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el_jefe59:
Not because you have to, but because you WANT to! Things you enjoy, even when no one around you wants to go out and play. What lowers your stress/blood pressure/anxiety level? Make a list, post it to your journal... and then tag 5 friends and ask them to post it to theirs.
In no particular order:
movies
music
tv (anime/animation, old comedies, baseball, etc.)
reading
writing (when I can do it)
spending time with my grandpa
talking to my mom
getting letters/e-mail
seeingxelucha
perusing the mall for books & movies
sleep (when I get it)
enjoying nice days
bathing
smudging rituals
good food
As for tagging, whoever wants to can have at it!
“I see dead people.”
These words, made famous by Haley Joel Osment in M. Night Shymalan’s “The Sixth Sense”, describe the most basic element of the plot of “The Eye” (http://mandiapple.com/snowblood/theeye.htm). But, for the main character in this Chinese film, composed very much in the style of the Japanese horror films I’ve come to know & love, that’s just the beginning.
The movie centers around a young woman named Mun, a blind violinist who lost her sight at the age of two, who undergoes a cornea transplant in the hope of restoring her vision. While awaiting surgery, she is befriended by Ying Ying, a young girl having one of several operations to remove a brain tumour. Ying Ying promises to take Mun, whom she refers to as “sister”, outside when her sight returns.
At first, Mun’s surgery appears to be a success. Though sensitive to light & quite near-sighted, Mun’s surgeon, Dr. C. T. Lo, is optimistic. It is not long before she is seeing more defined shapes. One evening, she notices a dark figure entering the room & standing beside the old woman in the next bed. The woman gets up & leaves with the visitor. Moments later, Mun hears the woman moaning in the hallway, but when she goes out to offer help, no one is there. Suddenly, Mun turns around & the woman is behind her, saying, “I’m freezing,” moving with an unnatural gait toward Mun.
And then she vanishes.
In the morning, Mun sees the hospital staff removing the body of the old woman from the room. She had passed away during the night. When Mun tells the nurse about the mysterious visitor, she is told the hospital does not let anyone in to see patients after dark.
Mun is discharged from the hospital & goes home with her stewardess sister & the grandmother who raised them both. She is assigned another doctor, Wah Lo (nephew of Mun’s surgeon, C. T.), whose aim is to help her establish a visual vocabulary, so her brain can recognise the objects she sees, which, previously, were only known to her through touch.
The old woman in the hospital turns out to be more than just an isolated incident. A young boy comes to the door, solemnly asking Mun if she has seen his report card. When she asks her grandmother, she is told, “That boy must be teasing you; tell him to go away.” When Mun turns back, the boy is gone.
She sees him again later, crouching outside what we come to learn is his family’s apartment, down the hall from Mun’s grandmother (who sees Mun this time, talking to the empty air). We also discover that the boy committed suicide after losing his report card & fearing his parents’ reaction, & that the souls of suicide victims are doomed to repeat their deaths over & over until their earthly issues are resolved.
But the boy is just the tip of the iceberg. Pretty soon, Mun is seeing ghosts everywhere - a legless woman & her child floating into a restaurant, a lady claiming Mun is sitting in her seat at the calligrapher‘s (Mun was learning how to write), a really creepy old man in an elevator, a young accident victim on the street, the report card boy leaping out of a window - but when she runs, terrified, to Wah, he doesn‘t believe her.
She begins to wonder where her new eyes have come from, but when Wah, who is starting to regard Mun in more than a merely professional light, asks his uncle to release the donor‘s records, C. T. responds with a swift, harsh, lecturing negative.
Mun‘s life is slowly crumbling, between being barraged with visions of departed souls (as well as a bedroom that changes into a completely different one & then back into hers again), her dear friend Ying Ying having to go for yet another operation, & getting politely ousted from performing with her all-blind musical troupe (who affectionately dub her “Miss Tone Deaf”) because she can now see. Driven to the brink, Mun takes to her room, removing all the light bulbs & retreating into the warm embrace of the darkness that had been her world for the majority of her life.
All of this eventually lands Mun back in the hospital, the turning point of the film. Much of what happens over the next few scenes is heart-rendingly bittersweet, offering a hopeful, even comforting side to Mun’s newly inherited ability. The rest is somewhat unsettling, but together, these events finally convince the Lo’s that Mun is telling the truth.
