Hope I am back to doing some regular posting here at Necrotic Cinema. Have figured out a method to keep the post updated using proxies and hopefully it will continue to work until Blogger is unblocked again here in China. I have a lot of material to draw on and lets hope and pray that my little method continues to work, as things can change. I had no problem with deciding which of many horror films to write about with this return to Necrotic Cinema. I was simply taken back by the R-rated, independent horror film DeadGirl. I am so tired of PG-13 horror and lost my passion for locating Sam Rami’s new return to horror movie Drag Me to Hell when I read it was PG-13. Of course I will see the film, I simply wanted something that would knock my socks off and usually PG-13 just cannot do that. Deadgirl did. Now I am not saying that this is some super great film. It is fine indie horror film with a cast of essentially unknown faces. I read some reviews that over analyze the film and call it a “sub-standard horror film”. Look the film is basically a horror film about necrophilia and you can criticize how effectively the filmmakers explored their characters motivations and reactions to what they do but in the end it is a film about raping, if not a corpse, a zombie of some sorts. There is gore, action and loads of teenage angst. So if you want to set back and over analyze the film’s intentions and symbolism you may find it wanting. If, on the other hand, you just want to see a couple of screwed up geek boy misfits, and even a couple jocks, have sex with a putrid zombie and get wants coming to them in the end then I can highly recommend this film from directors Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel and writer Trent Haaga. From I read the movie was not even shot or edited on film but rather employed the same digital technique David Fincher used on Zodiac. I had my doubts about the new digital movie making processes when I read about them a couple years ago but the movie looks like it was shot on real film.

 The film on one level is a black comedy coming of age film. If coming of age is to be interpreted as having sex for the first time and leaving the innocence of childhood behind then Deadgirl could be seen a sick spoof of the Porkys, American Pie and Fast Times at Ridgemont High type films that seemed to send the message that all American teenage boys are so horny and pent up that they do anything for sex and especially to loose their virginity and become ‘real men’ finally. The two lead characters Rickie and J.T. (Shiloh Ferdandez and Noah Segan) play the brooding high school outsiders who have given hope of having a really great girlfriend since those types of girls (like good girl JoAnn played by Candice Accola) only date the popular jock types. J.T. admonishes Rickie’s lingering stares at JoAnn, a girl he has loved since she kissed him when he was five years old. Look, say what you want, the guy may harbor dreams of true love with a good girl but he is a little creepy and disillusioned as he gazes longlingly at JoAnn. J.T. is a little more grounded in reality when he reminds Rickie he has a snowball’s chance in Hell if having anything to do with JoAnn. To relieve the tension of their anguished teenage lives the lads decided to go chug some brewskies at an abandoned insane asylum and break a bunch of things. The boys go down into the basement area and are chased by a guard dog that lives in the basement (this would imply some human tends to the dog food needs and most likely occasionally patrols the area as well but this never seems to the case). The chase leads them to a locked door that they see as a possible way out but instead it leads to a dark room that contains what appears to be a dead girl wrapped in plastic. They inspect the strapped down girl (Jenny Spain) closer and find that she is not dead at all. Legitimate criticism could be made here regarding the boy’s decisions and Rickie’s blind loyalty to an asshole like J.T. who even punched Rickie in the face real good in order to prove whose opinion is right. We never find out who the girl is or why she is strapped or why she was left here when all other important supplies were removed when the asylum was closed down. Suspension of disbelief is required and we must accept a few loop holes in order for the story to move along and get to the necrophilia and mayhem we know is coming.

 Rickie returns the next day with a gun toting J.T. who has discovered that the girl is not only not alive but cannot be killed off in her current state. To prove this he pumps a few slugs into her in front of a shocked Rickie. J.T. also used the girl as a punching bag. The next logical step after finding out you have a bound up zombie chick who cannot be killed and who is probably smelling ripe is what? Report it to the cops or a responsible adult? No, you have sex with her. J.T. is soon doing the dead girl and Rickie refuses to participate, earning J.T.’s scorn. After all, what would JoAnn thnk if she knew he was banging a corpse in the basemen of the deserted asylum. Soon another geeky stoner named Wheeler (Eric Podnar) is humping the pathetic dead girl (at $10 a pop going to J.T.). Rickie’s plans to free the girl with bolt cutters is put on hold and he simply is overwhelmed by all that is going on. In a later attempt he manages to cut one iron bracelet with the bolt cutters, with the girl showing kindness by caressing his finger slightly, but is interrupted by J.T. and hides. Later J.T. gets his face clawed by an angry dead girl who obviously has no kind feelings towards her captor and tormentor.

