Old Movies Revisited Just For The Fun Of It 


Re-Animator (1985)
Bride Of Re-Animator (1990)
Beyond Re-Animator (2003)


Actually, I'd only ever seen the last movie before, never the original and didn't even know there was a sequel, but since I like everything Jeffrey Combs does, whether the movie is a stinker or not, I thought this would be a good diversion and I really needed one. Without getting personal or sappy, I am - not well. As in getting worse and there's no better. Enough said, on with the fun:


Re-Animator: This movie is based on the H.P. Lovecraft story Herbert West–Reanimator. It is supposed to be a horror film, and to follow the Lovecraft story, but as I've said before (and funny, Jeffrey was in that one too) Lovecraft's work has often been - screwed up, such as in The Dunwich Horror. But Jeffrey is great, the gore is what the kiddies go for and you've got a real comic element (and shades of old 50's style science fiction) so this became a cult film and is still popular. And we get a look at 80's movie style medicine. There isn't a glove to be found in this bunch of doctors and students. The only time I saw anyone wear some was when they were removing a brain. Dan (coming up) is bringing a corpse to the morgue after performing CPR unsuccessfully on her (without gloves) but there's another body with a bloody hand in his way. So, he picks up the hand, wipes his own hand on his scrubs and continues on. Ewww... you can keep your gore, I find that funny, but this kind of stuff is extremely gross.

I don't care if I have to do this in 100 movies, it'll work damn it!

In Switzerland, Herbert West brings his dead professor, Dr. Hans Gruber back to life. For a minute. Then a screaming Gruber's eyes explode out his head. I suppose that was supposed to be gruesome, though I found it hilarious. When told he killed Gruber Herbert retorts 'I gave him life'. Yeah, for a minute. A really bad minute. Skip ahead to Arkham, Mass., where Herbert works on further medical studies. He rents a room from Dan (A young Bruce Abbott that you've probably seen in a lot of things. Did you know he got his start at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival? See - we've got more than turtle-loving boys out here. Don't ask.) Herbert makes the basement into his own personal lab and immediately starts - with Dan's cat. I would have kicked his ass out right there, but Dan's a guy, apparently he wasn't that attached to the cat (or something) and he's more interested in Herbert's ability to keep it coming back to life (although it's in horrific pain and suffering - not a good part of the movie). They decide to partner up (Dan is a Doc working on his studies also) and the fun begins. The antagonist is Dr. Hill, who Herbert believes to have stolen most of his ideas from Dr. Gruber. Dr. Hill retaliates by turning the dean, who is also the father of Dan's girlfriend, against them both. They're basically booted out.

No, as a matter of fact I do NOT like turtles.

Herbert has a never-say-die attitude (Get it? Sorry, brain is on stupid overload today). He continues anyway, sneaking him and Dan into the morgue to try his 're-agent' on a 'fresher' subject. The results are bad. Apparently Herbert is a genius moron. Oh well, that just makes things that much funnier. The dean is accidentally killed and re-animated and goes insane so here we have our first 'zombie' I guess. Dr. Hill knows what Herbert did, and with his 'laser drill', another idea he pilfered, he gives the dean a lobotomy and now can control him. Why? Tut tut, there's no logic allowed in horror movies. Just deal. Dr. Hill then goes to Herbert telling him he's going to jail unless he gives him the re-agent so Dr. Hill can say he is the one who 'discovered' it. As Dr. Hill is about to take everything, Herbert attacks and in some really good gore for an 80's flick, manages not only to mash him, but decapitate him. For giggles he injects both the head (now in a tray) and the body (lying on the floor) with the re-agent. Did I mention he must be a genius moron? I did? Well, for whatever reason, the Doctor not only can talk (great feat with no vocal cords or lungs) but he can think and he knocks Herbert out with his body, then picks his head up and walks out. Here's where the 50's style movies comes to mind, and any seriousness this movie may have had ends.

I'm really ahead in this movie.

Meanwhile back at the ranch... I mean University, Dan and Megan, the dean's daughter, discover her dad lobotomized, and different items showing that Dr. Hill has designs on Megan's body (which you get to see all of several times - she's not shy). During all this, err, action, Megan manages to get herself kidnapped and we get a scene of - geez, what would you call this - reverse necrophilia? In other words, the dead doc takes his head to - uh - do things to Megan's naked body. And I laughed.


The two whackos - you can't really call Herbert and Dan heroes after all - get to the morgue before Megan gets... ick I can't even say what he was going to do. The dead doc shows what he's been up to in that very short period of time (besides Megan). He's re-animated all the corpses lying around the morgue. Yup, we're an hour and twelve minutes into the movie and we finally get real zombie action. Complete with incomplete corpses, screeching corpses (Where is all that breathing coming from?), etc. and they are all under the dead doc's disembodied head's control (not bad special effects for the 80's). As Megan screams, her dead father, retaining some kind of memory of her, grabs the dead doc's head and smushes it. That's a technical term by the way. Smush. After that there is a zombie free-for-all as they just go for it, no longer under control. But Dr. Hill is far from done.


As Herbert is buried under very angry corpses, Dan and Megan escape to the elevator. But of course the door doesn't close fast enough and one zombie strangles her. He rushes her to the ER and we are back to gloveless treatment (eww) as they attempt to revive her. Nope. So Dan, apparently also being a genius moron decides to give the re-agent one more try. The movie ends while she screams. Gee, I guess that means it didn't work, huh?