Mun learns that Ling, her donor, came from Thailand, so she & Wah set out to find Ling’s village & gather as much information as they can. Through a village member & later Ling’s mother, they learn of Ling’s painful childhood, the ability with which she was cursed, & the awful manner of her death. What happens after that is almost excruciating to behold, a spectacular & devastating finale which brings both story & characters full circle.
I don’t think any review can really do this film the justice it deserves; there are no words truly able to portray its depth & delicacy. Though it will no doubt draw comparisons to American films like “The Sixth Sense” & “Stir Of Echoes”, both of which share similar themes, writer-directors the Pang brothers (writing with Jo Jo Yuet-chun Hui) take their story to new & unforeseen places, which American cinema has yet to explore. With beautiful, restrained, almost understated photography & performances (in particular Lee Sin-je, as the fragile, haunted Mun, who is simply astounding), “The Eye” is a sometimes eerie, occasionally shocking, often heartfelt, overall tragic film - everything a good ghost story should be, & so much more. See it before Tom Cruise remakes it.
--------------------------------------------------
This one, I owe to my mom. She got it for me ages ago, & when she asked for a copy to tide her over until she can find her tape (a lot of stuff’s still in boxes from when they moved), I couldn’t say no - especially since it gave me the opportunity to watch it again. It’s been too long.
The place: Sumatra, 1957. A New Zealand zoo official & his reluctant assistant move swiftly through unfriendly territory - complete with native tribesmen - hastening their capture, a rarity known as the Rat Monkey, to their vehicle. When, during the course of this chaotic & somewhat humourous chase (especially funny when the zoo official stops to wave his capture permit in the natives’ faces), the zoo official is bitten by the creature, we get an idea of just how frightened the Sumatrans are of this thing, & the reason they probably didn’t want it getting off the island, not to mention the drastic measures that must be taken to ‘cure’ the bite!
So begins a little film favourite of mine known in the States as “Dead Alive” (http://imdb.com/title/tt0103873/). Directed by none other than Peter “Lord Of The Rings” Jackson, this wonderful blend of hilarity, carnage, & over-the-top mayhem truly must be seen to be believed.
You’ll understand what I mean in a moment or two.
Cut to Wellington, New Zealand, & a grocery store owned by the Sanchez family. Spunky daughter Paquita, taken with a delivery guy named Roger, asks her Tarot-reading grandmother to forecast her romantic future. Grandma says, “There will be one romance, & it shall last forever.” But not with Roger. “This man,” she tells Paquita, “will enter your life in the near future, & you will become romantically entangled...you will recognise him by the sign of the Star & the Moon.” In stumbles clutzy nerdling Lionel Cosgrove, with his mother’s grocery order. Almost immediately, he knocks over some things & wouldn’t you know it - when Paquita looks at how they’ve fallen, she sees that they form the sign of the Star & the Moon. “Santa Maria!”
Lionel returns home to the news that his widowed mother, Vera, has just been elected to the WLWL - the Wellington Ladies’ Welfare League - & must prepare the house for a visit from the Mathesons, the League representatives. She starts barking orders like a seasoned drill sergeant, & comes off as something of a cross between Hyacinth Bucket (http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/guide/articles/k/keepingupappeara_7773960.shtml) & Norman Bates’ mom.
Paquita delivers Lionel’s groceries to the house, her German Shepherd, Fernando, tagging along, sparking a moment of pseudo-innuendo & broken English that ends in a proposed date at the local zoo. The date goes pretty well until Lionel catches sight of water. He explains to Paquita that he nearly drowned as a child, & his father drowned saving his (Lionel’s) life. An emotional pause, then it’s back to the fun, courtesy of the monkey cages. The primates seem to be having a whiz-bang time, playing & show-boating for the spectators (including our heroes & prospective lovebirds), until Simian Raticus - claymation Sumatran Rat Monkey & certified ugly bugger - spoils it all by tearing a happy little monkey to shreds & devouring it in front of everyone.
Just as the zookeeper finishes imparting the legend of this icky little beastie, an indignant Vera, who has been following/spying on Lionel, goes & gets herself bitten on the arm. She retaliates by crushing ol’ Simian Raticus’ squidgy little head with her shoe.
Back home, Nurse McTavish tends to Vera, who somehow blames Lionel for all this, yet also praises the boy for taking care of her so well. Having put his mum to bed, Lionel soon meets up with Paquita for a goofy-but-cute rendition of the Romeo & Juliet balcony scene. But as Lionel’s evening gets better & better, the Tarot cards Paquita’s grandmother is reading get worse & worse, predicting oppression, failure, debauchery, defeat, & sorrow. Likewise, Vera, as she sleeps, is getting sicker & sicker.
