Movies So Bad They're Almost Good - Really!


I Sell The Dead (2008) IFC Films

When this came on IFC I had seen part of it (apparently the wrong part) and passed on it without even checking what it was called or what is was about. Silly me. How can I resist a movie about two grave robbers who find the best money is not by stealing the dead, but the undead? And a catch line of 'Never Trust A Corpse'? Who could pass that up?

A small history on grave robbing: In the 18th century medical schools needed cadavers for their students, but this being before you could check the little box on your driver's license, there were very little to be found. Hence the need for grave robbers. The most famous (or infamous) of these was a couple named Burke and Hare. They stole from graves for a medical school, but being pressed for more and fresher cadavers, Burke came up with the idea of hastening a few along, thus leading to what is known as the Scottish West Port Murders. They of course were caught, Hare, to save his own skin, ratted out Burke, who did the killing part anyway, and Burke was hanged - his body then given to the medical school. No one truly knows what became of Hare. But to be killed in order to be sold for dissection is known as to be 'Burke'd', just as for us The Walking Dead Fans, to sacrifice another to save yourself from zombies is to be 'Shane'd'.

Enough history. Blake and Grimes are down-on-their-luck type of grave robbers, mostly because the doctor they provide them for won't pay much, knowing all he has to do is say the word and both will be hanged. They're barely scraping by. Of course they're caught and sentenced to the guillotine. Grimes is sent first and chop - off goes the head. A priest named Duffy has paid the jailers for some time with Blake to hear his story, to provide a warning to would-be robbers of the future. And we hear this:

Blake was a young boy with no choice but to earn money for his mother and younger brother by becoming Grimes apprentice when he was very young. He proved to be a good one, and their partnership lasted years. But, because of the stingy doctor, they were getting nowhere. One night they're sent to open a grave buried at a crossroads. Why? When they open the casket, it's a woman with a ring of garlic around her neck and a stake in her heart (wonder how they got the lid on with that thing). They throw out the garlic, take out the stake, at which she immediately sits up and hisses. They replace the stake - down she goes. That was fun for them so they do it three or four more times for the hell of it then get an idea - they send the body to the doctor. Bye bye doctor - and they discover that the demand for 'undead' bodies pays tons more than plain old corpses. They also run into the Murphy family, a family of people so terrifying they are the stuff of horror movies in themselves. One night they open a frozen grave, although nothing else is frozen, and trying to carry the frozen coffin they drop it - discovering your typical green bug-eyed alien inside. The Murphys show up and they fight over it until it vanishes in a beam of light. Ahhh.

Skip ahead because this goes on for a while and a woman enters the mix and sure enough she's wanting more than the couple are willing to do. Mostly she wants to defy the Murphy family. They get inside info that a shipment of zombies coming overseas was lost, supposed washed up on a nearby island. The Murphys were coming to get it, but with the coaxing of their new apprentice they go out at night to beat them to the 'loot'. Trying to put the zombies in a cage they can drag behind their boat, Grimes gets bitten on the arm. Then the Murphys show up. The woman is killed, and one of the family members scares everyone so bad it sends the zombies into a frenzy and they kill the Murphys as Blake and Grimes gets away. But of course, they get caught.

After he's done the Priest is oddly insistent to know which of the two killed Cornelius, the son of the family, but Blake tells him the zombies got him. The Priest reveals he is no Priest at all, but the head of the Murphy clan himself, one who has never been seen. He laments that he couldn't torture Grimes, arriving too late to prevent his head from coming off, but he's going to make sure Blake lives long and in great pain. Just when he's about to do so, he's killed. By Grimes. A headless Grimes. Holding his own head. Seems that zombie bite did him a bit of good. He frees Blake and the two scurry off, although Grimes keeps complaining that he's awful hungry, looking at Blake as a piece of meat. The end scene is Murphy's son Cornelius, bitten but not eaten, rising from the water ready, I guess, for revenge.

As I try to get back up to par I promise to catch up on the movies that really, really stink (there's a long list) and I hope to be going at full speed again soon.

Watching Movies For The Hell Of It

Since I've been a little more down than usual and am trying out my new Netflix, I decided to take a little break from reviewing and just see whatever just for the sake of watching it. That doesn't mean I won't have a review or two, but I'm not going to pontificate on every movie I've watched in the past couple of days. Be glad for that, because there have been some real stinkers. And Original Sy Fy movies, which instantly means don't even try to make it sound good because it just isn't - no matter who they get to be in them. So.... I've been revisiting movies I've seen a long time ago, some I was curious about, and some because of who was in them. Wow. What a pile.

Saw The Final Chapter: Okay number one you know that they're gonna make more of these cash cow things so saying Final Chapter is always bogus (see any other movie franchise) but I will say that for this supposing to be a 3D movie, you guys who paid for that got ripped off royally, 'cause I saw it in 2D and there was NOTHING that 3D could add to that thing. And the premise was massive duh. The only part about it I liked is they brought back Cary Elwes (from the original and best) as part of the movie with a good twist. That's it.

Paranormal Activity II: They didn't have the first one but I figured that they are all pretty interchangeable, so I had to see what the fuss was about. And just like when they showed The Blair Witch Project (scariest film ever - NOT) on TV and I realized it was nothing but three teenagers screaming at each other, being scared over little piles of rocks and ending abruptly with no explanation, this was - pretty much the same. They showed security camera footage each night and I swear all they did was use the same shots and changed the dates. AND NOTHING HAPPENS. A door opens <gasp> a pot falls <oh my> and so on until the last minute of the movie when.... DUH. In other words, if you've shelled out 8 bucks to see this (probably at least 20 if you bought your popcorn, soda and Milk Duds) and you've done it for all, what is there four now? You should be ashamed.

Anything from the Tales From The Crypt Series: These are uneven, you really don't know if you're going to get something decent or not. After all, TFTC are stories mostly written in the 50's (William Gaines being the editor, you know, the MAD guy?) and one actually says it's a remake of a 40's movie (which it was very little like) so you know, if you watch anything from this series, don't expect a whole lot. If I were to pick one I would suggest Demon Knight. It was my first Billy Zane movie and he's just terrific in it, as is Jada Pinkett (before Will Smith) and William Sadler, a great character actor who's been in stuff I've seen and never even known he was in it - but that's my fault, not his. If you try others, just turn your brain off 'cause there's not a lot to them.

House Of Bones: An original Sy Fy so don't expect too much but there was a little creativity here - it's a swipe at all those ghost shows that usually, to quote the movie, 'show grainy footage of us scaring each other'. So since they don't take themselves seriously, we don't have to either. It does of course turn out to be something more sinister, and there was some twists and turns, but not a whole lot.