So we have a silly but halfway decent treatment of a Lovecraft story. So of course they say 'Hey, let's take that piece of... film and redo it.' And so now you have:



The Bride Of Re-Animator: Really? I mean really? That's the best they could do? And to say that this is H.P. Lovecraft's BORA is massively pushing it. But oh well, here's the movie and you didn't have to watch it: Eight months after the events of Re-Animator, the genius morons Herbert and Dan (Why the hell did Dan stay with him?) are working as medics in the middle of a bloody Peruvian civil war. They use all the war casualties they can get their hands on to experiment with Herbert's re-agent (which apparently still doesn't work worth a damn). When their medical tent is stormed by the enemy troops, West and Cain return home to the exact same place they trashed before and yet somehow are allowed in as doctors there (I guess it's like a teaching hospital, except no one learns anything.). 

You're not going to, like, attach things to my doggy are you?

Using body parts from the morgue and the cemetery they so conveniently live next to, Herbert is re-animating stuff right and left. Literally. Hands to feet, eyes to fingers, etc. All the 'rejects' he apparently throws through a hole in the basement wall which connects to one of the crypts. He becomes determined to create an entire living person 'cause hey, we gotta get the title from somewhere. And he IS a genius moron after all. Herbert steals Megan's heart from the morgue, since none of the body parts from the first movie are decaying and promises Dan (It was his girlfriend from the first movie, remember?) to re-create her for him. Yeah, just for Dan he's doing this. And Dan, being a fellow genius moron believes him and helps him out. Why why why why??? Sigh. This movie starts to drag as they scheme getting different parts from... well lets just say a lot of time goes by with little happening. We do learn that there is a Lt. Chapham who wants them dead, and as the movie goes on it turns out it's because his wife is one of the re-animated corpses from the first film the hospital still 'keeps' in a padded room. Why why why why.... oops, sorry. We also learn later that she died of her head being slammed repeatedly by something... uh... hard. And the Lt. did it. And that's probably why he's pissed she's not totally dead. I dunno.

I saved this heart just for you.

Dr. Hill (first movie, only a head) is discovered in a sideshow and recovered and brought back to the morgue. Conveniently some of Herbert's re-agent is also still there so the bright (read really REALLY dumb) new morgue director decides to inject his head with it (After trying it on a bat - I mean really, where the hell does a morgue guy get a bat?). Once again, despite being 'dead' for almost a year, no vocal cords, no lungs, Dr. Hill can still talk, think and somehow conveniently control fellow zombies with his thoughts. Gee, get his head on a superhero body and put that boy to work! Dr. Hill vows to get his revenge on Herbert - the morgue director stupidly throws his head in the trash, thinking that'll be the end of that. Uh huh.

This looks totally real, right?

Okay let's make this painfully long movie a little shorter: The murderous Lt. is killed and reanimated (which REALLY pisses him off) and so Dr. Hill has control of him as well as the three intact zombies left in the hospital. Massive duh but I'll try to speed this up. We have a brief respite from this when Dan, who wants Megan back but apparently doesn't want to wait, has an affair with a journalist he met in Peru, Francesca (Fabiana Udenio who I recognized from the icky film Summer School, coming soon to a blog near you, and sorry, it's obviously a body double, no goodies showing here). So things come together, badly, we have more 50's style sci fi slapstick type of horror, they smush (technical term, remember) a woman together of a bunch of parts and use Megan's heart to start her up. And we have blatant Bride Of Frankenstein type moments, including the woman's hairdo becoming wilder with each second she's moving around. But Francesca shows up. And so do all the zombies, after rampaging through the hospital (never go to a hospital in Arkham) and the town. Somehow, Dr. Hill got hold of the bat wings the morgue dude was playing with and he's flying around laughing maniacally. MASSIVE duh. Best line of the movie? Herbert saying (as zombies use implements to break down the door), "My God, they're using tools."  That's it. Sorry.


Skip ahead skip ahead the Lt. and wife co-zombies beat on each other more than anyone else, there's fighting, body parts flying, Herbert's 'rejects' crawling around everywhere (maybe I should just call him a moron at this point) and in the middle of it all, the 'woman' wants Dan to love her. But Dan has realized (NOW he's realized?) that Megan is dead and he wants Francesca. This kind of pisses 'Megan' off. There's a catfight which goes on forever until Dan tells 'Megan' she's dead - and her body 'rejects' all its tissue parts. Oh this makes total sense. Not. Dan and Francesca crawl through the collapsing crypt and dig through the earth to emerge in the cemetery. Dr. Hill, stuck in the debris, laughs still, while Megan's heart, still in the hand of the bride, stops beating. And Herbert? Oh, he goes on 13 years later to star in:


Beyond Re-Animator:  (This is described as a Spanish horror film for some reason. Maybe this Country didn't want to own up to it.) We open with two kids having a sleepover in an outside tent. One hears a noise and goes inside to check it out. In the house he witnesses a horror: a monster with no lower jaw is killing his older sister. She's way dead by the time the police get there. Dr. Herbert is in the back seat of the police car, obviously still being massively duh with his re-agent. So 13 years later, Herbert has been serving his prison sentence. Since he only has what he can scavenge, he's been practicing on rats (he should have thought of that first). When a young doctor named Howard Phillips (Jason Barry) comes to work at the prison, he teams up with Herbert to take his re-agent to the next level and help him with his experiments. Why? He was the kid brother of the teenage girl killed at the beginning. So why the hell isn't he strangling him? Because we'd have no movie, now shut up.

