BURT MALONE LETTERS: Fear The Walking Dead's Chris - I'm Glad He's Dead.

I hadn’t heard from him in a while, so imagine my surprise when Burt Malone sent me a letter!  It was a short one, sure, but pretty much to the point.  I guess he’s all caught up on the “Walking Dead” spin-off series “Fear the Walking Dead”.  Or at least he got far enough to make a bold statement.  Here you go.

[...]

Hey.  Why didn’t you forward me your new address, asshole.  You’ve been there for over three years and it’s been almost that long since we’ve heard from you, or since you’ve sat down with Starkwell and Lovelock.  What gives?

Well, anyways, I watched most of “Fear the Walking Dead”.  It’s ok.  The characters all pretty much suck, but they’ve come up with some good settings for dystopian shit.  I like the hotel thing.  And the bazaar was cool.

SPOILER ALERT BEST SCENE IS WHEN THEY KILL THAT FUCKING TEENAGE BOY.  Man did that character suck.  I think I’d rather watch “Z-Nation” then see another scene with that loser.  R.I.P. Travis and all, but HOLY SHIT did you ever make a shitty son.

Hope this letter finds its way to you.  I ran into Dr. Heckfire on the line, and he got me your snail mail address.  Hopefully he wasn’t lying, Fapperwheel style.

[...]

I honestly don’t know what half of this letter is talking about.  But shout out to Dr. Heckfire.  I’ve invited Starkwell and Lovelock over for coffee to see if we can reconcile and get the band back together.  Keep on keeping on, as they say.

Forest Of The Dead.

So the film is a cheap Canadian horror film.  The DVD, once you hit “play movie” it opens up with the cheapest looking, shot on VHS (EVEN THOUGH IT’S 2007), footage of the director, Brian Singleton, talking about the movie in an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt, chest flowing in the breeze, while “drinking” from what looks to be a “brown-bagged” bottle of… champagne?  Apple cider?  I think we might need something stronger to get through this.

[...]

[After the opening credits, shots of car driving, worst “pop punk” music ever plays.]

Starkwell: Why is always a bad “pop punk” song?

Lovelock: Probably because it’s always like “director’s brother’s shitty band”.

Starkwell: Good call.

[...]

The movie is CLEALY just a movie made by a bunch of dudes for fun while on summer vacation.  It’s bad, but I could see maybe it would be fun to watch if you know the people in the movie.   To be totally fair, for what is clearly a no-budget movie shot by a bunch of friends, it’s alright I guess.  Bad writing, bad jokes, and no acting at all… but somehow Lovelock and Starkwell haven’t set fire to the TV yet… granted, it’s early.  The guys talking in the fake Quebec accents are REALLY bad.  Really fucking bad.  I would expect more from actual Canadians.  They're probably from Toronto.

[...]

[Blonde girl is wearing an Expos shirt.]

Starkwell: Let’s go Expos!

Lovelock: I’m pretty sure the redneck mechanic was quoting “Fletch” just now…

[...]

The premise is pretty straightforward.  A group of teens go camping at an old campsite that is closed down and rumored to be haunted, and bad shit happens.  The problem is, it is taking a really long time to get going.  Also the novelty of this being backyard horror made by a bunch of dumb kids from Ontario is wearing off, and now everyone is getting crazy bored.

[...]

Lovelock: At least they haven’t played any more of that shitty “my friend’s band” music.

[...]

Then randomly the girl walks in on her boyfriend, one of the Quebec dudes, and he’s in his sleeping bag naked with the other Quebec dude?  Because, people from Quebec are gay?  At this point the movie lost Starkwell.  He got up, said something about being too old for this shit, and ran out of the room, top speed.  Just then, the movie shifted, and people finally started dying.

[...]

Lovelock: Why would kids from Quebec be drinking moonshine?

[...]

Then the group’s friends show up.  Basically a second group of shitty non-actors.  It’s like the movie has started over.  This second group is as obnoxious as the first.  Equally unfunny.  I think the best shot in the movie so far was one where the “afro” guy was “taking a leak”… but when he turned his head, you could see that he was just squeezing a Gatorade bottle.  Makes me think that they couldn’t afford a second bottle of Gatorade, so they were like “I think we got it”.

[...]

Lovelock: The nerd guy’s vest is different in every scene.

[...]

Lovelock:  These woods look like the same ones that Fred Penner shot his show in.

[...]