Haunted High: Another original Sy Fy first called Ghostquake (which I like better) it has several of the stars from the House Of Bones movie but they last about 2 minutes (They were definitely there as a kind of in-joke because one student had DVD's of Sinister Sites, which was the name of the reality show spoofed in House Of Bones). Griff Furst makes a brief appearance (he's one of the producers too) before he's splatted, but I was kind of irritated - the movie is pushed as 'starring' Danny Trejo (yes, I will watch him in anything) but he plays - say it with me - a janitor. Really? They have to stereotype that badly? He has three major motion pictures he's starred in under his belt with another coming and he's still playing janitors? (For a goof, see how many you can list.) So this movie is just - pffft. Trap a bunch of kids you don't like in a high school (I know for a fact that one 'kid' was actually 27) and kill them off one by one. Same old formula, Danny gets to do a little extra but still... a janitor? Really?

Inkubus: Starred Robert Englund, only reason I bothered. Basic premise: Robert is an Inkubus (spelled with a backward K because he 'wants to be special') having a lot of fun screwing around with people's heads and killing them off one by one in an old police precinct. Trouble? It also stars Joey Fatone, who was also one of the producers. Ah. That was definitely a buzz kill. Joey plays a cop in a mental ward trying to explain what happened the night Inkubus came to the precinct and why he thinks his (now deceased) wife had a demon for a baby. Aaaaand if you watch it, do it for Robert who proves that even without the makeup, hell he was even better and more menacing than Freddy ever was. He talks low, reasonable and creepy as all get out. Oh and he can do anything he wants of course. But Joey Fatone? I just couldn't get past that.

Tucker And Dale vs. Evil: Woof. Ten minutes into this movie and I knew a review would be more of a waste of time than watching this horrid thing was. Basically you have two rednecks who go on vacation and are mistaken by a group of college kids for serial killers. Not funny, not smart, not even interesting in the slightest. You just want everybody to die.

Lord Of Illusion: I thought cool a Clive Barker movie I haven't seen - it just was that I forgot about it. Again taking a short story and making a movie means a lot of padding and some muddled up ideas, but the premise is interesting, the cast not bad, and it was worth a second look.

Labyrinth: What could be cooler than David Bowie as a Goblin King in a kingdom full of muppets? Good stuff, good songs, he's cooler than hell, and I enjoyed watching it - I think this was the fourth time for me. 

Play Misty For Me: So my now-grown-up eyes have seen what my little kid eyes interpreted in my head about this movie. It's basically kind of unique for its time (1971) - a reverse stalker movie (think Fatal Attraction but with a lot less going on). Jessica Walter (you might know her from the voice-over of Archer's mother on Archer) is obsessed with Clint Eastwood, a disc jockey of all things (and not very good at it I must say) because, being a 70's guy, he met and immediately slept with her. So now she figures they're hooked for life. She's obviously bonkers and he can't seem to get her meathooks out of him so he can spend time with his 'real' girlfriend Donna Mills (looking very nice freckles and all). The 'big ax chopping scene' I've had in my head all my life turned out to be a mildly violent (no injuries showing, that fake pink tinged type blood goop) scene of Jessica slashing at Clint's maid with a knife. AND the maid lived. So that's another memory blown way out of proportion. I THOUGHT this was a double feature with Wait Until Dark with Audrey Hepburn but that came out in 1967 so it may have been another time. That's the movie that my young mind determined that if you left refrigerator doors open, they kill you (in the movie the bad guy gets stabbed and she's hiding behind the refrigerator door, in front of which he dies before he can reach her). Lesson to the parents: Leave the kiddies at home if you're going to watch this kind of stuff. Yeah, today's kids are more savvy, and probably wouldn't have a single twitch if they saw stuff like Nightmare On Elm Street or something like that, but why have a kid with warped memories... let them make their own when they're of age. Okay, lecture over.

I Spit On Your Grave: A cult classic from 1978. Why exactly? This is a cool title for some type of zombie or monster flick, or even a psycho killer - not a brutal rape and revenge movie that goes on forever, just for the sake of being more violent and... icky. Originally known as Day Of The Woman (that's a little bit closer), then changed to I Hate Your Guts (okay), then The Rape And Revenge Of Jennifer Hill (wordy but to the point) for the 1980 release we get ISOYG. Not relevant in the least. And horrific as some misogynistic men's attitudes may be, and the horrible amount of violence toward women, was this film really necessary? Did it empower women at all? Nope, just showcased a bunch of horrible things happening to a (we guess) nice lady who then turns into a horrible lady doing things back. Not necessary or worthy of film. AND they had to remake it in 2010 why exactly? My only thought is that they wanted to show just how much MORE violence/sex/nudity they can get away with in the 21st century. Because this movie says nothing, proves nothing, and teaches nothing. Entertaining? Only if you're a sick, sick moo cow.

Hostel Part III: Remember when I said Hostel I and II worked because it was in Slovakia, a foreign country, the kids were backpackers going through Europe and most had lied to their parents so no one had any idea where they really were? And that Hostel Part III being in Las Vegas kind of kills that whole setup and how the heck could anyone get away with that in the US? Well, it came up on my selection and I started to watch it... but Eli Roth, the mind behind the first two was not involved in the third, so after about 15 minutes I peeked at the wiki page to see what I was in for. Oh man, do they reach way out there and this scenario would so not work - despite the supposed cleverness they think they put into it. It's still a hunting club, all members have their tattoos, and it being Las Vegas they gamble money over certain aspects of each victim, like how they'll plead for their life, how long it will take them to die, etc. And the main character is, of course, betrayed by his 'best' friend - massive duh since that 'friend' would be the first suspect in any investigation. But I'm going on too long about a movie I just will not watch. The first two examined the cruelty of men who had the money and the location to get away with that kind of thing. That was brutal, but interesting and a lesson of man's inhumanity toward his fellow man. This just takes Eli's work and turns it into The Hangover with lots of blood. No thank you. I won't even watch The Hangover.

The Ward aka John Carpenter's The Ward: Okay so this movie wasn't so bad - put it down mostly as a thriller more than horror movie. Carpenter still knows how to keep the suspense up, but he also still knows how to stretch out thin material to make a 45 minute movie into 90 minutes. It is supposed to take place in the 60's in North Bend, Oregon (real place) at the North Bend Psychiatric Hospital (fake place). Not the first time we've had a whacko picture filmed in Oregon - in 1975 One Flew Over A Cuckoo's Nest was filmed at the Oregon State Hospital in Salem. But I digress. At first this appears to be your standard 'haunted hospital but nobody believes because the girls are all nuts' kind of movie but finally starts to turn interesting, keeping the really good stuff for almost near the end. That means you can expect the first 3/4 of the movie trying to stay interested to find out what happens in the last quarter. Hard to do, but he does put a unique twist on things and the ending shocker is not really a shocker, but still all around Carpenter hasn't lost much of his touch.