I'm gonna be posing with this syringe for YEARS dammit!

Herbert the moron has discovered "NPE" (Nano-Plasmic Energy), an energy that can be extracted from the brain of a living organism through an electrocution-like process, to be stored in a capsule resembling a small light bulb (the 'soul in a jar' idea has been used in more than a couple of horror films). The capsule can then be connected to a corpse and used in conjunction with Herbert's re-agent. The NPE supposedly will keep his 'experiments' human and not zombie. Oh damn, what were we watching this movie for?

The warden makes the DUH of intruding and Herbert kills and reanimates him (somebody had to replace Dr. Hill). However, Herbert the moron uses the NPE from a prisoner's pet rat, causing some unexpected side effects in the warden's behavior. There's chaos in the prison and the re-agent gets out. The prisoners see it as a cool new drug and spread it all over. We now don't know who's alive or dead (And in a prison, can you really anyway?). Dr. Phillips (Dead sister's brother, remember?) gets his new girlfriend (A journalist conveniently there on his first day - he's known her for what, a couple of hours?) killed, decapitated even, and the guards, thinking him insane, take him away. Herbert finally shows a little bit of brain power, stealing Dr. Phillip's ID and since this is a movie-prison, is able to use it to get away. But, so far, not to make another one of these.

Movies So Stupid They're Almost Good - No, Wait, They're Still Bad

Nightmares (1983)

What's worse than seeing a bad movie once? Seeing it twice. When this first came out I saw it and went 'oh come on' to the story ideas and the fact that it was deemed 'too scary for TV'. Obviously we were all severely underestimated. Nevertheless, this movie managed to draw a couple of names to it and is mildly entertaining for its kitsch value if nothing else. If you want to reminisce about the 80's without expecting much, this movie might be all right for you.

On to the uh, scary stories:

At night we all look like serial killers.

Terror in Topanga: An escapee from a mental asylum is going around knifing people in the California valley. No, that's not the scary part. It's that a mother of two children is so addicted to cigarettes, she's willing to put her life on the line just to sneak out to buy some smokes. Even after her husband forbids it (this is the 80's - not a lot of progressive thinking here) she sneaks out anyway. And we know the ending before we even start. On her way home, she sees she's almost out of gas and low and behold there happens to be one gas station just in time. As she's getting her gas she notices the attendant sort of resembles the description of the psycho knifer. When her total comes to five bucks (ah, the 80's - gotta love those gas prices) she rolls the window down just enough to slip the money out, keeping her door locked. The attendant (William Sanderson in an uncredited role - another face you've seen a lot even if you don't know his name) still has the gas nozzle in his hand. Suddenly he uses it to break the driver's side glass, unlocks the door and drags her out. Now she knows she's going to die. He drags her to the station building and gets out a rifle. He points it, she thinks at her, but it's at the slasher psycho who was hiding in her back seat. In other words, this was yet another take on the Urban Legend (or, as most Facebookers call it, the 'absolute truth'). Duh. She's driven home by the police and she pulls the carton of smokes out of her grocery bag and throws them in the garbage. This is a happy ending - I guess. For the kids anyway - they won't have to be breathing that crap anymore.

What're cops complaining about? This is easy!

The Bishop of Battle: J.J. Cooney (Emilio Estevez in his teenage, blonde days) is a video game wizard (Wow, was that really a big deal back then? Well, I do remember playing an awful lot of Donkey Kong, Tron and Frogger.) His big goal is to get to level 13 in The Bishop Of Battle, which looks like one of those maze games with stuff coming at you that drove me nuts. He's desperate to get there, only rumors have been heard of anyone getting that far. He repeatedly tries and fails to make it to level 13 until the owner kicks him out at closing time. He even ignores the hot girl (Moon Zappa, I guess she was supposed to be hot). He's then grounded for, oh, everything we got grounded for back then, so he sneaks out to break into the arcade for one more try. Okay, this part is really funny. To 'prepare' for this role, Emilio actually took two weeks of gun training with the NYPD. For a video game. Massive duh quotient here. Back to our antihero - after breaking in he sweats out the twelve levels he's mastered time and again and whaddya know, he makes it to the level 13. The game is shaking and smoking, he just thinks it's funny. Anyone else with a pulse would have split after the first shake. Oh no, we get to watch him giggle as the video game literally blows apart. Yeah, public destruction of property is a gas. 

Hey, don't laugh, I've got it all over PacMan...

Suddenly, in high definition (for the 80's) the game has enveloped the whole room - and J.J. still has the laser gun in his hand. So I guess the next few minutes are to show off what he learned in those two weeks of training, but he's finally had enough (and the place is completely trashed) and he escapes out to the parking lot. As he leaves, the 'Bishop' game reassembles itself. But run as he might, the Bishop is right behind him, overtaking him in a very scary (sorry, just kidding it was really dumb) scene. The next morning a friend of his tries to help his parents find him. They go to the arcade - it's trashed, except for the 'Bishop' game. And the opening sequence now has a teeny tiny Emilio for people to 'play' with. Brrrr... I got chills. For you gamers out there (since I know nearly nothing about the subject) the computer game sequences in this segment were generated on an ACS1200 and cost so much that it nearly bankrupted production. If that makes sense to you, congratulations. It just makes it that much funnier to me.