Seriously, what ever happened to that guy?  Also, what ever happened to Raffi?

[...]

Lovelock: If it’s an abandoned campground why would there be an old basketball court… in an abandoned parking lot… next to a highway?  Wait they have a rock climbing wall?

[...]

Fred Penner had an album in 2008?  Crazy.  And Raffi has been upto some seriously rad shit.  Amazing.  Also he had a new album this year?  Oh also, the movie still sucks.  Nothing has happened for the last half hour.

[...]

[Zombies rip nerd guy in half and eat his intestines.]

Lovelock: I mean, it looked awful, but ‘A’ for effort.

[In the next shot, his vest is different again.]

[...]

Lovelock: If you are alone, being chased by zombies, and you wander into and old farmhouse, and you stumble upon a piano… WHY WOULD YOU HIT ONE OF THE KEYS?

[...]

In the end everyone dies.  And then there are ten minutes of ending credits and bloopers.  The guys who made this obviously love movies and each other, even if they themselves are terrible at writing and maybe even editing, and none of them can act.  And their friend’s band sucks.  They’re not half bad at gore though.  The effects are obviously cheap, but a lot of fun and pretty bloody.  They shouldn’t have wasted so much time setting up story.  If it just been full of a lot more of the gags that were all over the last twenty minutes, this might have actual been enjoyable.

Diary Of The Dead.

People like to crap all over the second Romero dead trilogy, but I honestly thought “Land of the Dead” was good.  There’s something comforting about a zombie film made by Romero.  It’s like listening to an old favorite band that is sort of phoning it in, but I mean, come on, they’re still fun.  Unfortunately, this usually is the beginning of the end for a band/director, and eventually they start sounding/looking like the people originally imitating them.  Like when Weezer starts sounding like a Weezer cover band.  Or when Romero makes “Diary of the Dead”, basically.  But at least at that point they haven’t totally gone off the fucking deep end, hit rock bottom, and made “Survival of the Dead”.  I'll save that complete fucking turd for another day… of the dead.

[...]

[Intro, FOUND FOOTAGE style.]

Starkwell: Proof that even the greats succumb to shitty fads.

Lovelock: So Romero saw "REC" and was like, hey didn’t I kind of make that?  No?  Okay, maybe I should?

[The acting looks like, well, it won’t be very good.]

Starkwell: “Land” had a decent cast, I guess this one… doesn’t?

[...]

Now we get the intro of the “FILM WITHIN A FILM” called “The Death of a Dream”…  Basically people were making horror film, and eventually zombies rolled in, and so they kept rolling.  AND THEN some annoying girl took all of this footage and edited together this “Death of a Dream” movie… about the outbreak.  So I guess the zombie outbreak ended and she had time to edit this, narrate it, add music and… show it to all of us?  I don’t get it.

[...]

[FIRST PERSON VIEW going through dark and scary empty dorms.]

Starkwell: Definitely has a video game kind of feel.

Lovelock: Complete with “First Resident Evil's live action scenes” level of acting and dialogue.

Starkwell: So who's the master of unlocking?

[Groan.]

[...]

Then the main girl Deb says she wants to go home to Scranton, Pennsylvania.  Then, rather than listening to the shit dialogue, Starkwell and Lovelock started talking about “The Office”.   The ‘gang’ are driving in some sort of RV.  They see their first zombies and run them over, pretty nonchalantly.  Then, after, they all freak out?

[...]

[They pull over, and the girl that was driving blows her own brains out.]

Starkwell: That seemed a bit… sudden.  Kind of an overreaction...

Lovelock: I don’t think ANYONE would react that severely, even if they were real people.

[They go to a hospital, because she still has a pulse.]

Lovelock: She can't drive, OR blow her own brains out?

Starkwell: So what they were driving along the highway and they just happened to be right next to a hospital, right as the driver shot herself in the face?

Lovelock: SWISS CHEESE PLOT.

[...]

Starkwell and Lovelock are really having problems with this one.  On the bright side, the zombies look great (one thing Romero always gets right), and there are some decent scares her in the hospital.  There are some CG effects in the mix and they aren’t great, though.

[...]

Starkwell: HOLY BALLS THE DIALOG IS BAD.

[...]

Romero is clearly trying to make a point that in this age of information, too many people are filming, there are eyes everywhere, no one is living, people want to see life filtered through a camera, through TV, and through BLABLABLA… to be honest he is FULLY beating his point to DEATH, unnecessarily so, and on top of that, it feels like he is trying to say more than one thing (?).  He could have focused more on action and building characters and been more subtle about his point(s).  We are the walking dead, yeah I get it.