Next morning, we see that Vera’s arm has developed a weird, gross, almost mouth-like sore, & her speech is beginning to slur. Naturally - & in the finest tradition of comic farce (something this movie’s got in spades!) - it is precisely at this moment that the Mathesons show up. When Vera hurries to get ready & notices a flap of flesh has torn from her cheek whilst putting on her make-up (every woman’s nightmare), Lionel does what any erstwhile, loving son would do: he gets out the rubber cement & glues it back on! Without giving away any of the details, I can safely say that what follows is one of the oddest mealtime scenes since David Lynch’s “Eraserhead” (though not quite on the level of the one in Luca Bercovici’s “The Granny”).
After the Mathesons leave, Paquita shows up, Fernando in tow, to warn Lionel that dark forces are aligning against him. She ain’t kidding! I guess even the custard from the previous sequence didn’t satisfy Vera’s appetite, because she promptly (& off-screen, thank goodness) chomps Fernando, spawning the best line in the film: “Your mother ate my dog!”
One quick tussle & a fall down the stairs later, Nurse McTavish is back, come to take Vera to hospital. Paquita goes upstairs to pack an overnight bag, but Vera dies in Lionel’s arms...only to spring to life moments later, rip the nurse’s head almost completely (almost, but not quite) off her body, & throttle her son (who still manages to tell Paquita which toothbrush is Vera’s!). Lionel escapes the attack & locks his mother & the nurse in a back room. He stalls Paquita until she leaves, then goes to a veterinary clinic to get some sedatives for them, from a vet who’s half Laurence Olivier from Marathon Man (http://aol.imdb.com/title/tt0074860/) & half Monty Python routine! Once Vera & the nurse are sedated, Lionel goes to Paquita’s & to ask about these “dark forces”. Grandma gives him a Star & Moon medallion, said to contain “the power of the white light”. Unfortunately, Vera breaks out & literally crashes into the store, very obviously dead. And so, a funeral must be held. Or rather, a comic catastrophe of a funeral, during which we are introduced to two characters who play important parts in the rest of the tale: local priest Father McGruder, & Lionel’s smarmy, sleazy uncle, Les.
That night, in the cemetery, Lionel is busy digging up his mum (presumably so he can lock her back up in the house again) when he is accosted by a gang of juvenile delinquents, led by a creep called Void, who urinates on Vera’s grave...much to Vera’s dismay. Father McGruder, upon hearing the commotion, comes out to investigate. Faced with a gaggle of zombie-fied delinquents (& Vera), he looks squarely at Lionel & utters the second best line in the film: “Stand back, boy. This calls for divine intervention. I kick ass for the Lord!”
And he proceeds to do just that...until he gets bitten by a severed head & skewered on a graveside statue.
With his back room now full of zombies, Lionel takes it upon himself to play caretaker, right down to feeding them porridge & breaking up a smooching session between the lecherous priest & the enamoured nurse. Lamentably, he must also keep at bay his snooping uncle (who SO gets the wrong idea about what’s going on in that room), & later, is forced to break it off with Paquita, whom he’s been avoiding (for the obvious reasons), & watch helplessly as she rushes into the arms of Roger.
All this, & the fun has hardly even started yet!
Trust me, even those among you who’ve seen Romero, Fulci, Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead” flicks, & every other zombie pic ever, will see something new in “Dead Alive”. From what I believe is the world’s first zombie infant (did he name that thing Selwyn?) to the ending scenes at Les’ house party, where - quite literally - ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE. With gallons & gallons of the red stuff flowing, & body parts flying left, right, & center, this film pretty much defines the term “blood & guts”, but in a way that is hardly scary or brutal. You’ll laugh a whole lot more than you’ll scream at this one, but that’s the beauty of it. It’s a hyper-paced, almost cartoonish spoof of zombie movies, without being derogatory or condescending to the genre. Quite the opposite, in fact. Which is why it is one of my all-time faves, & a must-have for anyone into weird, wacky, & disgusting.
Beware, however, of edited prints (http://imdb.com/title/tt0103873/alternateversions). From what I’ve read, it sounds like I have the 97-minute version. DO NOT watch the 85-minute cut; I have, & it’s more chopped up than the zombies at the house party.