Damn! I broke a nail!

The Benediction: Oh goody, a story of a priest serving a small Spanish Catholic church. Hey, but one good thing - it's Lance Henriksen, so okay, it's watchable. Now MacLeod (Henriksen) has lost his faith. During the funeral services for a small boy, he's pretty much done in by the whole 'good and evil' process. He decides to leave. In frequent flashbacks we see his 'crisis' has been coming on for quite a while - now it's time to get out. He's got a real POS of a car, even for the early 80's - and he's going to drive it across the desert. So he does one smart thing - he grabs the jug of 'holy water' from the other priest, telling him when he protests 'Hey, it's just tap water.' Do we see the ending coming up with this yet? Of course we do. As he's driving down the desert road, no one else around, all of a sudden a black Chevy pickup blacked out with extra lights starts to hassle him. Now we've got a rip off of the movie Duel going. For a while they play cat and mouse - the truck rams him, takes off. It makes him run off the road, then takes off. The only cool part (hey, the only cool part of the whole movie) was MacLeod watching the desert earth ripple and move (Tremors? No?) and then the Chevy bursts from the earth itself to ram him but good. Finally, his car upside down and in flames, him messed up pretty good, we get to... say it with me... saaaaay it!!! 

Chevy beats POS every time.

The jug of Holy Water (only capitalized for your attention). He throws it at the pickup and POOF... it's gone. The cops and ambulance (wherever they came from) see no tire tracks, no strange paint on his car, and think he just fell asleep and rolled his own car. He asks that the ambulance drive him back to the church. Why? Did this restore his faith? The fact that Holy Water dissolves a Chevy truck? Okay, let's go on to the last (finally) story...

This looks totally real, right?

Night of the Rat: This will be short because I hated it and it was the stupidest. A wife hears rats in the walls, her husband is a massive jerk and her kid a whiny little... okay the kid was just a kid, I just don't like 'em. The husband does the minimum to shut the wife up, managing to trap a little rat and throws it away, satisfied he's done his duty. But the wife still hears nasty roaring sounds, and when she crawls under the house she finds the mangled body of the family cat. An old exterminator tells her she has a nasty problem but the husband, only thinking of his wallet, tells the guy to beat it. The exterminator calls the wife and tells her it's a 'Devil Rat' and can't be destroyed. The husband is only pissed off and hangs up on him. Sooo.... the rat pretty much destroys the house. When the jerk of a husband comes home he gets his rifle (oh yes, start shooting at shadows with a wife and kid in the house). Finally in the weakest and fakest scene of the whole movie, the very large rat (this was before CGI, so we just have bad splicing) is 'talking' to the little kid who says 'she' wants 'her baby'. That's the rat the jerk killed. Once he gets it out of the garbage and gives it to the 'mommy' it takes off out the window. And the story is over. And we are done. And you didn't have to watch it. 

You're welcome.

Movies That Are Outright Rip-Offs Of... Just About Everything 

Victim Of The Haunt aka The Uninvited (1996)

Made For TV

I've said it before and I'll say it again, any movie that begins with 'based on true events' immediately sends a red flag up. It tells me that somebody heard something go bump in the night, maybe a voice or two, wanted to make money out of it and bam, you've got a movie. The big problem is when you copy a popular movie so closely, any type of 'true' feel to the story goes right out the window. This is yet another cheap, badly acted, boring version of Poltergeist. Pure and simple. Take the basic formula, change things around a little, check off a list of things that made Poltergeist a good movie (I'll tell you when) and then proceed to bore the crap out of people for an hour and a half. They even had to change the name - it was originally The Uninvited, but do you know how many movies have that title? Originally appearing on CBS (that ought to tell you something right there) it made it to cable, and there the title was changed. Since you know Poltergeist, I'll make this quick.

Synopsis: Pattie is a little nutzoid after bearing a stillborn child. Her husband Charles decides they need to move where she can rest up, and they get out of the city into a newly developed subdivision (check). Almost immediately she sees and hears strange things (check). The smallest child seems to be the focus of the strange happenings (check). We feel sorry for the family as they seem pretty likable (nope, not in this one). While Pattie totally believes supernatural things are going on Charles is skeptical (check).

Pattie is examined and even hospitalized because of her claims. The children back her up, but the doctor explains they only believe it because she says it's true. The older child finds a locket with a name on it, last name of Parrish. Pattie tracks the name down: it is the only survivor of a horrible event that happened where the house is now standing (check). Her father went nuts, killed her little brother, her mother shot him and went to prison, and she - well, it doesn't say what she did with her life. After events that you know are very well dramatized or didn't happen at all, she finally decides to consult a psychic, a woman with a really bad black wig that keeps slipping (check - except for the wig). Pattie explains the noises, the lights, the bathtub filling by itself and the eggs stacking themselves (okay, eggs instead of chairs, still check). The psychic says the boy is lost and needs to go to the light (check). The evil is the father who wants to drain them of their energies so she needs to keep her family together and be strong to defeat the evil (check).