 Ricthie is seen gawking secretly over JoAnn in the library by her jocko boyfriend Johnny (Andrew DiPalma) and his sidekick Dwyer (Nolan Gerard Funk) and they meet him and Wheeler and in parking lot and beat the hell out of them both. Dumb ass Wheeler can’t keep his mouth shut and tells the jocks they don’t a girl like JoAnn because they have the pussy (his words not mine) they could ever want. I guess this intrigues the jocks and soon they in the basement looking on the dead girl in amazed disgust as a pimpish looking J.T. eggs them on with challenges and dares. Soon Rickie is pushing the jocks on, betting they have never even had a blowjob before. Well after Dwyer decides to have some of the necro-action Johnny is getting his first ever hummer and his first ever ‘gnawjob’ as the dead girl takes a bite out his manhood. Rickie had a change of heart as he realized the impending danger, but it was a little too late I fear.

 The next day in class Johnny ain’t looking or feeling to good and go to the john were he has the worst bowel movement of his short life and spills his guts (literally) in the can. J.T. is actually getting sort of disgusted with the oozing dead girl and devises some plan to create a new zombie lover. He and Wheeler foil their first attempt at kidnapping a female when she beats both their asses. As luck would have it though JoAnn shows up wanting an explanation for what happened to Johnny and soon she is tied up to a pole with the dead girl. A final confrontation in the basement leaves Wheeler with a hand or entrails and J.T. with a bitten face wanting to die rather than become like his victim. The dead girl shows Rickie mercy and escapes but JoAnn is infected from a wound received by the dead girl. There is a is a happy ending to all this when at the end a cheery looking Rickie returns to the basement to tend to a strapped up, and ‘dead’, JoAnn. We can only assume his intentions are honorable. There never seems to be any police investigation into the disappearance of all these high school kids but we can figure that happens later off camera. I am actually glad they did not write in any cop characters even though it would have added some reality to the story. The sex and violence is fairly graphic and is at times gratuitous and exploitive. That’s does not bother me but it might some people. And despite some flaws in the storyline (flaws any horror movie is going to have really) I found it to be a good horror film and hope the open ending here spawns a well done sequel though the film would be perfect if left alone as is. 

I will start this review off by saying I really liked writer/director Victor Salva’s Jeepers Creepers II as much, if not more, than the first film despite the flaws and storyline holes. One can always say that there is nothing new under the sun and certainly regarding the horror film genre everything has been done before and if by chance something original crops up it soon will be duplicated to death. Whenever I watch a horror film I am well aware that what I am about to see will no doubt be derived from tested formulas that have come before. In this regard that is why I enjoyed this sequel more than the first film, because of the clichés it wisely relied upon. The most apparent cliché would be having more teenagers to hunt down than the first film did ergo more dead bodies. The first film did great for the first part of the movie, with siblings Trisha and Darry being pursued through the back roads of Alabama by the satanic, supernatural serial killer dubbed the Creeper. The film though really starts to lag towards the end and the sequence in the police station was simply absurd filler. Jeepers Creepers II does not fall into this trap since we have a bus load of teenagers with personality issues to keep the Creeper busy.

Another well used, to a degree, horror film formula here is using the bus to create a sense of claustrophobia. Some of the best horror movies are the ones that exploit a closed in, trapped situation where the potential victims not have to contend with the evil outside but with other and themselves as well. Alien, The Thing, Dawn of Dead and any number of cheesy haunted mansions have employed this theme to effective or dreadful effect too many times to calculate with the unaided human mind. If you are not a fan of derivative horror (as though there were any other kind as I have tried to argue already) then this film will not do much for you. I am and I have enjoyed each time I have watched it. The film, as well as the first Jeepers Creepers, gets hit hard in reviews online even from some sites I usually align myself. I am not sure what all the hostility is about. Maybe the name of Francis Ford Copplola and his Zeotrope Studios makes everyone have extremely high expectations. Maybe director Victor Salva’s criminal record, that includes prison time, for sex crimes against a minor taint his work. These things can affect the way one sees a film and can cause them to read much more into the movie than may really be there. Some people just can’t watch a Woody Allen any more but I am still a devoted fan. I just would not have either Salva or Allen babysit for me is all.