If you just can’t wait to get a visual on this movie, check out
http://imdb.com/title/tt0103873/photosites
For more reviews, audio clips, & behind-the-scenes trivia, have a gander at
http://members.tripod.com/peter_jackson_online/braindead/index.htm
el_jefe59: Not because you have to, but because you WANT to! Things you enjoy, even when no one around you wants to go out and play. What lowers your stress/blood pressure/anxiety level? Make a list, post it to your journal... and then tag 5 friends and ask them to post it to theirs.
In no particular order:
movies
music
tv (anime/animation, old comedies, baseball, etc.)
reading
writing (when I can do it)
spending time with my grandpa
talking to my mom
getting letters/e-mail
seeing
xelucha perusing the mall for books & movies
sleep (when I get it)
enjoying nice days
bathing
smudging rituals
good food
As for tagging, whoever wants to can have at it!
“I see dead people.”
These words, made famous by Haley Joel Osment in M. Night Shymalan’s “The Sixth Sense”, describe the most basic element of the plot of “The Eye” (http://mandiapple.com/snowblood/theeye.htm). But, for the main character in this Chinese film, composed very much in the style of the Japanese horror films I’ve come to know & love, that’s just the beginning.
The movie centers around a young woman named Mun, a blind violinist who lost her sight at the age of two, who undergoes a cornea transplant in the hope of restoring her vision. While awaiting surgery, she is befriended by Ying Ying, a young girl having one of several operations to remove a brain tumour. Ying Ying promises to take Mun, whom she refers to as “sister”, outside when her sight returns.
At first, Mun’s surgery appears to be a success. Though sensitive to light & quite near-sighted, Mun’s surgeon, Dr. C. T. Lo, is optimistic. It is not long before she is seeing more defined shapes. One evening, she notices a dark figure entering the room & standing beside the old woman in the next bed. The woman gets up & leaves with the visitor. Moments later, Mun hears the woman moaning in the hallway, but when she goes out to offer help, no one is there. Suddenly, Mun turns around & the woman is behind her, saying, “I’m freezing,” moving with an unnatural gait toward Mun.
And then she vanishes.
In the morning, Mun sees the hospital staff removing the body of the old woman from the room. She had passed away during the night. When Mun tells the nurse about the mysterious visitor, she is told the hospital does not let anyone in to see patients after dark.
Mun is discharged from the hospital & goes home with her stewardess sister & the grandmother who raised them both. She is assigned another doctor, Wah Lo (nephew of Mun’s surgeon, C. T.), whose aim is to help her establish a visual vocabulary, so her brain can recognise the objects she sees, which, previously, were only known to her through touch.
The old woman in the hospital turns out to be more than just an isolated incident. A young boy comes to the door, solemnly asking Mun if she has seen his report card. When she asks her grandmother, she is told, “That boy must be teasing you; tell him to go away.” When Mun turns back, the boy is gone.
She sees him again later, crouching outside what we come to learn is his family’s apartment, down the hall from Mun’s grandmother (who sees Mun this time, talking to the empty air). We also discover that the boy committed suicide after losing his report card & fearing his parents’ reaction, & that the souls of suicide victims are doomed to repeat their deaths over & over until their earthly issues are resolved.
But the boy is just the tip of the iceberg. Pretty soon, Mun is seeing ghosts everywhere - a legless woman & her child floating into a restaurant, a lady claiming Mun is sitting in her seat at the calligrapher‘s (Mun was learning how to write), a really creepy old man in an elevator, a young accident victim on the street, the report card boy leaping out of a window - but when she runs, terrified, to Wah, he doesn‘t believe her.
She begins to wonder where her new eyes have come from, but when Wah, who is starting to regard Mun in more than a merely professional light, asks his uncle to release the donor‘s records, C. T. responds with a swift, harsh, lecturing negative.
Mun‘s life is slowly crumbling, between being barraged with visions of departed souls (as well as a bedroom that changes into a completely different one & then back into hers again), her dear friend Ying Ying having to go for yet another operation, & getting politely ousted from performing with her all-blind musical troupe (who affectionately dub her “Miss Tone Deaf”) because she can now see. Driven to the brink, Mun takes to her room, removing all the light bulbs & retreating into the warm embrace of the darkness that had been her world for the majority of her life.
All of this eventually lands Mun back in the hospital, the turning point of the film. Much of what happens over the next few scenes is heart-rendingly bittersweet, offering a hopeful, even comforting side to Mun’s newly inherited ability. The rest is somewhat unsettling, but together, these events finally convince the Lo’s that Mun is telling the truth.