Finally Charles sees and hears what his wife has been claiming all along. She had told him the surviving Parrish woman had wondered where the family graves went. He digs up the yard and finds the desecrated graves (check). The little boy's spirit is helped to 'go into the light' and the mother screws up her courage and tells the 'evil' that she's not scared (bull) and go away. Which it does. Duh. They then grab a few things and hotfoot it to a motel (check).

A notice at the end says that the Parrish graves were moved to a graveyard, Charles and Pattie sued the house builder (what the hell did he do?) and got most of their money back and moved away. The end. Don't bother with this drivel, you know probably almost none of it actually happened, and Poltergeist is much more entertaining.

The Walking Dead: Characters We Love And Hate 




Andrea (Laurie Holden)


Andrea's character was the hardest one I had to try to pin down, which is strange, since when the series first came out, there were 'character tests' you could take to tell you which TWD character you were most like, and I always got Andrea (even though I wanted Daryl). So why am I having a hard time describing her?

Maybe because she's complex. She really is. When we first meet Andrea in the first season, it's the second episode, Rick has just been rescued by Glenn and Andrea, madder than hell that Rick shot a bunch of the Walkers and brought their attention to the people stuck inside a department store, has her gun in Rick's face, ready to blow his head off. But this really isn't Andrea. At least according to the TWD character test. It says that Andrea is tough but loyal, ready to help anyone but at the same time sticking to her guns.

Andrea is part of the survival group of which Shane is currently the leader. Her baby sister Amy is also part of this group. She is just now getting to know Amy, having been grown and out of the house while Amy was still a kid. So she has a particular soft spot for the sister she never got to know until the world fell apart. And getting back to her is so important, she's willing to blow Rick's head off for jeopardizing that chance. Now that she is getting to know Amy, the world better watch out if they think she's going to let Amy be jeopardized by anything living or undead. Both she and Amy are staying in the RV with Dale Horvath, and we get the idea that he thinks himself as sort of a father figure to them both, maybe a little overprotective which sometimes frustrates her, but I think at the same time she appreciates someone who really cares for them both. When later in Season one Amy is wounded by a Walker, Andrea holds her through the whole night, as for some reason Amy dies quickly but does not rise until daylight, when Andrea is forced to shoot her. She makes everyone else stay far away, even Dale, until this is done. The loss of the sister she has just started to get to know makes her will to live wilt and when the CDC turns out to be a lost cause and the remaining employee prepares to blow the whole thing up, she wants to stay. Dale reasons hard with her, but she's a bit stubborn and he is NOT her father, nor her protector, she reminds him. However, reason and I believe a real bond she has with Dale convinces her at the end to leave with the group.

Being a complex creature (I really DID have a hard time trying to get into her head) she is grateful to Dale but also blames him for making her feel guilty, convincing her into surviving, robbing her of her free will, she believes. Although she can handle a pistol, she doesn't know much about them, and wants to learn, but certain ones in the group (mostly Shane) wants only those who know about guns to carry them, making her even madder at Dale for some reason. When she overhears that Shane and Lori had been together and that Shane should go off on his own, she confronts him and asks him to take her with him, as she wants away from the group at this point. She even has a brief tryst with Shane, probably more out of spite of the other men (and Lori) than anything else.

As the group looks for poor Sophia in Season two, Andrea pairs up with Shane in looking through a neighborhood and is confronted with the necessity of shooting Walkers. After a shaky start, she realizes that she has both the courage and the skill to do it. I believe this strengthens her quite a bit, and I think that's why she decided to now stay with the group, feeling more needed than before. She still is not sure of her chances or her willingness to continue on in this world however, telling Dale "I don't know if I want to live or if I have to or if it's just a habit." So she's still very conflicted and very confused by exactly what her role in the group is. But she has toughened up considerably, even insisting on taking her turn as watch for the Walkers along with the others. She also seems to have more compassion, being especially kind to Carol, whose loss of both her husband and daughter has made her despondent and unsure of her own future. I think Andrea relates, since she lost her baby sister despite her best efforts, and her compassion tempers her attitude about living and the future. She also noticeably pulls farther away from Dale, maybe not wanting a father figure or moral guide as much as she thought she did at first. When Dale is killed however, she mourns as much if not more than the rest of the group.

As Season two comes to a close there is chaos - Walkers converge on the farm and everyone is scrambling to get out and survive. Andrea ends up under a Walker - not injured, but temporarily stuck. She is presumed dead by the panicked group and is left behind. She spends the entire night running through the woods, just ahead of a group of Walkers who are pursuing her. The sun is beginning to rise and she is just about done in... when a hooded figure dispatches the Walker about to rip her to pieces. Yes, Andrea is the lucky one to first meet the mysterious Michonne, who we get to learn about in Season three. And I have a feeling Andrea is going to learn a lot from her and her character will grow even more as she becomes more and more independent.

