened room. Along comes a shadow of a man which walks up to seat and appears to sit in it. And, just to make that final impact the eerie music swells as the shadow opens it's hands and the camera zooms quickly into the face of the spectre. Always used to put the willies up me then and I'm not sure if I have childhood issues or something but I still find it unnerving now, wuss that I am!

So to the episode in question. Well, I thought it was just an episode but it turns out to be six but memories of the show are limited to one scene inparticular. The scene in question is when Jemima Shore, the lead character (who later went on to have a series dedicated to her investigations called, origianlly, 'Jemima Shore Investigates'), while expolring an old tower near the nunnery encounters the Black Nun (no relation to the Blue Nun, that awful table wine favoured by elderly brits abroad). Here is the clip....here!

Now, even now I still think the nun looks pretty evil but back when I was about eight years old I thought it was terrifying, espescially since I then had to go up to my room on my own and tidy up my lego that I'd been playing with earlier. It didn't help having two older brothers telling me that the Black Nun was going to get me while I was up there. No sirrreeee!

Anyway, nostalgia aside, the entire saga is on youtube so you can go and check it out for yourselves if you really want to but I wasn't overly impressed with the entire thing. Although some of the performances are great and there are some very atmospheric moments, it is generally a bit slow and also ends in a very contrived manner, almost like an episode of Scooby Doo. It does have a mixed bag castwise too,including David Burke (Dr Watson in the Sherlock Holmes TV show by Granada), James Laurenson (who appeared in 'The Monster Club' amongst other things...but more about that later!) and a very young Patsy Kensit as one of the convent schoolgirls who doesn't give too bad a performance to be honest.

So, perhaps more Armchair Thrillers soon (as there is another episode that creeped me out back then but for different reasons)...? Maybe.
Dead Snow

Horray for zombies!! Double huzzah for zombie nazis!!!! Had a voucher for a free DVD rental from our local Blockbuster but since they didn't stock my preferred title ('Tokyo Gore Police') I went for this Norwegian effort instead. That makes it sound like I was disappointed and that this film turned out to be a chore but that's not true. I'd heard good things about 'Dead Snow' and seen a few clips and was intrigued enough to want to see it. I mean, it's not often that a decent zombie flick comes around so make the most of 'em when they do.

It's the usual premise of the bunch of teenagers go holidaying in an isolated cottage and unwittingly unleash an old evil that'll kill them all. This time the cottage is a chalet in the snowy mountains and frozen fjords of Norway, the teenagers are a group of medical students that provide the usual death fodder for the ol' evil...yes, nazi zombies!!! Do they kill them all? Well, without this being a spoiler for a number of reasons, yes they do. Why is this not a spoiler? Firstly, I'm really struggling to remember any zombie film where the undead lose to the living. Can anyone think of any? Secondly, my oldest son asked what happens and I told him everyone dies. Thinking this rather sad, I comforted him by explaining how horror flicks will often add a twist ending (sometimes for no reasonable reason!) in which the final survivor will die or at least left in mortal peril. To illustrate I showed him the final scenes from the original 'Friday 13th' and 'Nightmare on Elm Street'! Much humour was gleaned from Nancy's dummy Mom being dragged through the window (especially as I showed it over and over again quickly adding my own daft sound effects). Anyway, I digress...

'Dead Snow' goes overboard on the grue when things eventually get going. Yes, it's a bit slow to start but it soon warms up. The setting is nice and bleak, the zombies are always more evil-looking when dressed in the garb of the Third Reich and the gore is slapstick and sickenening in equal doses. For a low budget film it does very well, delivering what it says on the tin with aplomb! I only ask, please, no sequal!! There is no need and it just wouldn't work.

Hammer House of Horror : Rude Awakening

Yes, I've also seen another episode. This one, I believe was the first one to be aired and featured Denholm Elliot as an estate agent who gets caught up in a macabre 'Groundhog Day' sort of plot. He plans to leave his wife and marry his secretary but when he visits a rundown country house for a valuation he is accused of murdering his wife by a disembodied voice as the body of his spouse tumbles out of the dumb waiter. He awakes, writes it all off as a bad dream but then it all starts to happen again, in a roundabout way. Each dream is different slightly (for example, the secretary goes through a variety of fashion disasters, the house is delapidated, then not there at all and then back but well kept, etc) but they always end with the voice accusing him of murder. The voice is provided by the man who enters the office at the beginning of the story and sends Denholm to the house...James Laurenson again!!! Okay, so it's only a minor coincidence but these things have a habit of snowballing in my tiny mind.