Jeepers Creepers II takes up on the very next day where the last film left off. It is now day 23, the last day of the Creeper’s feeding cycle he performs every 23 years. Hardworking farmer Jack Taggart (Ray Wise) and his son Jack, Jr. are terrified and devastated when little Billy is swept away by one of the scarecrows. A strange knife like weapon is found in the area of the corn field where Billy vanished. Jack sits and bids his time by the police scanner. Far away on Kassel County’s Highway 9 a yellow school bus loaded with a group of victorious and pumped up basketball (maybe football, not sure) players are returning from a game. There is tension amongst the players that stem from both team rivalry and racism. The cheerleaders, coaches and crew are along for the trip as well. The bus gets a flat tire and the source is a strange, flesh decorated throwing star. A girl is soon having psychic dreams that connects her with the dead Darry (Justin Long) from the first film. She is jolted awake when the bus receives yet another flat tire from another demonic looking throwing star. The film accelerates for a time and all the adults are picked off quickly, leaving the competitive and hot headed teens to sort out the serious situation without recourse to grown up wisdom. They soon find themselves trapped inside the bus as the Creeper peers in through the window, sniffing for the types of fears that tell him whose body parts will serve as meals later. Of course we know by know that the Creeper eats selected body parts to replace his own and is probably immortal.

Jack Taggart finally arrives on the scene, after some carnage has eliminated a few kids, with a homemade harpoon mounted on the back of his truck and is soon impaling the Creeper who fights back much the way a marlin might struggle with a fisherman’s hook. In fact he is like Captain Ahab seeking Moby Dick in his maniacal obsession to destroy the Creeper and avenge Billy’s death. Despite negative reviews I feel the action at this point is decent and the Creeper is brought down in bits by the last part of the film. Of course the thing cannot really die and at the film’s conclusion he appears to go into some sort of dormant state and the ending, with Jack Taggart standing vigil over the now desiccated carcass of the Creeper, is a perfect set up for a Jeepers Creepers III, which I understand will be released way off in 2011. Jeepers Creepers III is supposed to focus on a fully grown and established Patricia (Darry’s sister in part 0ne) twenty three years later and her concerns that her son will become a target for the Creeper’s insatiable appetite. Like the first film there is certainly a need to suspend disbelief. And while we know what the Creepers behaviors and powers are we still have no idea who he is and where he comes from. Maybe this is not necessary really and if a story was contrived to explain all this it would have to be really good. Jonathan Breck reprises his role as the Creeper and over all the Creeper is still one of the scarier serial characters I have run across in a while. Definitely one for horror fans or even action fans who do not take these types of films too seriously. I regret that part three will not appear until eight years after two but I will certainly check it out when it is finally out.

Director Don Coscarelli does not have many films under belt and only about half a dozen distance Bubba Ho-Tep from his 1979 horror classic Phastasm. Made in 2002 on a super small budget of only about half a million dollars and meager distribution (only 32 prints were released around the country) the film has nonetheless gone on to gain a level of cult devotion to rival Coscarelli’s Phantasm perhaps. The hard to label film succeeds on a couple levels really, not the least being that it overcame its small budget. In fact the budget was so small that while the central character in the film is an aging and decrepit Elvis Presley (played craftily by Bruce Campbell in one of his best roles ever) not one Elvis song was used in the film since licensing rights to use even one song, or film clip, would have consumed the bulk of the films money. The film also succeeds because it successfully gets outside the horror genre and is able to explore other issues such as aging in a culture that treasures youth and the abandonment of the elderly. It also explores, via Elvis’ introspective narrations, the real meaning of success and the value of family and the regrets of a man in waning years who now knows it is too late to say and do all the things he really wanted to do.