[...]

[They meet a deaf Amish farmer and use his barn to fix their RV.]

Lovelock: Good thing the Dumb Blonde knows how to fix the… fuel line?

Starkwell: This is some gang they’ve put together.

[Zombies close in on them.]

Lovelock: He’s not doing a very good job at building tension.  I honestly don’t feel worried at all.

Starkwell: To be fair, that’s mostly because you don’t give a shit about the characters.

[...]

Then the Amish guy dies almost immediately, making him as pointless as all of the rest of the characters in this movie.  Then they meet some black dudes… ‘gangstas’ I guess.  THEN THEY SHOW MAIN CHARACTER JASON and THE NERD GUY EDITING THE MOVIE.  Scenes we’ve already seen.  The movie within the movie within the movie within the movie?  I don’t know how many levels down we’re diving.  But I’m pretty sure we’re swimming in the deep end.  Of a pool of shit.

[...]

[Zombie takes a bottle of hydrochloric acid to the head and it slowly melts.]

Lovelock: Probably sounded better on paper.  Because fucknuts that looked bad.

[...]

Really just feels like a movie written by an old out of touch guy.  I guess it was.  And by the way, the old professor in the gang has a fucking bow and arrow now.  The gang now goes to their rich friend’s house, but he’s gone crazy after killing his whole family after they done gone zombie.  It’s a super long and dragged out scene that doesn’t really go anywhere until he goes zombie too.

[...]

[Main character films zombie running after Blondie, and, doesn’t help her.]

Starkwell: This movie is dumb.

Lovelock: At least we got to see dem boobies.

[...]

Anyways, the main character dies and the movie ends, after some more cheesy dialog asking whether we, as a species, are worth saving. Ugh.  I'm surprised that Lovelock didn't say "diarrhea the dead' at some point... Seems like a missed opportunity.

Dead Within.

This movie has five people listed as cast members.  There are four people listed as writers.  There are two people I know, that are very much not excited to watch a movie about a few people stuck in a cabin, hiding from zombies that, as far as I can tell from the interwebz, we will never see.  Let’s go already.  At least it’s only an hour and twenty minutes long.

[...]

[Credits open with aerial shots of landscapes and cities.]

Starkwell: I hope they didn’t pay too much for that stock footage.

Lovelock: Or for the helicopter ride.

Starkwell: The pilot was like “hey stop filming”.

[...]

Four friends, composed of two couples, hang out in their cabin, and there’s a baby.  It cuts from them celebrating to DARK and SCARY clearly after the outbreak.  There are people asking to be let in to their cabin, they don’t let them in.  Zombies eat the people outside.

[...]

Starkwell: Kind of shitty that they didn’t even think about letting them in, and now they’re just listening to zombies kill them.

Lovelock: And why do the zombies sound like dinosaurs from “Jurassic Park”?

Starkwell: You know, other movies have incorporated dinosaurs…

Lovelock: That’s my go-to for dinosaur sounds.

Starkwell: Also, why didn’t the people just try and break down the door?

Lovelock: Hold on to your butts.

[...]

The director does a fare job at creating tension, but it’s really slow.  It’s moving at a snail’s pace.  Every now and again, there are flashes of one of them killing their friends after they, obviously, must have become zombies.  Where’s the baby at?  Also, I guess since they don’t want to attract zombies, they whisper, mostly.

[...]

Starkwell: I guess the zombies mostly come at night?

Lovelock: Mostly.

[...]

The guy goes out on errand runs, but they don’t ever show that since that would take an actual budget, and more than two actors.  There are two actors in this movie, holy shit.  TWO.  And mostly it's just the girl being crazy alone in the cabin.  Like that Robert Redford movie, except not on a boat, and not Robert Redford.  And nothing happens even though there are ZOMBIES.

[...]

[The two share a cigarette and some synth music plays.  And then MONTAGE of them living in the cabin, surviving.]

Starkwell: So… this movie could have only been twenty minutes?

Lovelock: Try five.  SOMETHING HAPPEN.

[...]

I get it, it’s intense being cooped up in a cabin, having nothing to think about but how you killed your best friends and your baby.  BUT DON’T MAKE A NINETY MINUTE MOVIE ABOUT IT.

[...]

[The girl starts going kind of crazy.]