Hellraiser IV Bloodline: What have I said about franchises? Okay I broke my own rule for two reasons - one this is Clive Barker, one of my fave horror writers, and two, this was supposed to be a prequel-sequel which explains the origins of the whole storyline behind the Cenobites, the Box, the configurations and everything. Unfortunately, apparently nobody could agree on just how much explanation could be carried in this movie, and there are no less than four different versions (read director's cuts and more than one director quitting) of this damn thing. Now, the first movie was great, the second - okay I guess. The third was a waste of time. I thought that's all there was, but a savvy movie watcher let me know there were about eight or nine of these damn things - sheesh! I did watch a couple to my own distaste, one only because Lance Henricksen was in it - but again I digress. This fourth installment was the last one Clive Barker was involved with. See, even writers have limits with their own creations. I'm sure he got money from the... rest of this mess, but at least he didn't have to watch them. Sooo... only if you've read the book or seen the first movie would this movie have any interest to you. I say prequel-sequel because it actually starts in the year 2127 but shoots back to the 18th century when the very first box was built. Of course how they explain the rest of them after this is probably why they're a bunch of garbage... but then again, Clive didn't have to worry about that. And neither do you.

Season Of The Witch: Purely for curiosity's sake - I can't stand Nicolas Cage, haven't been able to stomach him since Peggy Sue Got Married - but the movie kind of sounded interesting... until I tried following the plot, which is two weary Holy Crusaders are charged with bringing in a witch accused of starting the black plague. It goes from battle to battle until two of them quit and end on the coast of Styria. That's when I thought - wait, I'm totally geographically ignorant but even I didn't think that sounded right. Now, I haven't watched it all yet but I found a review site that lists this movie as the number one most historically inaccurate movie (I'm guessing of recent years) because of the following facts (bear with me, I thought this was funny so I'm passing it on.): If You Wrote a History Paper Based on This: Expect a D. You'd know better than to mention the demons and zombie monks at the end, but even using just the first three-quarters of the movie, when they're still pretending to be historical, you'd go wrong in a lot of ways. Technically, there were no Crusades after 1291, when the last Crusader city fell; so it's a little difficult to believe that main characters Behmen and Felson are Crusader knights between 1335-1344. Regular knights, sure, but they would have been there to protect pilgrims, or on pilgrimages themselves, rather than trying to take over anything. It's also geographically inaccurate. One of the seemingly endless captions says they're on the "Coast of Styria", but Styria is landlocked. Maybe they meant Syria? One fight in the midst of a desert is captioned "Gulf of Edremit", except the Gulf of Edremit is actually a temperate, entirely non-desert spot in Turkey. They grow olives. Most jarring for me, though, is the way it depicts the Black Death. They show a character dying of the plague, with this huge, misshapen, oddly colored lump of flesh above his eyebrow. According to the imdb, this is because the filmmakers went with an alternate plague theory proposed in 2001, saying that the plague was not the bubonic plague at all, but an Ebola-like virus. Researching the Ebola virus, however -- a thoroughly unpleasant task, I assure you -- hasn't turned up any such symptom, though, so I'm still not sure what's up with that. Maybe they wanted to jar us, so that we'd think less about the dubious plot. - The Movie Critic Next Door    So while I'm going to plug away at this thing to see if there's anything interesting (and try to ignore Cage which will be difficult as he's top billed) I'm not too thrilled or expectant that this will be anything but garbage. Aaaand I was right. Behman and Felson's Bogus Journey was just that... a movie long trek to a monk's castle to deliver this supposed witch - who turns out is not a witch, but a demon. Or at least the girl is demonized. After a protracted (and massive duh) battle to end the thing they finally destroy it, and the girl is 'human' again. And I wasted another 90 minutes. And I think the critic was too generous. You'd get nothing but an 'F' for freaking dumb.

Waxwork: After I finished giggling about all the 'wax' figures that could not keep still to save their lives, even for the few seconds of close ups (fingers wiggle, heads bob, arms shake) I endured this throw-away of a movie that basically takes your 'was museum' horror theme, somehow throw in a little voodoo and Satan worshiping and turns it into a mess of silliness that I can't believe was called 'horror'. Those that die - well, they're college kids, you don't care. The rally of old people at the end coming in to strike down the 'resurrected' evil wax figures - just a big HUH? to try to end the movie with. If you bother with this one, go for giggles because the scares aren't scary, the gore isn't gory, and nobody in this movie can act worth a darn (except of course for wonderful actor David Warner, a pleasure to watch and it's a real head scratcher how he ended up in this mess) and the whole thing is beyond silly, with the fakest special effects ever devised. Meh.

Oh yeah, I also found out why the 'suggested' movies Netflix has been throwing at me have been so... off. You know when you rate movies? Well, if they call movies like Back To The Future III a Western, Sixteen Candles a First Love movie and The Breakfast Club means you like high school movies, then your 'suggestions' aren't even going to be close. I've done much better just looking and picking out my own stuff.

 Movies You Watch Because Of Who's In Them 



From A Whisper To A Scream 

aka The Offspring (1987)

After the totally brutal (but extremely cool) viewing of Audition I wanted something a little - tamer. And I didn't have a lot of strength or attention span, so an anthology of short stories seemed perfect as a kind of break. AND this movie stars Vincent Price, so hey, it was a win all the way around. It is described as three stories of terror, but there are actually four, plus the cover story of Vincent telling each one to a reporter. And we have this:

Julian White (Vincent Price) is an old librarian who's niece Katherine is being executed for a series of murders starting from when she was seven until her mid 30's. A reporter who witnessed the execution decides to pay him a visit to 'learn' more about why someone would be so rotten at such a young age. He informs her it is the town itself, Oldfield Tennessee that is evil, people just get caught up in it - few escape. As proof he brings out a series of journals telling stories of actual residents and the bad ends they all came to:

1. Stanley Burnside: Stanley is a mild mannered middle-aged geek who's probably a virgin (he sleeps with his thick glasses strapped to his head for crying out loud). He has to work plus take care of his sister, who's rheumatic fever makes her require ice baths every day. He has violent night terrors where he is torturing and sexually molesting women. One woman at work he is very interested in but she could care less - Grace. Finally he can't stand it and calls her. After a bit of persuasion, she agrees to go out to dinner. After he drives her to a remote spot, intending on singing a song he wrote for her (this actually happened to me when I was a teenager so here's a tip - it's not romantic at all, just creepy). She cringes and tells him don't and to take her home. He tries to force himself on her but she resists and scratches his face. He then strangles her. Crying, he dumps her body on the street and goes home. After her funeral is announced, he breaks into the funeral home and 'consummates' their relationship (Continuity error: He pours two glasses of champagne and puts them on the edge of the coffin. He drinks his down, but the next scene shows both glasses on the coffin, full.). Ewww. Skip ahead nine months (these aren't really hard to figure out but oh well) and a lonely Stanley decides he's had it with his sister, and drowns/strangles her in the bath. He's downstairs drinking beer and actually having himself a good time when we skip out to the graveyard where Grace is. Something is digging its way up through the ground (cool, zombie action) and back at the house Stanley starts hearing things. Breaking glass, lots of goo everywhere, stuff is just a mess. His sister's body is then flung down the stairs. He, being movie-stupid goes upstairs to look (we hear growling that sounds like a bobcat or something) and he himself is pushed downstairs by a dead thing - his boy. It gurgles 'daddy' (pretty good for a newborn) and the screen goes black as we hear crunching and his screams.

The reporter isn't convinced. She thinks it's just fiction so Julian picks another volume and another story:

2. Jesse Hardwick: This happened 30 years ago. Jesse is a no-good jerk who'd rip off his own mother if she had something of value. Running from people he stole from he's shot and near death. He manages to get in a boat and float out into the swamp. We see somebody grab the boat and bring him to shore. When he wakes, he's in a shack with tons of clocks, all with different times, oddities like fetuses in jars, and an African American named Felder Evans. Felder tells him he almost died, but will now live. As he stays with the man, he notices that Felder is into voodoo, chanting every night, and distilling a liquid he drinks regularly. One day when Felder is out Jesse loots the place, looking for something valuable, and finds a book of 'memories'. He then finds out that Felder has to be at least 200 years old. He figures it's the liquid he's always making and wants it. He tells Felder he isn't leaving until he gets it. Reluctantly Felder tries to teach him but Jesse is too impatient. He knocks Felder out, ties rocks to his feet and takes him out to the swamp. He threatens to drown him if he doesn't get the liquid. Felder tries to tell him that he can't die, but Jesse rocks the boat too hard and Felder goes under. Later that night, Felder comes back, covered with mud and knocks out Jesse. When he wakes, he's tied down on the porch. Felder explains that he already HAD given Jesse the liquid, that's why he survived - he figures Jesse has at least another 70 years to live at least. He then chops all of Jesse's limbs off, and sets him on fire - leaving the mess in a bag on the street for people to find. In the hospital, the doctors can't figure it out - he's lost almost all his blood, all his limbs, burnt everything else off and yet not only is he alive, but getting stronger. They can only hope he dies soon. Of course, that's not going to be for a while...

The reporter scoffs that these were all just tales and fantasy. Julian is getting frustrated (and Vincent does look pretty tired in this movie) so we go on to:

3. Amarrillis Caufield: In 1933 the circus comes to town, complete with a freak show. Amarrillis is a pretty girl in love with a glass eater. She tries to see him as often as possible, but the circus owner, only described as 'Snakewoman' (A black woman with long dreds, that was kind of progressive.) reminds him that he'd be in jail if it wasn't for her. In fact, all of her freaks were normal, seeking asylum with her. She turned them into freaks as payment and as a way to hide from the law. Amarrillis doesn't care, she wants her love, Steven. During one tryst, Steven's hand begins to bleed as sharp things begin to stick out of his hand, he rushes back to the circus. Snakewoman tells him she made him able to eat glass, she can take it away. He doesn't listen and both he and Amarrillis run off together. But not far away enough. As punishment, Snakewoman takes his ability away, and every sharp thing he's ever eaten works its way out, basically splatting him all over the motel room they're holed up in. The next morning, Snakewoman comes and picks up Amarrillis, who is in total shock. She is now her new attraction - Pincushion Woman, one who can have anything stuck into her without pain. And there she stays.

The reporter asks how can a town itself be evil. Julian explains it was that way from the very start - or at least since the Civil War. And we get our final story:

4. Four Northern soldiers are separated from their unit. They come upon a Southern camp. The soldiers hold up white flags but they shoot them anyway. Searching their pockets, they find a newspaper stating that the war is over. They don't care, they want to keep killing, pillaging, etc. In fact when one who refused to shoot says he's going home, they have no problem shooting him in the back. They are travelling to a town called Oldfield and plan on taking what they can get. In a field they hear children giggling and grenades go off, knocking them out. When they come to, they are the prisoners of children, some deformed and injured from the War. And we start getting a Children Of The Corn theme going here. They keep talking about doing the will of The Magistrate, and have ceremonies that torture and kill all but one of the soldiers. The last one, thinking he can get away, tricks a little girl into untying him, snapping her neck as soon as she does. He's recaptured however and meets the 'Magistrate' - after the soldiers had leveled their town, no grown-ups were left, so the children found what 'pieces' of their parents they could and kind of pinned them together - and follow what it 'says'. The last soldier is then taken outside, burned and eaten. And the children plan to do that with every adult they find, but of course they must have grown up because the town became populated again.

So Julian tells the reporter that his niece was not really evil - she just 'joined the parade' of people trapped by this town. That's when the reporter reveals her true purpose. She had corresponded with the niece while in prison, and the niece had passed on her 'purpose' to her - she takes out a switchblade and stabs Vincent Price in the throat. With his last breath he gasps, "Welcome To Oldfield."

Pedestrian predictable and not that scary, and Vincent himself said later he hated this one, but hey, anything with him in it is always going to be good, even if he really doesn't participate in it much.

Foreign Films Worth Watching

Audition (1999) Japan

Let me give you a brief reason why I squealed like a girl when this film came up on the Netflix choices. In 2005, I was burned out by music in general. After 90's grunge, I just didn't like anything I saw (I didn't look very hard either). But we got a new satellite system and I saw Fuse, which back then actually played music videos (now they're just like the rest). Every morning they played the Top Ten Countdown, and of course I didn't know a single song on it. There was one video though that mesmerized me. I watched it every morning for about two weeks, my hubby asking each morning, "Didn't you just see that yesterday?" Well duh, but I loved it, I had no idea why - if it was the song, the group or the video. Finally he said, "Why don't you just buy the CD?" Oh if he only knew... seven years later and so huge a collection I have absolutely nowhere to put it all, I still consider My Chemical Romance to be my favorite group.