Mun learns that Ling, her donor, came from Thailand, so she & Wah set out to find Ling’s village & gather as much information as they can. Through a village member & later Ling’s mother, they learn of Ling’s painful childhood, the ability with which she was cursed, & the awful manner of her death. What happens after that is almost excruciating to behold, a spectacular & devastating finale which brings both story & characters full circle.
I don’t think any review can really do this film the justice it deserves; there are no words truly able to portray its depth & delicacy. Though it will no doubt draw comparisons to American films like “The Sixth Sense” & “Stir Of Echoes”, both of which share similar themes, writer-directors the Pang brothers (writing with Jo Jo Yuet-chun Hui) take their story to new & unforeseen places, which American cinema has yet to explore. With beautiful, restrained, almost understated photography & performances (in particular Lee Sin-je, as the fragile, haunted Mun, who is simply astounding), “The Eye” is a sometimes eerie, occasionally shocking, often heartfelt, overall tragic film - everything a good ghost story should be, & so much more. See it before Tom Cruise remakes it.
--------------------------------------------------
This one, I owe to my mom. She got it for me ages ago, & when she asked for a copy to tide her over until she can find her tape (a lot of stuff’s still in boxes from when they moved), I couldn’t say no - especially since it gave me the opportunity to watch it again. It’s been too long.
The place: Sumatra, 1957. A New Zealand zoo official & his reluctant assistant move swiftly through unfriendly territory - complete with native tribesmen - hastening their capture, a rarity known as the Rat Monkey, to their vehicle. When, during the course of this chaotic & somewhat humourous chase (especially funny when the zoo official stops to wave his capture permit in the natives’ faces), the zoo official is bitten by the creature, we get an idea of just how frightened the Sumatrans are of this thing, & the reason they probably didn’t want it getting off the island, not to mention the drastic measures that must be taken to ‘cure’ the bite!
So begins a little film favourite of mine known in the States as “Dead Alive” (http://imdb.com/title/tt0103873/). Directed by none other than Peter “Lord Of The Rings” Jackson, this wonderful blend of hilarity, carnage, & over-the-top mayhem truly must be seen to be believed.
You’ll understand what I mean in a moment or two.
Cut to Wellington, New Zealand, & a grocery store owned by the Sanchez family. Spunky daughter Paquita, taken with a delivery guy named Roger, asks her Tarot-reading grandmother to forecast her romantic future. Grandma says, “There will be one romance, & it shall last forever.” But not with Roger. “This man,” she tells Paquita, “will enter your life in the near future, & you will become romantically entangled...you will recognise him by the sign of the Star & the Moon.” In stumbles clutzy nerdling Lionel Cosgrove, with his mother’s grocery order. Almost immediately, he knocks over some things & wouldn’t you know it - when Paquita looks at how they’ve fallen, she sees that they form the sign of the Star & the Moon. “Santa Maria!”
Lionel returns home to the news that his widowed mother, Vera, has just been elected to the WLWL - the Wellington Ladies’ Welfare League - & must prepare the house for a visit from the Mathesons, the League representatives. She starts barking orders like a seasoned drill sergeant, & comes off as something of a cross between Hyacinth Bucket (http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/guide/articles/k/keepingupappeara_7773960.shtml) & Norman Bates’ mom.
Paquita delivers Lionel’s groceries to the house, her German Shepherd, Fernando, tagging along, sparking a moment of pseudo-innuendo & broken English that ends in a proposed date at the local zoo. The date goes pretty well until Lionel catches sight of water. He explains to Paquita that he nearly drowned as a child, & his father drowned saving his (Lionel’s) life. An emotional pause, then it’s back to the fun, courtesy of the monkey cages. The primates seem to be having a whiz-bang time, playing & show-boating for the spectators (including our heroes & prospective lovebirds), until Simian Raticus - claymation Sumatran Rat Monkey & certified ugly bugger - spoils it all by tearing a happy little monkey to shreds & devouring it in front of everyone.
Just as the zookeeper finishes imparting the legend of this icky little beastie, an indignant Vera, who has been following/spying on Lionel, goes & gets herself bitten on the arm. She retaliates by crushing ol’ Simian Raticus’ squidgy little head with her shoe.
Back home, Nurse McTavish tends to Vera, who somehow blames Lionel for all this, yet also praises the boy for taking care of her so well. Having put his mum to bed, Lionel soon meets up with Paquita for a goofy-but-cute rendition of the Romeo & Juliet balcony scene. But as Lionel’s evening gets better & better, the Tarot cards Paquita’s grandmother is reading get worse & worse, predicting oppression, failure, debauchery, defeat, & sorrow. Likewise, Vera, as she sleeps, is getting sicker & sicker.