Lovelock: That’s it, lady… wash the clean dishes again.

Starkwell: More like, that’s it, MOVIE.  Show it again forever.

[...]

The troops are getting restless.  The actors are quite good, actually.  And it’s well directed and nicely shot.  But FUUUUUCK nothing is happening.

[...]

[The guy never comes back from his latest errand run.]

Starkwell: So, something happened, we just don’t get to see it... or?

[Girl has fucking CRAZY NIGHTMARES.  And then the front door starts bleeding… or at least it does in her mind.]

Lovelock: Well, at least we get to see that.

Starkwell: I appreciate that it’s more about her descent into madness than the zombie outbreak itself, but I’d like some kind of action… otherwise it needn’t take this long.

[He has a point - feels like a short stretched to a full.]

[...]

Near the end, we do finally get to see some zombies as they finally breach the cabin and the girl fights for her life.  Lovelock and Starkwell sat quietly on the edge of their seats.  For all the complaining about nothing happening, they certainly seemed gripped at the moment.  Definitely a slow burn kind of movie.  Takes a while to get there, but when it does, it makes you feel fairly uneasy as shit falls apart around the main character girl.  And she falls apart too.

[...]

[Guy comes back but she doesn’t let him in, because he can’t remember the secret knock.]

Starkwell: Woah.

[He tries to bust in with an axe, she cuts off some of his fingers with some branch cutters.]

Lovelock: Woah, gore!

[She knocks him out with a baseball bat and ties him to a chair.]

Starkwell: So… is he a… zombie?

[It becomes clear that he is not a zombie, and that the bitch is NUTS and maybe a zombie.]

Lovelock: Bitches be crazy.

[...]

What an emotional roller coaster.  She stabs him in the chest.  She sees black zombie blood, but I think it’s all in her mind?  We see red blood.  A bizarre ending to a bizarre little movie.  TWIST!  Her blood is black!  She’s the homicidal crazy rabid zombie!

Kill Zombie.

A Dutch comedy zombie film, originally titled “ZOMBIBI”, this film will almost certainly be cookie cutter and forgettable.  But then again, how often do you get to see a cookie cutter zombie comedy film made by the Dutch?

[...]

[We are introduced to Aziz, a dude who works in an office with his dream girl.]

Lovelock: Subtitles!?!?!?

[He gets fired, mostly because his party boy brother keeps calling him at the office.]

Starkwell: Why do they keep saying “what the fuck man”?

Lovelock: How many languages are being spoken here?  Sounds like eighteen.

Starkwell: How many do you understand?

Lovelock: None.

Starkwell: You know the subtitles are in English, right?

[Two black dudes get in a fight with Aziz and his brother and they all wind up in jail.]

Starkwell: Did he say “poop in your neck”?

Lovelock: I think that’s Craig Robinson in the Lakers jersey.

Starkwell: I think that might be racist.

[...]

So the two brothers, the two black dudes, a random other guy that was also in prison, and a sexy cop girl end up hauled up in the police station watching the news.  They find out that a Russian satellite crashed down into his (previous) office building and made people go full zombie, and there’s an outbreak all over wherever they are.  Meanwhile Aziz is worried about his dream girl, who is apparently stuck in the office building.

[...]

[All of a sudden they are surrounded by zombie cops in the station.]

Starkwell: How exactly did they not see all of those guys before?

Lovelock: How is there a spaceship?  It’s a movie, asshole.

[...]

The comedy is not bad, mostly predictable.  The zombies look decent enough, and the story is at the very least moving quickly.  They did throw in the obligatory “this looks like a Michael Jackson video” reference.  Why do all these fucking movies do that?  “Thriller”?  Really? A slightly dated reference.

[...]

[Montage of the crew arming themselves.]

Starkwell: Might be the most uselessly long montage ever.

Lovelock:  At least they’re not using the standard chainsaw-sword-cliché-shit.

Starkwell: Guy with two bowling balls?  Admittedly, fairly original.

Lovelock:  Seriously though, when is an 'arming oneself' montage ever bad?

Starkwell: Often.

[...]

Both Lovelock and Starkwell appreciate the slow moving zombies, and that the film tries to do at least one or two new things amongst all of the same old tired gags.  There is a shout out to “Pulp Fiction” at one point as well, when they accidentally shoot a guy in the back seat with a crossbow.  Not as outdated a reference as "Thriller", but still a touch random.

[...]