Laurie Holden is another familiar face in both television and films, but is also among the multi-talented for whom acting is just one of the things she does well. Holden was named as one of the top 100 Most Creative People in Hollywood in Entertainment Weekly's It List and One of Ten Actors to Watch by Variety. She also won The Look of The Year Elite model search in Toronto and was nominated in 1996 for a Gemini Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Guest Role in a Dramatic Series for Due South (1994). She was nominated in 2011 for a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress in Television for the series The Walking Dead. She was also nominated in 2011 for the Scream Award for Best Supporting Actress. Laurie is a Founding Board Member of the Canadian Somaly Mam Foundation (it combats the slave sex trade taking place in many countries) and an Advisory Board Member of The Somaly Mam Foundation in the U.S.

Her other acting work is familiar to all - along with the characters who play Dale and Carol she was in The Mist. Other works include The X Files, Silent Hill, Fantastic Four, and a whole list of others. May she stay with The Walking Dead for a long time. Especially if I'm supposed to be most like her - I could stand to learn a few things.

Movies So Stupid They're Almost Good - No, Wait, They're Still Bad 

Rocktober Blood (1984)

After seeing really stupid stuff that taxed my brain I decided to go with a straight, brainless slasher flick. You know, the kind where you guess the ending five minutes into the movie and so just wait for it to play out. And yes, this is exactly that kind of movie. If you want to hear wailing 80's type songs, outfits, hair, etc. just turn your brain off and let the movie run.

The films opens in a recording studio, where Billy "Eye" Harper, (Tray Loren), is wailing away, sort of like he's trying to be Mark Slaughter, and finishing he goes off to find easy women booze and drugs. His former girlfriend Lynn (Donna Scoggins), is left to sing the harmony tracks although he had promised her she would sing lead in this particular song. Lynn is left to herself to go up to the jacuzzi upstairs, after refusing Kevin (Kevin Eddy) the recording engineer's offer to join her. Meanwhile Billy returns to the studio, where he finds only Kevin and Mary, Kevin's assistant. Billy, out of nowhere, kills Kevin by slitting his throat, and impaling Mary. When Lynn returns she finds Billy smoking some drugs at the recording studio's control panel. Lynn discovers the bodies and Billy tries to kill her, but security guards save her, and Billy runs off. Skip ahead two years.

My vocal cords don't move just 'cause I'm that good.

Billy was apparently caught, tried, convicted and executed, all the while claiming his innocence. Lynn has now taken control of the band and sings lead. It is now the Rocktober Blood Tour Press Party, and Lynn and the remaining band members are performing in the concert. A mysterious figure then appears in a Halloween death mask, and tells Lynn to meet with Chris (Nigel Benjamin), the band's manager, in the office. When she arrives in the office, she is cornered by Billy, who leaves her curled up, and crying on the floor. After that, Billy persistently stalks Lynn, killing people involved with her along the way, but hiding the bodies, to make others think she's crazy. 

Pat Benetar? Who the hell is that?

Eventually Lynn with help from friends digs up Billy's grave. They find out that, yes, Billy is very dead, and Lynn assumes that she's going nuts. The next night, Lynn and the band are getting ready for the show, when Billy reappears, and tells Lynn that he's really his twin brother, John Harper (Gasp! I never in a million years saw that coming! Okay, right from the beginning I really did, I confess.), and that she identified the wrong man. John tells Lynn that the people he killed valued Billy 

more than him, even though he wrote the 

Close the coffin dammit I'm dead!

renowned songs himself. Then John knocks her out and she's put in a prop coffin. When John removes his mask however, he sings just as Billy did to the delight of the crowd, even as he slaughters the 'extra' women handcuffed to the stage (they think it's part of the show) and then prepares to kill Lynn. Chris finally figures it out (massive duh) and when the time is right (How the hell would he know?) John is bashed with an electric guitar, supposedly electrocuting him. But he keeps singing. And the movie ends.

Electrocution just makes me sing higher.

See? No brain cells necessary for this one. And you don't have to watch it either,because I watch 'em so you don't have to.

Movies So Bad They Make You Say "What In The Blazes Did I Just Watch?" 

Witchtrap (1989)

I had another vampire movie to get into but I decided to take a break from fangs and get into some different horror. Bad choice. This film was one of the worst ones I've seen yet, and that's saying something. It was soooo bad (How bad was it?) that details outside the movie are actually a lot more interesting than the whole movie itself.

In the 80's my sister wanted me to watch what she thought was a cool movie called Witchboard (1986) starring a young Tawny Kitaen and Stephen Nichols (the eye patch wearing soap opera heartthrob). Now movies about the occult I do not go for. They're dumb, the information is false, and messing with this kind of stuff is always dangerous. There's nothing entertaining with screwing around with evil spirits. I told her so. She didn't appreciate that.

We flip a coin. Winner gets out of this movie first.

Now Witchtrap was made (or rather directed) by the same guy, and coming out three years later, apparently the biggest push for the movie was the statement that it was NOT a sequel to Witchboard (he just apparently didn't have much in the way of ideas for titles) but a whole different movie. Even though the catchphrase is 'This time it's not a game' which leads one to believe it's a sequel. Massive duh quotient. And that pretty much sums up this movie. If you can watch it without saying 'duh' once, you're a better movie watcher than me. I rolled my eyes so much I got a headache.

They said if I took off my clothes I get to die first.