The lead singer is, in fact, the picture I use for my profile, although he has gone back to his normal black hair and mine is now - different too. Okay that wasn't very brief but an early video from their first album was just - cool and creepy at the same time. Watched that one a LOT. Years later and Facebook's here with lots of pages for horror movie buffs. I see a picture that's right out of their video. I beg the site to tell me the name of the movie and it's this one. I couldn't find it anywhere.

But this morning, YES! Now this movie is a bit long, but has a great story and is extremely creepy. But if you don't want to spend almost 2 hours watching it, check out the 3 1/2 minute video Honey This Mirror Isn't Big Enough For The Two Of Us (they were into long titles back then) by My Chemical Romance and you'll get a taste of what this movie is about. And my girl-crushing is done and this is the movie:

A widower of seven years is urged to think about remarriage. His son is now 17 and soon to leave the house, and a new wife seems to be what he needs. Now of course he wants someone young and beautiful, preferably with a job, and talents like piano, dancing and singing. Doesn't want much, does he? Not having ever dated he has no idea what to do, and doesn't want a bunch of dates with women trying to decide who is best for him. His friend, a film producer has this great idea: They'll pretend to 'cast' an upcoming film and have auditions. Surely among the many to apply he should find someone he likes. This sounds pretty sneaky and underhanded, but Aoyama, the widower, seems honest and likeable enough, and he's not looking just for a fling, but a life partner.

Looking through tons of files, he accidentally spills tea on one and while wiping it off, discovers a true beauty. Her name is Asami Yamazaki. In her audition, Asami says that she was a ballerina but had to give up dancing after an injury. She compares losing her dream to accepting death. Aoyama is attracted to her maturity, even though she's only 24. His producer friend says that he has a bad feeling about Asami. He cannot reach any of the references on her resume or her supposed employer. The music producer she claimed to work for has been missing for over a year. Aoyama doesn't care. Now we start getting the creepy crawlies.

Asami lives in an empty apartment, containing only a sack and a telephone. For four days after the audition, she sits perfectly still in the middle of the floor next to the telephone, waiting for it to ring. When it finally does, she lets it ring for a while, and you see a smile very slowly creep across her face. I tell you I got goose bumps just from that. Suddenly, the sack lurches across the room and makes gurgling sounds. What the hell? 

After several dates, she agrees to accompany Aoyama to a seaside hotel. Asami reveals that she was abused as a child by her uncle and shows burn scars on her body. A deeply moved Aoyama pledges his love, and they have sex after she makes him promise that she will be the ONLY one he loves. In the morning, Aoyama is awakened by a telephone call. It is the front desk inquiring if he will be checking out since his companion has left. Asami is nowhere to be found. Aoyama tries to track her down - nothing. At the dance studio where she claimed to have trained, he finds only a man with prosthetic feet who is probably her uncle. The bar where she claimed to work closed a year ago following the murder and dismemberment of the owner. A passer-by tells Aoyama that the police found three extra fingers, an extra ear, and an extra tongue when they recovered the body. Where did they come from? Ah yes, that is the question...

Meanwhile, Asami goes to Aoyama's house. She finds a photo of his late wife and finds out he has a son. So she thinks the wife is alive and he loves others, not only her. Enraged, she drugs his liquor. After Aoyama drinks, he passes out. We then kind of get into the 'what is real and what is dream' kind of stuff that usually drives me nuts, but this is an engrossing story so I didn't mind so much, even if you tend to get a little confused. He somehow 'sees' that the sack in Asami's apartment is a man missing - say it with me - three fingers, an ear and his tongue. Asami vomits into a dog dish and has him eat it. Flinch factor is now on maximum. And she's just getting started.

And we're back with Aoyama on the floor. Asami injects Aoyama with a paralysis agent that leaves his nerves alert. She tortures him with needles since he can still acutely feel everything, just can't do anything about it. She claims she is teaching him the meaning of needing someone. Then out comes the wire. She tells him with glee that the wire works great at cutting through flesh AND bone. She then pins down his left foot somehow and, working the wire back and forth (wincing is beginning to hurt my head now) she eventually saws through it and casually throws it off to the side. 

She starts on the other foot - and we get another 'is it a dream' sequence as Aoyama is back at the seaside hotel and frantically feels for his left foot - it's there and everything's fine. Asami says yes to his marriage proposal. But, you guessed it, he's still on the floor, about to lose his other foot. 

His son Shigehiko comes home unexpectedly - he was staying the night at a friend's house but that friend got sick. He finds his dad on the floor and doesn't see or hear Asami sneaking up on him. Thankfully Shigehiko is 17 and a strong kid, he fights her off, runs up the stairs, and when she tries to subdue him, manages to kick her hard enough that she lands at the base of the stairs, dying.

She starts muttering, as if she had memorized everything for this persona she was trying to be for Aoyama, some of the things she had shared with him in previous conversations. The son calls for an ambulance and police, and the last we hear is Aoyama's words (in his head) that he told his intended bride when she expressed her sorrow at not being able to dance, "It's hard to forget about, but someday you'll feel that life is wonderful."

This is a brutal but very well made film, much worth a peek - if you can stomach it. If not, just watch the MCR video - they kind of portray the man as a sleazeball, but other than that it's pretty close. And not as hard to watch.

Holy Crap! A Movie That Didn't Suck

Creek aka Town Creek aka Blood Creek (2009)

Why I never heard of this movie before I have no idea. I mean, you have the occult, Nazis and zombies - no this is not Dod Sno (Dead Snow). It is actually a horror/thriller that has a halfway decent plot, a little thinking power to it, and while of course it's not plausible it was at least engrossing to watch. It was directed by Joel Schumacher who has a lot of movies under his belt, some great 80's flicks and blockbusters (including Val Kilmer's Batman) and yet it was not well received I guess, probably why I've never heard of it. It was re-released to DVD in 2010. And it goes a little something like this:

At first in black and white we see a poor German family named Wollners in West Virginia receiving a letter from Berlin. They are asked to host a Professor who is a scholar, needing a place to 'learn'. Since they are offered $150 per month (in 1936 dollars) they can't help but accept. They quickly learn to regret that decision. This is all based on the constant speculation that Hitler, along with his elite in the Third Reich were heavily into the occult, and believed that otherworldly forces of the Vikings (whom Germans believed they were descended from) would be the key for Germany to rule the world. This has been debated in many a documentary and no conclusive (read real evidence) has been found either way. But for the sake of the movie, they do. And that is what Professor Richard Wirth is up to - using the occult to fulfill Hitler's wishes. See, this family, along with eight other families in the USA (Why the USA? For the movie dummy.) has a Viking runestone they found on their property, something the Nazi's are convinced will help them in their goals.