Lovelock: You shot Marvin in the face!

Starkwell: Are we supposed to know who Ben Saunders is?

Lovelock: We ain’t Nederlander, so, no.

Starkwell: You mean we ain't Dutch?

Lovelock: That too.

[I looked it up… he won the Dutch version of “The Voice”.  There's a Dutch version of "The Voice".  Adam Levine is probably fucking on it.]

[...]

Everyone, except the cop and Aziz, decide to go rob a bank because, if movies have taught us anything, it is that money is certainly very important in the post apocalyptic landscape.  Says Kev sarcastically.

[...]

[Craig “Bowling Ball Hands” Robinson gets bitten, and the random guy from the prison screws them over and leaves with all of the money, and the truck.]

Lovelock: That’s what you get for robbing a bank.

Starkwell: Crime don’t pay.

[...]

Then there’s a drawn out scene of the two dudes trying to kill Craig Robinson, and they literally use everything AND the kitchen sink.  It’s a bad joke and the scene goes on for way too long.

[...]

[Fight scene between two guys named the Barachis and a bunch of zombies, and they film it like a fighting video game, complete with energy bars and a voiceover saying shit like “FATALITY” and whatnot.]

Lovelock: Strangely, it isn’t the first move I’ve seen do that.

Starkwell: The first non Kung-Fu movie?

Lovelock: Maybe.

[...]

The Lovelock noticed that an actor in the background hit his head on something (clearly not on purpose) and he made us rewind and watch it over about four times (finding it hilarious that they used that take).  It actually was kind of funny, though.  So from an actual STORY perspective, it turns out the girl that Aziz wanted to save was a complete whore, so they went all the way to save her but it turns out she called half of the city to come and save her (and bone her... bone her with boner). 

[...]

[With the help of a Russian soldier, they put C4 all over the satellite, but Aziz’ brother is bitten.  It is sad.]

Lovelock: The C4 is clearly just a bunch of sticks of butter.

[Aziz’ Bro is gonna stick around to detonate the C4, and Aziz gets to kill his boss.]

[...]

On the bright side, they end up saving the world. And Aziz still gets the girl, because he gets the cop, who is RIDICULOUSLY hot.  Seriously.  The movie ends with a twist where, now, the safe zone is full of vampires, randomly.  And it feels as if they want to do a sequel.

[...]

Starkwell: Killed his boss and he got the girl?  Living the dream.

Lovelock: Honestly, look at that girl.  I need to go to Dutchlandia.

Starkwell: I think you mean the Netherlands.

Lovelock: It’s pronounced Dutch.

Starkwell: What?

Lovelock: NEDERLAND.

Starkwell: You really lost me.

Lovelock: Ned Nederlander.

Starkwell: ...

Lovelock: As you Americans say we shall play for keeps.

[...]

Solid fun little picture.  Some unnecessary slow motion here and there, some painfully outdated references (“Thriller”, “Scarface”, “Pulp Fiction”), some predictable lame jokes, but overall, this was pretty enjoyable.  Plus they never had to resort to gratuitous boobies etc. (although I'm sure no one would have minded with the main character being as beautiful as she was), which I can respect a lot.  Since EVERY cheesy American made movie always throws in some tits and buttz to try and fill the seats.  Also, what ever happened to the bank robber guy?  Weird.

The Coed and the Zombie Stoner.

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Last Days on Mars.

The premise behind this one sounds like a cross between “Ghost of Mars” and a more traditional outbreak-style zombie film.  The potential is there, but given that I haven’t really heard much about this movie, I have a bad feeling maybe it doesn’t deliver.  However, I’ve been wrong before.

[...]

[Two astronauts drive around Mars and shoot the shit.]

Starkwell: Joyriding on Mars.  Seems fun.

Lovelock: Not a care in the world, apparently.

[...]

The cast seems very competent - Liev Schreiber, the girl from “Sixth Sense”, the guy who played Casey Jones in the first Turtles movie…  We are looking good right now.  I think this is not gonna be a stinker!  The astronauts are on their last day of their Mars mission, and they seem a bit anxious to get the Hell out.

[...]

[The Russian Dude on the team finds life on Mars, but doesn’t want to share with the team.  While out there, the ground beneath him crumbles and he falls into Mars’ core.]

Lovelock: See, that’s what greed brings.  Death.

Starkwell: Deep, guy.  Very deep.

Lovelock: NOICE!  I just noticed that Casey Jones is playing the captain and the captain is Canadian!