Okay a brief overview: We have a supposedly haunted house owned by a Avery Lauter who's been dead two years. He was a suspected murderer but his body, missing his heart was found before they could arrest him. He was a warlock, and was supposedly in the middle of a ritual that would make him immortal, but he was interrupted. So this group of idiots - um I mean mediums and their cronies try to rid the house of his 'presence' (Nobody can stay more than a couple of days and the last one killed himself - or did he? A bad continuity error shows the guy falling while holding onto the railing when he flips over, but in all subsequent shots he is sailing over a good five or six inches from the railing) and with the worst acting I've ever seen stretch this abortion of a movie for the full hour and a half. The only difference was there were no teenagers. These were all adults being stupid, acting badly, and being killed one by one. Woof.

Don't laugh - we spent all our money on this scene.

Long story short is they fail and the security team they hired (Guns against warlock ghosts? Really?) lose two of the three and the last one finally figures that, after a somewhat gross scene of the last medium alive swallowing the warlock's ashes and becoming him, if he shoots the box with the warlock's heart inside he can kill him, and by throwing it out the window and having it shatter, the thing melts (wax is cheap and so was all the so-called special effects) and the medium emerges from the muck. And they ride off into the sunset. And that's the most I want to say about this piece of... film.

The best part of this movie (said with a massive amount of sarcasm) was the factoids I found out from several places around the globe (America didn't have much to say, but Russia and other countries did). The movie was to have an 'X' rating (big deal) if certain scenes were not removed including:

• The scene where the blonde camerawoman's throat is pierced by the shower head.
• The close up of the male medium's brains being blown out.
• A longer shot of the same medium's head exploding.
• An actual view of the security guy's head being run over by the possessed car

And now you know the most exciting parts of the movie. But you don't get to see them. You're welcome.

Is It A Companion To A Series Or An Outright Ripoff?







True Bloodthirst aka Vampyre Nation (2012) SyFy Original Movie

I will apologize in advance for this one. I have never seen True Blood although I know it is extremely popular, simply because I don't get the channel it's shown on. So I didn't know if the above movie was an explanation of the series, or an outright ripoff. So I had to look up True Blood in wiki. It's based on The Southern Vampire Mysteries novels by Charlaine Harris about the co-existance of vampires and humans because of the creation of synthetic blood, and so an uneasy truce exists that I'm sure has many complications. 

If I may suggest another read on the co-existence of humans and vampires, werewolves, shapeshifters, etc. try Laurell K. Hamilton, one of my favorite authors, who has a huge series based on the adventures of Anita Blake, vampire hunter/zombie animator (you have to read it to understand) who's view of what she thinks is right and what is wrong is changed by her experiences. Laurell has also committed several of the books to comic books, and you can bet I've got every single one.

Okay, back to this... thing. You will have to decide whether this is a rip off of the series or not. Instead of being set in Louisiana, we are in Bucharest, Romania (although this was filmed in Bulgaria) where vampires have recently become legal citizens (about ten years) because of the invention of synthesized blood supplied by the Romanian government (okay, different location, same situation).


But because of the uneasy co-existence the vampires are all confined to 'Section 5', described as a type of camp (reminiscent of District 9). Those who used to hunt them, called vampirdzhiya (say that three times fast) and pronounced something like vampireicha, now are criminals and in jail. That's where we meet Johnny Harker (Oh come on, couldn't they use a little creativity for the name? Why not call the detective Van Helsing while we're at it?), played by Andrew Lee Potts, another face you may have seen several or many times but never known his name. 

He's also British believe it or not. This time instead of a ancillary character who's usually laid back with longish hair we get a tough very experienced fighter who's in the forefront of the entire movie. He is joined by Detective Derricks (Neil Jackson), his sister Celeste (Heida Reed) and girlfriend Katya (Claudia Bassols).

Somebody is providing infected blood to the vampire camp. The result has degraded those infected into nasty vampire bats instead of halfway normal looking humans. These bats don't discriminate, they kill both vampires and humans. So they enlist the help of the son of the 'leader' of the camp I guess, Nikolai (Ben Lambert) who has a special interest because the head bat is his brother (very obvious plot device).

And on we go. We've got betrayers, lots of vampire and human slayings, uneasy partnership with Nikolai and his bodyguards, and sneaking around for like forever. This is Sy Fy after all, they've got to fill those two hours.

Eventually all the betrayers are exposed, and we discover the head of the law enforcement for Romania is responsible for the tainted blood (another obvious device) and wants a war between humans and vampires to wipe out all vampires forever. He has installed transmitters that, when activated, drive the bats nuts and they come out in droves, killing indiscriminately.


So, the obvious ending comes. We lose Katya, we find out Derricks' wife was dying and he had her 'turned' without her permission, Celeste is shot and dying and Nikolai, who of course she has been falling in love with, turns her so she can 'live'. The head of law enforcement is made to put in the code that makes only the transmitter on top of his building send out the signal, drawing every bat to the building where they have planted enough C4 to blow the top three floors. 

He is then handcuffed to a piece of furniture and given the detonator so he has a choice since he's on the top floor - blow himself up, or let the bats tear him apart. You already know what choice he made, it's too obvious.


Nikolai and Celeste go back to Section 5 and Derrick goes with them to be with his wife who does not blame him for wanting her 'alive'. As they leave, Johnny Harker looks out over the city which is in turmoil, and hopes things become more normal from now on. I've never seen True Blood, but if I made a guess, I'd say this was a blatant rip-off.