But fear not that this is some lugubrious, tear jerker or feel good movie because there is horror in the form of a soul sucking cowboy mummy (who prefers the rectum as the source of soul removal) and comedy from the team of Campbell as The King and Ossie Davis who believes he is John F. Kennedy. Also appearing in a small role is Reggie Bannister from Phantasm and Bob Ivy as the mummy. The story takes place in a quiet little nursing home in East Texas where the once King of Rock and Roll himself lies bed ridden with a crippled hip and revolting sore on his “pecker”. We are mercifully spared the actual site of said mysterious growth. Elvis spends his days in bed reflecting over his glory years and what might have been had he led his life differently and watching his friends pass away. His is known by the patronizing nursing home staff as Sabastian Haff, an Elvis impersonator. Becoming jaded and burned out with success and false friends the true Elvis switches places with the real impersonator Haff and the King spends his days pretending to be Sabastian Haff the Elvis Impersonator. Haff has an appetite for junk food and drugs to rival the King’s and is he who actually dies in 1977 and the real Elvis is left stranded after the contract he drew up with Haff is burned in a trailer parl BBQ accident and he then falls off a stage while “taking care of business” and breaks his hip.

He life seems to seeping from him in much the manner as the infection from his manhood when he suddenly finds himself in the middle of a mystery and adventure with fellow patient Jack (Davis) who is convinced he is actually JFK and has had his skin dyed black by the CIA who also replaced parts of his missing brain matter with a back of sand. While he is outspoken on his disdain for LBJ, who feels is part of the conspiracy, all info on his affair with Marilyn Monroe is “top secret”. They soon discover the nursing home is the feeding grounds for a lesser mummy (like the brother of Tutankhanmun) lost while on a tour of the States and who is dubbed Bubba Ho-Tep by Elvis. The Mummy feeds on the weak but plentiful souls of the dying residents. The deaths would never arouse suspicion and Jack and Elvis are simply two crazy old men no one would ever believe and soon are forced to take matters into their own hands.

The mummy never dominates the film and the deaths are not gory or exploitive. The focus seems to stay on Elvis’ new found purpose for living and becoming the type of hero he played in his films in real life. The heroics are rather shallow in the big scheme of things and no one will ever even know that Jack and Elvis saved the nursing home from an evil soul sucking mummy. They both die off in the end but find some sense of redemption during their last moments. As Elvis passes in the next world, lying in the mud of a river bank in East Texas somewhere, he sees the assuring words All is Well appear in Egyptian hieroglyphics in the stars. Elvis feels his life on stage and in films was a sham and travesty and yet here in the middle of no where he gets to die a real hero with another man’s name.

The twangy guitar laden soundtrack by Brian Tyler suits the film perfectly as Elvis monologues in his life weary and yet funny as hell reflections. And to reiterate what most people have said Campbell is great as Elvis. His performance is comical but not insulting or demeaning. At times he is genuinely touching as Elvis wonders about how he could have been a better husband and father. The films never gets maudlin or morose and yet it never inane either. Campbell simply never insults the memory of Elvis at any time, even when the King is examining his bump and finding the will power to use the bathroom instead of his bedpan. It is a rare type of a film really and it too bad Coscarelli did not delve into this type of thing more, or maybe just do more period. The story is based on a short story by Joe R. Lansdale and for a while there were rumors of a follow up film but for now all that seems to be no go. And really there is no need. This film is fine just as it is and if a sequel or prequel were ever released I may just pass on it as it might spoil this curious and fun little film.

Brian Yuzna began producing and making films under his own production company in Spain, where he permanently resides, called The Fantastic Factory in about 2000 and since then the work of this usually entertaining horror/gore director has been getting weaker and weaker. Yuzna began as producer for some of friend and associate Stuart Gordon’s best work, including Re-Animator, From Beyond and Dolls. He entered the directing arena with 1989’s Society and did some pretty good films after that including Bride of Re-Animator and Return of the Living Dead III. They were all well edited, shot and acted and contained some humor and wit to them. His newer works lack the humor and craft that made his American made films so watchable overall and he seems to trying to create Euro-sleaze now.