This episode was nowhere near as unnerving as the Doppelganger story mentioned earlier but it was enjoyable nonetheless. I'll probably mention more episodes as I see them.

Now, talking of coincidences, I mentioned zombies never lose, yes? Well, I had a quick game of Top Trumps with my son earlier using the Horror deck. After a long, drawn out game, I eventually won. Why do I mention this? Well, I beat his last card with a none too special one of my own. Yeah, you guessed the twist ending to this tale. It was the zombie card!!! What are the chances of that happening, eh?

:p

Day 3070 : (4)4407730

Hammer House of Horror - Two Faces of Evil

I just had to make a post about this. Currently on the 'Men and Motors' channel are repeats of the old TV series that I used to love as a kid (I was only nine when it first aired!!), Hammer House of Horror. It was a short-lived series but when has there ever been a long-running horror series on television?

Anyway, last night I saw the 'Two Faces of Evil' episode which is one I did not recall ever seeing in my 'yoof' and good job too. Why? Well, because from the initial sight of the yellow sowesta-wearing hitch-hiker the whole episode was just eerie. I'm older now (duuh!), but it still had me a little creeped out.

So what happens? The hitcher is picked up by a family (husband, wife and ten year old son) who are travelling to a holdiay cottage somewhere in middle England. After making some strange gutteral noises, he attacks the husband and the car crashes. The wife wakes up in a strange hospital to find that, although her son is uninjured, her hubbie has had to undergo some surgery on his throat to remove some windshield glass. Did I say strange hospital? Yes I did. The unwholesome atmosphere continues as we meet the cold ward sister and the jolly, in a slightly insane way, doctor who is looking after them. There is something not quite right about the place, to be sure! To cut a long story short, and not to give away too many spoilers, they eventually get to their holiday cottage where, as the husband slowly recovers, the wife begins to suspect that he is not what he appears to be.
This short is pretty much carried by the performance of the wife played by Anna Calder-Marshall. She gives a very convincing portrayal considering the slightly uneven plot. Also Alan Gibson's direction, espescially in the first half of the film, is very effective in creating the unsettling feel to the goings on. Okay, so it does end in a bit of hokey-horror fashion and leaves many things unanswered (the severed hand for example! Did I mention that? No? Good...) but it did enough in the hour to keep me glued to my gogglebox for the entirety.
Expect more posts about this series as and when I see them!
:D

Day 3060 : (4)4301312 steps

44 million, 300 thousand +!! Woooohooooo! Although that's not the sound my feet are making right now. They sound more like the moaning undead from any Romero zombie flick though, luckily they've yet to get quite as ugly as those shuffling fiends.
Speaking of zombies, Derren Brown's new four part series started tonight, the first being 'How to Win the Lottery'. 'Huh?', you might say so let me explain....
I'm not sure exactly when I first became aware of the guy but I remember just thinking of him as just another stage hypnotist like Paul McKenna and their ilk. It was only when perusing the internet some years ago that I came across his 'Zombie Video Game Prank'. If you haven't seen it then here's the link.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2428437236878343763#

After seeing that (and wiping the tears of laughter away at the poor sucker's reactions to suddenly finding himself besieged by zombies), I began to watch whatever I could of Derren Brown. He is one facinating performer to say the least.

So, onto tonight's show. Firstly, I should mention that during the previous Wednesday night's Lottery draw he was broadcasting live on another channel. He successfully predicted all six of the lottery numbers and tonight's show went some way to explain the processes he used to do so. Now, already there have been various theories about this but his explanation involved a certain old phenomenom called 'The Wisdom of Crowds' which to me seemed reasonably plausable. I won't bother to explain it all here (what are you, lazy?! Go look it up yourselves ya workshy fops!!) but I will add that at the end of the show they previewed next weeks 'event' in which he will be broadcasting a subliminal film that will literally stick you to your chair! I'm asuming, as with all hypnotic suggestion, that this will not work on everyone who watches but I, for one, am quite willing to participate. I do hope he does release us subjects afterwards as I'd rather not spend the rest of this winter TIED TO THIS FUCKING COUCH!!

;)