Fast forward to the present. There are two brothers - Evan and Victor. Evan is a paramedic and spends his time on the job and taking care of his elderly father. His father constantly reminds him how inferior he is to his brother, who served in Iraq, came home, but disappeared on a camping trip they took two years ago. His father keeps telling him it's all his fault - his brother was a hero and deserved a better brother. Great parenting.

The movie's pace starts quick - just that night his brother shows up - hairy, filthy and covered in blood. He tells his brother to get every gun and all the ammo he has and follow him. Evan does this without question while his brother shaves all the hair off and takes a shower. We see blood dripping down the drain as he does. When Evan asks what happened, Victor shows him his back - it is criss-crossed with old and new scars, some still bleeding. He says they need to get the people who did this to him for two years.

They get to the farm and see the family - they have remained unchanged since the 30's. When the daughter turned 17, the whole family just sort of froze in time. Why the Nazi seeking immortality didn't I have no idea, I guess it wouldn't have been a good 'horror' flick if you didn't have a nasty, rotting corpse of a monster in it. But so far, no zombies - unless you count the Nazi.

The daughter, being a bit smarter than the rest of the family, stole some of the Nazi's books and knew how to sort of contain him, at least on the farm. They hold Wirth captive in their cellar and trapped in the farm with blood markings. This prison however requires the family to sporadically capture people and use them as a source for blood. The horrifying fate of the family is then linked to Wirth's, so they keep him alive but weak and trapped.

The family tries to explain what happened but the brothers are there for blood vengeance and don't listen. They manage to loosen Wirth out of the cellar, and he begins a bloodbath. This fight goes on for quite a time, still action packed but kind of repetitive, you just want them to find a solution and get out of there. Animals are killed and brought back as zombies - ick. A prisoner they find and release (only to have him get killed anyway) is brought back, as is the brother and father of the family when they're killed. So we have very little zombie action - they talk, they're aware of what's going on, but they'll still kill you. The Nazi? He can't come in the house because the daughter has painted blood runes all over it - that doesn't seem to bother the zombies though.

Eventually (read takes way too long) the brothers get the story out of the daughter about what might kill this - thing. See, what he's been waiting for is to eat a lot of blood and get a lunar eclipse, in order to awaken a 'third eye' (popular mythology for a lot of things, look it up) and he does. And looks more human (not great, but not rotting). But, conveniently, he had brought the bones of some of his family with him, and his own 'blood' is poison to him. So the younger brother gets his back cut up, they grind some bones and smush it into the wound. When the Nazi 'feeds' on him, he's poisoned - and the two brothers manage to both stab him with another family bone and decapitate him with barbed wire. Gruesome end, but a relief, this went a little long.

 

At this, the remaining Wollners turn rapidly old and die. Before the youngest dies, she tells Evan about the other eight sent to eight other farms (Why West Virginia?) and tells him where to find the map. While Victor returns home to his family, Evan heads out to the other farms to stop the Nazis, noticing that on the map marking their location, if you draw a line to each one, it makes a Swastika. Okay that was a bit obvious but still a decent movie and I don't know why it wasn't more popular.

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

Mutant Vampire Zombies From The 'Hood! (2008) 

Okay I confess, this title was on the list of 'suggestions' and the title was so awful by itself that I thought hey, a throw-away movie that might be fun. Wrong, wrong, wrong. It was just... awful. Remember Gangs Of The Dead? Add a little more money to it, change a meteor for a solar flare and you basically have the same damn movie. With C. Thomas Howell in it, doing his usual one side face tick and monotone delivery he does in every movie he's in. So what was it about? Oh ho, what a freaking mess:

We have a drug deal going down in L.A. - this time our stereotypes are African American and Asian. And two (Only two?) cops ready to take the whole bunch down. Riiight. They're in a medical supplies warehouse that is lined with lead because some of the materials are radioactive. Do we see where this is going? I did. But I watched anyway. A solar flare that scientists should have been able to see and warn people days in advance hits the earth for 18 hours. Those 'protected' somehow pass out but remain human - those that 'stay awake' or are outside (no explanation given why) are mutated into zombies, vampires, rapists, or all three. Oh goody. A scientist is trying to get survivors together to take to a survivalist-type compound he built just in case. Okay. 

None of the characters are even remotely likable, so when they die there's no love lost at all and we're just relieved that there are less of these foul-mouthed idiots to keep track of. Technical problems run the gamut in this thing, from over CGI'd scenes that are faker than fake, to weapons either being misused, not cocked before firing, having unlimited bullets, having only one bullet (the gun's slide locked back after he fired - that means the gun's empty), to an M16 being used only half-cocked. Which pretty much sums up this movie - half cocked. They make up explanations for things on the way through the movie as if the writer's were thinking "Oh yeah, this is this way because...." on the spot. 

I was looking for funny, knowing I would find plenty of stupid but there just wasn't enough to justify this garbage. One conversation: G-Dog, "This is like a George Romero movie." David (C. Thomas Howell), "Who is George Romero?" G-Dog lists some like NOTLD, DOTD, SOTD, etc. and David replies, "I saw Shaun Of The Dead." "Well as long as we're not in Resident Evil, those suckers RUN." And that's the only one and as good as it gets. The gore is so low budget it's laughable - if it was funny. It was just pitiful. 

After a few more deaths they reach the scientists house - who so conveniently has an electric car AND airplane to get to their haven (Oh yeah, electricity works fine, but gasoline is no longer combustible. Why? Don't have a clue and they don't explain.) more die but four live to drive to the airport and fly off into the sunset to... something. 

So many flaws in this movie it wasn't even funny to keep track - in fact I got really bored writing them all down. Here L.A. has a population of about 12 million, who either were mutated or normal - but there's no one around, except the stray zombie here and there. Where is everyone? They tried to explain that by saying they were 'staying inside' because they were confused as to what was happening to them. Massive duh. Not a single one of the actors/actresses had fired weapons before - they were either not cocking, half cocking, or cocking and cocking again their guns (and the sideways 'gangbanger' stance doesn't work much for accuracy either) and shotguns were being used from the hip (not a chance). The M16? She uses a hundred rounds (at least that's what it sounded like) to hit THREE zombies. And they wonder why they don't have enough ammo. Why were some zombies horny? Why were some turned into vampires and not zombies? Why am I asking so many questions? When you have a title like this one with an exclamation point at the end, expect stupidity. And dealing with stereotypes, expect the bad language and a lot of 'hood talk - again very disparaging to ethnic groups. And as for C. Thomas Howell? He looks like he's in his mid 50's and if he doesn't develop a personality soon, he's gonna be stuck in turkeys like this one until his 60's... and he's only 45.