                        

Apocalypse Movies

Stake Land (2010)

Apocalypse movies are, not surprisingly, rising in number but not necessarily in quality. This is a mild exception. It was mostly passable, although uneven at least it was roughly realistic if you can think of such a thing about what a world would be like in this particular situation.

This one is about vampires. They do not sparkle. They do not look longingly at unattractive, depressed teenagers. These nasty things kill, tear apart, ruin the world. Literally. We join the story after the initial downfall has already happened, leaving pockets of survivors, some just trying to make things a little normal, others that have turned into total religious whackos (like we don't have those already) and believe that the vamps were 'brought from God' to 'bring us back to the light' whatever the hell that's supposed to mean. For the whackos it means anybody that doesn't do exactly as they say is thrown to the wolves - err I mean the vamps that stay on the outskirts of their settlements, an uneasy truce being formed of a kind.

That's Mr. Mister to you.

The way the whole thing started is unexplained - one Marine they run into says the troops were all sent home because there was nothing left to fight - the entire Middle East was 'vamp land'. He also provides some information on how larger cities, including Washington were brought down. The religious whackos took airplanes full of the vamps and purposely crashed them in high population areas. The vamps of course survived and quickly made mincemeat (literally) of the people.

I'm like who? Who's Ralph Macchio?

The movie moved along, although at times painstakingly (Get it - pain - stake? Ah never mind.) as backstory is combined with present situations. We have a man described as 'the last of the hunters' called only 'Mister' (Nick Damici) who rescues a young man whose family is slaughtered in front of his eyes. His name is Martin (Connor Paolo) and in half Zombieland (although not funny) and half Karate Kid fashion (also not funny) he is 'trained' in the ways of a vampire slayer. Along the way, they are joined by fellow travellers, such as an old nun (I had a genuine OMG moment when I found out it was Kelly McGillis of Top Gun fame - wow, she looked BAD!) who has had to suffer vampires and humans alike. They go North to find a place called 'New Eden', taking the back roads and avoiding major thoroughfares that have been seized by The Brotherhood, a fundamentalist militia of whackos that I described above headed by Jebedia (Michael Cerveris).

Do you think I'll get a bunch of teenage groupies?

Due to Mister having killed Jebedia's son, who was trying to rape the nun, the group is captured by The Brotherhood and, as punishment, Mister is left at the mercy of a group of vampires. Martin promptly escapes the Brotherhood camp and discovers that Mister has survived the vampire attack. They drive off together, making a stop where they pick up another traveler, the pregnant Belle (Danielle Harris), who hopes to make it to New Eden to have her child. Later, they also pick up Willie (Sean Nelson), a Marine, who is found hiding from The Brotherhood in a Porta Potty. The four decide to go after Jebedia, whom they successfully ambush then tie to a tree and leave for the vampires. Even as they do that, you know that leaving him alive is a very VERY bad idea, but hey, that's how these movies go. The group is soon reunited with the nun but celebrations are interrupted when The Brotherhood, using helicopters, drops vampires into town. You gotta admit that's a different kind of way to do things (Please don't mention Zombies On A Plane aka Flight Of The Living Dead, we're not going to think about that.). They keep going North. The car breaks down (surprised it went as far as it did, it was a real piece of junk) and they have to pack it through the woods. After a while (and one of the slow parts of the movie) they think they're relatively safe, until they are attacked by stronger vampires known as 'berserkers'. They run into the fields, and the nun diverts the chase away from the rest then shoots herself in the head. Bye Kelly.

I'm gonna rape you... holy hell you're Kelly McGillis! Crap!

After several days of walking through the wilderness, they take shelter in a broken-down bus and notice in the morning that Willie is missing (midnight potty breaks are never a good idea in horror movies, unless of course there's a Porta Potty). The three search for him, first finding his blanket then finding Willie killed and strung up in a tree. They realize this is a new kind of vampire - one who actually thinks. Nasty. Belle disappears, and her cries are heard which Martin immediately follows despite Mister's warning that it's a trap, and of course it is. She is found bound and bled almost out. They discover that this new, thinking vampire is none other than Jebedia (told you so) who smashes them up good, using his super strength together with thinking ability. But, predictably, when both should have been killed in first thirty seconds, Martin impales Jebedia, who laughs it off - until Mister slams a larger piece home and he's finished. And so is Belle, who has to be killed or she will turn.

            

We religious whackos are bald and beautiful, right?

The duo then heads North again with a found truck and they meet Peggy (Bonnie Dennison), who lives alone in what once was a roadside restaurant and picks off approaching vampires using a crossbow (Between her and Daryl Dixon of The Walking Dead I've really been wanting to get one of those!). Martin and Peggy instantly get along and when Mister realizes this and that Martin can now effectively handle a vamp on his own, he decides to leave them to continue the journey on their own. Martin finds Mister's skull pendant hanging from the truck's mirror as a souvenir. Driving further north, Martin and Peggy are about to enter Canada, which is the New Eden the survivors were heading for. And that's it. We don't get to know any more - are you still interested? If you are (and I can't possibly imagine why), there's talk of a sequel, but you know how sequels go. And since the glittery, angst-driven vamps are in full blown popularity, I don't know how another vamp apocalypse movie will be received. There won't be a 'Team Martin', that's for sure.