Next morning, we see that Vera’s arm has developed a weird, gross, almost mouth-like sore, & her speech is beginning to slur. Naturally - & in the finest tradition of comic farce (something this movie’s got in spades!) - it is precisely at this moment that the Mathesons show up. When Vera hurries to get ready & notices a flap of flesh has torn from her cheek whilst putting on her make-up (every woman’s nightmare), Lionel does what any erstwhile, loving son would do: he gets out the rubber cement & glues it back on! Without giving away any of the details, I can safely say that what follows is one of the oddest mealtime scenes since David Lynch’s “Eraserhead” (though not quite on the level of the one in Luca Bercovici’s “The Granny”).
After the Mathesons leave, Paquita shows up, Fernando in tow, to warn Lionel that dark forces are aligning against him. She ain’t kidding! I guess even the custard from the previous sequence didn’t satisfy Vera’s appetite, because she promptly (& off-screen, thank goodness) chomps Fernando, spawning the best line in the film: “Your mother ate my dog!”
One quick tussle & a fall down the stairs later, Nurse McTavish is back, come to take Vera to hospital. Paquita goes upstairs to pack an overnight bag, but Vera dies in Lionel’s arms...only to spring to life moments later, rip the nurse’s head almost completely (almost, but not quite) off her body, & throttle her son (who still manages to tell Paquita which toothbrush is Vera’s!). Lionel escapes the attack & locks his mother & the nurse in a back room. He stalls Paquita until she leaves, then goes to a veterinary clinic to get some sedatives for them, from a vet who’s half Laurence Olivier from Marathon Man (http://aol.imdb.com/title/tt0074860/) & half Monty Python routine! Once Vera & the nurse are sedated, Lionel goes to Paquita’s & to ask about these “dark forces”. Grandma gives him a Star & Moon medallion, said to contain “the power of the white light”. Unfortunately, Vera breaks out & literally crashes into the store, very obviously dead. And so, a funeral must be held. Or rather, a comic catastrophe of a funeral, during which we are introduced to two characters who play important parts in the rest of the tale: local priest Father McGruder, & Lionel’s smarmy, sleazy uncle, Les.
That night, in the cemetery, Lionel is busy digging up his mum (presumably so he can lock her back up in the house again) when he is accosted by a gang of juvenile delinquents, led by a creep called Void, who urinates on Vera’s grave...much to Vera’s dismay. Father McGruder, upon hearing the commotion, comes out to investigate. Faced with a gaggle of zombie-fied delinquents (& Vera), he looks squarely at Lionel & utters the second best line in the film: “Stand back, boy. This calls for divine intervention. I kick ass for the Lord!”
And he proceeds to do just that...until he gets bitten by a severed head & skewered on a graveside statue.
With his back room now full of zombies, Lionel takes it upon himself to play caretaker, right down to feeding them porridge & breaking up a smooching session between the lecherous priest & the enamoured nurse. Lamentably, he must also keep at bay his snooping uncle (who SO gets the wrong idea about what’s going on in that room), & later, is forced to break it off with Paquita, whom he’s been avoiding (for the obvious reasons), & watch helplessly as she rushes into the arms of Roger.
All this, & the fun has hardly even started yet!
Trust me, even those among you who’ve seen Romero, Fulci, Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead” flicks, & every other zombie pic ever, will see something new in “Dead Alive”. From what I believe is the world’s first zombie infant (did he name that thing Selwyn?) to the ending scenes at Les’ house party, where - quite literally - ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE. With gallons & gallons of the red stuff flowing, & body parts flying left, right, & center, this film pretty much defines the term “blood & guts”, but in a way that is hardly scary or brutal. You’ll laugh a whole lot more than you’ll scream at this one, but that’s the beauty of it. It’s a hyper-paced, almost cartoonish spoof of zombie movies, without being derogatory or condescending to the genre. Quite the opposite, in fact. Which is why it is one of my all-time faves, & a must-have for anyone into weird, wacky, & disgusting.
Beware, however, of edited prints (http://imdb.com/title/tt0103873/alternateversions). From what I’ve read, it sounds like I have the 97-minute version. DO NOT watch the 85-minute cut; I have, & it’s more chopped up than the zombies at the house party.
If you just can’t wait to get a visual on this movie, check out
http://imdb.com/title/tt0103873/photosites
For more reviews, audio clips, & behind-the-scenes trivia, have a gander at
http://members.tripod.com/peter_jackson_online/braindead/index.htm