Zombie Movies Netflix Says I'll Like (Because They Hate Me And Think I'm A Moron)

Death Valley - The Revenge Of Bloody Bill: Seen it, horrible!
Dead Heist - Crooks pulling a job run into zombies: NO FREAKING WAY!
Gang Tapes - A 13 year old tapes gang activity and cops find it: How is this zombie related again?
Brain Dead (NOT Dead Alive) - A crater lands in a fishing town (yeah I know but that is what it said) and everybody becomes zombies: NO FREAKING WAY!
Mutant Vampire Zombies From The 'Hood: Oh C. Thomas Howell, how low can you sink? Plus these vampire zombies are hungry AND horny!
Video Dead: Seen it, horrible!
Zombie Town: Seen it, horrible!
Severed, Forest Of The Dead: Romero rip off, seen it, horrible!
Last Of The Living - sweet buddy movie about 3 guys taking advantage of a zombie ripped world: NO FREAKING WAY!
Diener (yes I spelled that right) - A psycho must deal with zombies after picking his next victims: NO FREAKING WAY
Stripperland! - Just what it implies (with an exclamation point) - hungry, horny zombie strippers. NO FREAKING WAY

In other words I guess I'm a fraud. I won't see these so you don't have to (well, I might do the Mutant one just for laughs - if there are any) because folks, this would just be inhuman (pun intended).

Holy Crap! A Movie That Didn't Suck



Dylan Dog: Dead Of Night (2010)

Yeah, I don't pay attention to Netflix suggestions anymore. I pick my own. This was another one of those movies I really wanted to see when it came out in theaters - it reminded me a little of Kolchak: The Night Stalker. And it obviously wasn't totally going to be serious. But I can't really get out of the house because of my health. So I decided well, two totally rotten films, I'm due for something decent. And that's what I got. Not fantastic, not ground-breaking, but not half bad. It's not an original idea (Are any of those even left?) but is based on a comic book series. But so is The Walking Dead. And Hellboy. And several others my brain isn't bringing up right now. Point is, being from a comic book is not necessarily a bad thing.

We are in the city of New Orleans, which has an extremely popular night life, perfect for undead creatures. And Dylan Dog (Brandon Routh). A little backstory: Dylan used to be the human go-between for the undead and the rest of 'humanity'. But when a vampire family (these supernatural creatures have 'families' like mobs) killed his fiancee', he wiped out their top bosses and now spends his talents on two-timing spouses and insurance fraud. He and friend Marcus (Sam Huntington) eek out a living, just enough to get by. Until he gets a call from Elizabeth Ryan, who wants him to find out who killed her father.

I could go on for miles with this one - we've got all monsters represented here, from your simple zombie to Belial himself. I did kind of enjoy that he narrates the entire movie like a detective noir film. And having Sam Huntington play a reluctant zombie was cute, since on Being Human he plays a reluctant werewolf.

So we've got jokes galore about zombie life, monster habits, and Dylan finds himself getting deeper and deeper into a mystery that if he doesn't figure out what the hell's going on soon, will cause a total monster war. But since he's 'retired' no one really wants to trust him anyway, making everything that much harder.

If it seems I'm kind of skimping on this review, it's because it's a film I actually think most would enjoy and don't want to give too many spoilers, although I took a ton of notes. Let's just say it has enough twists and turns, humor, lots of action, he takes so many poundings you wonder if there isn't something a little extra in his DNA as it would probably have killed anybody else and he just gets up and walks away, and the climax is a little - well, like I said, it wasn't half bad. Kind of mucked up toward the end, but still satisfying and way WAY better than most anything I've seen in a while.

So give it a try - just don't expect a lot of logic, realism, or a terrific mystery (it took me about half the film to figure it out). Just relax and have a bit of fun. For a change. And if you really want to know exactly everything because you don't want to watch it - well, I've still got my notes.

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




La Morte Vivante (The Living Dead Girl) (1982) France

Deciding to give Netflix another shot of knowing what I'd 'like' it picked this. I'm not letting them pick any more. The premise was supposed to be a dead girl, disturbed by a combination of an earthquake and toxic waste comes back to life to move among the living. Now let me tell you why that's a total piece of crap. Briefly, because this movie had absolutely nothing to it. Oh, except the beginning - there's an extremely erotic scene of a vampire woman feeding off another topless woman... until it backs up and shows you that is the American production company that bought this horrid thing. Nice way to suck people in, pun intended.

What really slays me (pun again intended) is that this was widely praised by the French as one of Jean Rollin's best films. I guess - if you like no plot, no zombie fun, staring at a blonde woman with absolutely no expression or emotion for 90 minutes, and enduring a movie that doesn't know where it wants to go or how to end. They talk about subtle, sublime, complicated, emotional, great shots. They were obviously watching another movie. Want something more exciting and only about 3 1/2 minutes long? Watch Rob Zombie's music video 'Living Dead Girl'. You'll get more out of it. This is the basics of this incredibly boring piece of fluff:

Get used to this expression - it's the only one I've got.

Three ne'er do wells are sneaking toxic waste into the crypt below the castle of a wealthy woman who died years earlier. Apparently only she and her daughter, dead for two years, are entombed there - the crypt is huge but there are only two coffins (immaculate without a speck of dust). While the driver keeps a look-out two roll a barrel of the stuff into the crypt. Now here is where it gets really stupid - and we haven't even seen five minutes yet. After depositing the stuff they decide hey, the dead woman and daughter were rich, time for a little grave robbing. Now these two have been dead years, but they look like they've been dead for, oh, NEVER. And for some reason they're barefoot. I dunno if that's a French custom and I really don't care. The mother's is opened first and the guy stuffs his pockets. The other opens the daughter's and stares at her 'beauty' (she's blonde, young, eh that's about it) but with the UGLIEST feet I have ever seen - I mean her toes looked like long claws <shudder>. Here's the climactic events that cause her to 'rise' - there's a itty bitty tremor that moves a few rocks (but manages to knock one down and out, yeah right) and one drum tips over and a little glug glug goes over the ground - nowhere NEAR the daughter. But she opens her eyes - and gouges out the eyes of the guy who disturbed her. Ah, here we go, cool. She doesn't have to kill the other one, a little glug got on his face and killed him (uh huh). She does kill the driver though, again with those long fingernails, this time in his neck. And wanders out into the woods. The end.

I keep getting bloody but I insist on wearing white.