There are some problems of course and some parts are a little more than corny. The show down on the country road with Gina Philips running him over after he does flips over the car cold have been done better. And then he assaults the police station where the cops are hapless before him. It just is not scary to have a creature lose in a police station. It is more like an action movie (Terminator) here than a horror movie. And the two genres can mix of course, but I did not like the brew this time, but enjoyed the rest of the movie. The Creeper (Jonathan Breck) is interesting and enough about him is left unexplained to keep some mystery. The movie ends begging for a sequel and one is delivered. Maybe my taste is really bad, but I enjoyed it and recommend it completely. BEATINU baby.

NOTE: I just found out that Jeepers Creepers III has been made but as of yet I have not seen it on the shelves here in Kunming China. DVDs here have been known to appear before the movie has even been released back in the States if they can get a hold of a screening copy. I do not think it has been released in the theaters yet back in the States and from I have read I might go straight to DVD. I will research it more after another can of Coke.

Both Jeepers Creepers I & II get:

(Updated and more detailed review coming shortly)

I love a good zombie film and always have, but the subgenre also has spawned some of the worst movies ever made. Some are of such a bad quality that I just cannot enjoy them at all, though I love a good bad movie. This film is not that terribly bad that is not worth a look but I just do not understand how these guys can have the audacity to call this a remake of the original movie. Since the credits included Ving Rhames I jumped to the conclusion that this was another decent remake in the same vain as 2004’s well done Dawn of the dead by Zack Snyder. That delusion was shattered in the first couple minutes really when the scenes open up with stock teenagers making out in a deserted old building somewhere in the wilderness of Colorado. The movie only descends into more inanity and never tries to pull it self out. It is like a drowning man who starts gulping water to end it all. The cast is led by Mena Suvari (who had Kevin Spacey spanking his monkey in American Beauty) but she really does not have the acting power to rescue this bomb. I will tell you, I am a reasonable man. I know that when I watch a film like this I am not reading Wittgenstein and I basically want lots of action and gore and zombies blasted through the cranium and brains being evacuated against the wall behind them. But still, can we all agree, there must be standards to adhere to. If not we are lost as a species.

The fact they use the name of one of the greatest zombies films of all time means they are expected to deliver us something above the average gut eating fare. If they had called the film Teenage Zombie Freak Out or The Night the Dead Rose and Got Really Pissed I would not have a problem. But if you remake Apocalyspe Now you expect some Viet Cong and a boat of Americans at least, right? There should be obvious thread that shows it is in fact a remake. The story is simply lame and has so many gaps I cannot undertake the task of describing them here. I will simply focus on one criticism and then let this stinking corpse rest. There is a big debate on the net amongst zombie fans about which is better, fast zombies or slow zombies. Personally I am fan of both. And for the record fast zombies are not something new that came into being with Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead or Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later. Dan O’Bannon had running, manic zombies galore back in 1985’s Return of the Living Dead. I feel that when a person initially changes into a flesh eating zombie they could be fast and furious but would slow down in time as rigamortis and rot set in. Now, I feel they can be fast and strong, but no faster and no stronger than when the person was while still alive. Here they bounding through the air like an old kung fu movie and even scampering on the ceiling via ceiling tiles and crawling across walls like Spiderman. One even jumps through the undamaged windshield of a Hummvee and that just cannot happen unless the thing is super human, and why would a virus that kills you revive you in a super human state?

Of course this is a zombie move and I understand suspension of disbelief. I do not believe in UFOs or Psychic powers or demonic possession but I watch this stuff all the time and enjoy it typically. Yet there has to be some base line of believability unless the film is a spoof, like the more enjoyable Fido was. There is even another “remake” or sequel of the movie out there called Day of the Dead: Contagion, but I did not fall for that one. I was had this time and I just want to give any discerning zombie hound out there fair warning: this has nada to do with the original film and the film makers should all be bitten by rage infected monkeys and set loose on one another in a dungeon. Is nothing sacred anymore?

The movie contains all the elements of a good zombie movie and does a good job of using the disaster movie formula as the vehicle to work from. There are all the stock disaster film characters we are introduced to one by one as the movie develops: the pilot on his last flight before retirement, the sexually frustrated and morally flexible teenagers on holiday, the cop and his prisoner, the love hungry nest of flight attendants, the couple with marital problems that we know will be resolved by the films end and there is even a studious and quiet nun who gets “converted” eventually.