You wish. She wanders back to her 'home' the castle, and it is conveniently open since they are attempting to sell it. She gets in but avoids the people wandering around. Later when the realtor and her boyfriend come back to get busy, she kills them (and eats for the first time) or at least the French way of showing her 'eat'... she buries her face in fake wounds while they add munching sounds to the soundtrack - oh yeah, that was real. She bloodies herself up pretty good and decides to walk around naked - uh, if you're going to do that publicly, you might want to make sure the carpet matches the drapes if you get my drift. Anyway, to push this thing to the end, her childhood friend Helene calls the house for whatever reason and Katherine (the dead girl - forgot to mention that, oops) pushes the phone on the floor but then opens a music box she and her friend Helene had loved to play. For some reason, this causes Helene to rush to the house, finding the bloody mess and her 'dead' friend. She decides to 'clean up' and take care of Katherine - she was more nuts that the dead girl. If this was the subtlety and beauty they kept gooping about, it's not working. It's just two women covering up murder. Now the French are not shy about nudity, but it was still pretty funny that when Helene was dragging the boyfriend down to the crypt, he managed to keep his, uh, privates tucked between his legs. That HAD to have been painful.

I don't want sex, I want you to eat me... uh, wait.

Enter a boorish American couple that somehow get involved - but first Helene thinks to 'feed' Katherine herself, or give her dead birds, but eventually snares other women to bring to the castle. Eventually the stupid Americans (in French films Americans are always loud, rude and stupid) insist on coming into the castle and are killed. Katherine, finally finding her voice (but still very little emotion or expression) decides the killings must stop and tries to drown herself - so Helene drags her out. Katherine has one thing left to do - they had promised that if one died, the other would too, so she makes a big deal of ripping out Helene's throat and arm (again it's her mushing her face into fake wounds while chomping sounds are added to the soundtrack) and the movie ends with her screams of... boredom? Stupidity? Wanting to be dead and not being able to? Maybe it was because she knew her movie career was probably over.

Outright Rip-Offs of George Romero Movies

Last Rites aka Gangs Of The Dead 

aka City Of The Dead aka 48 Weeks Later (2006)

This was my first Netflix experience, as my 'well' of movies has run dry - nothing on the satellite and I'm really REALLY sick of early 80's version of 'horror'. For those who've never tried Netflix, when you first sign up, you take a short 'survey' to see what movies suit you best. Apparently I did something wrong because Netflix must have concluded that I'm a mother-lovin' idiot and gave me this. 

It's supposed to be Last Rites, didn't sell, so went direct to DVD as GOTD, then COTD, then the UK decided to rip off their OWN stuff and called it 48 Weeks Later. Let me tell you, you could have called it Horny Babes That Want Your Phone Number Now and this movie still wouldn't move off the shelves. If, and I do say IF you choose to check it out, and it's 'free' or part of your subscription, just watch the first 5 minutes - that's the best part and where the bulk of their special effects money went. So here we go, briefly because... blech.

In L.A. a meteor shower is due to show up one night, playing havoc on all types of signals, TV, radio, phone, etc. but supposed to be really pretty. Well, a huge chunk decides to make an early entry. We see under a stone bridge a homeless man preaching fire and brimstone (his stick cross has a doll tied to it) to about oh, maybe 15 more homeless people. He keeps saying 'we need to look up' but nobody does - and when someone finally does, of course it's waaay too late. The 'chunk' fires down at them like a nuclear blast - taking out the bridge and turning to dust everything it hits - or should have. Now, there was a huge cloud when it hit, but in the next scene we see no dust, also no cops, no news crew, no emergency services - even though this thing had to have been heard and felt for a hundred miles. And the 'dust' everyone should have turned into - or at the very least small chunks of flesh - are people still whole without much of a mark on any of them - except of course they are now zombies. The wiki says it's alien spores, the movie says absolutely nothing. That was worth a look - until you see everybody in one piece and not a living soul was curious enough to check out the big-badda-boom. Fade out to:

Now this should have enraged every L.A. resident there - the stereotypes are so awful, it should have sparked some resistance somewhere. We have our Hispanic gangbangers (all three of them) and our African American gangbangers (all three of them), each conveniently with one woman with them for who knows what reason, supposed to meet in an abandoned warehouse to complete some sort of deal - drugs? Weapons? Worse? They don't explain that either. But for crying out loud, yes there is violence still in the streets of L.A. and unfortunately minorities can be involved, but gangbanging is a young man's game, mostly because they usually get killed before they turn 18. Sad. These guys are pushing 30, easy. But we have the raunchy dialogue, the homies and the dawgs, the stupid prattle that Hollywood assumes all minorities speak and it's just offensive. And I'm a middle-aged (mostly) white woman. Every time they spoke I just cringed. The two gangs meet at 9 in the morning, although the African American gang spits out that the Hispanics were supposed to show up at 9 at night. Then why were the African Americans there? And why is the guy handling the goods and money some 40'ish white guy? Anyway, just as The Lords of Crenshaw and El Diablo (I cringe just typing that) complete their transaction, they hear a horn blaring outside. See, the zombie homeless have been busy and are now at the warehouse and the African Americans, leaving their woman in the car, determine that she's laying on the horn and come out to see zombies all over the car, trying to get in.

There is also a narc in the group and so there are a bunch of cops and Vice squad ready to converge on the party - until the zombies get at them too. Sample dialogue <wince>, "Bums are eating the cops." "They must be hungry dawg." Sigh. Awe inspiring, isn't it?

Big nasty break of continuity coming up (although there was a lot of that) that even my husband, getting ready for work while I was watching  this dreck, noticed just by glancing at it - they open the bay doors for some unknown reason and the white guy pulls out a semi-automatic, prepared to wipe out all the 'hungry bums'. But when the door opens and it shows him in daylight ready to fire, it's a completely different model. I mean the barrel wasn't even close. It doesn't really matter, because he's 'splatted' by the vice squad's van, who are looking for a place to hide from the zombies. 

You could write the rest of this movie and be pretty spot on. The cops trust no one, the Hispanics trust no one, the African Americans trust no one. They fight each other more than the zombies. And it's just plain embarrassing. There's nasty undead eating people out there and they're still fighting over whose gang is better. Wow. To save you the pain of the rest of this abortion, they die one by one, the Hispanic's woman turns out to be the narc, they find a box of grenades (a must have in any abandoned warehouse) and succeed at killing lots of zombies and each other. The survivors are the two women, who stagger out of a smoking warehouse (and NOW we have our chunks and body parts everywhere) just in time to see the night sky of L.A. lit up by lots of meteors crashing and burning the city. And they're doomed. But the movie IS over, so it's a happy ending.