[...]

The team gets the go-ahead to try and retrieve the Russian.  While on their way back to the site, the Russian’s girlfriend goes totally insane and disappears.  Space… madness?

[...]

[Liev Schreiber goes down after him into the hole, he finds LIFE.]

Lovelock: So, he sees creepy fungus growth while having weird hallucinations and decides to CONTINUE DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE?

Starkwell: Can’t become an astronaut if you aren’t brave.

Lovelock: And a lot crazy.  Maybe a little dumb too.

[...]

The rest of the crew pulls him back up after he freaks out, and he’s all like “nothing happened down there, I’m fine, whatevs”.  Meanwhile, they notice two pairs of footsteps leading away from the hole… presumably the Russian and his girlfriend.

[...]

[Dude lets the Russian back into the ship, and takes off his mask to reveal HE’S A DEMON NOW.  Russian Demon drills through the guy’s stomach, with a drill that happened to be lying around.]

Lovelock: He looks like an alien. 

Starkwell: Well, he sounds like a velociraptor.

Lovelock:  Kills like a dream.

[...]

The crew is trying to figure out what they are.  Zombies?  Aliens?  Demons?  I’ll tell you what they are.  They’re amazing.  “Sixth Sense” woman witnessed it all and she is FREAKING OUT, trying to tell them all that they’re all fucked, basically.  Methinks she’s right.

[...]

[Casey Jones is hurt bad, man.]

Starkwell: Just a flesh wound?

Lovelock: The best ones always go too soon.  He was a true Canadian hero.

[Right before he dies, he goes a little bonkers and tries to choke a dude.]

Lovelock: KILL IT! KILL IT!

[So, now he dies, and “Sixth Sense” girl restrains him and straps his dead body down to the gurney.]

Starkwell: Smart.

Lovelock: No wonder Jason Schwartzman falls for her.

Starkwell: Wait... the character... ?

Lovelock: Bill Murray too.

[...]

Lovelock and Starkwell stayed quiet for the next while, on the edge of their seats, gripped by the SUSPENSE!  The surviving astronauts study blood samples from Casey Jones and realize he’s infected by the Mars life shit that they found earlier.  Liev Schreiber continues to have his bizarre hallucinations about being stuck in an airlock or something.  He goes to explore the ship where they locked in the other zombies.  It’s very “Event Horizon” meets “Aliens” meets something something.

[...]

[Liev fights a zombie and is unable to make him stop getting back up.]

Lovelock: They have the technology to on a mission to Mars, but when fighting a zombie, he resorts to beating him with a flashlight?

Starkwell: They probably didn’t expect to be fighting stuff on Mars.

Lovelock: Wait a minute, this is the future. Where are all the phaser guns?

[I hope I'm not the only one who caught that reference.]

[...]

The crew is down to only three members at this point.  Liev, Blondie and Coward Guy.  Coward Guy takes off with the only good range rover leaving Liev and a possibly infected Blondie in a range rover with not much juice left and dwindling oxygen to fend off the zombies who are closing in fast.

[...]

Lovelock: Why don’t they ever make a happy movie about Mars?

[He says this after Possibly Infected Blondie kills herself in front of Liev… she immediately comes back and goes full rabid, mumbling “KILL ME”.]

Starkwell: This makes “Total Recall” look kind of happy.

Lovelock: Nothing ever happens on Mars.

[I hope I'm not the only one who caught that one as well... Liev kills her, in the head with a rock.]

Lovelock: Works better than the flashlight, doesn’t it?

[...]

The cavalry shows up, but they let Coward Guy, who is now Coward Zombie, onto the ship and they all get deaded.  Liev FINALLY kills coward guy with a series of helmet head butts to the face.  Still no lasers, but it does the job.  Then he throws him into space and sails off into the sunset.  Except there is no sunset, and we never get to see if he makes it or not.  All in all a fun little picture from a first-time (full length) director.

Fistful of Brains.

It’s hard to imagine that this is one of THREE zombie films that this writer director has managed to put out.  Granted with the micro-budget that these are likely made on, I can’t imagine any one of them being particularly grand or wonderful.  I don’t know how long the dudes will hang on this time around.  The intro credits play over, what I assume are scenes taken directly from the movie, while THE WORST FUCKING WESTERN SONG EVER RECORDED plays.  It’s kind of like how at the beginning of a porno they show a small clip from each scene and flash the actors’ names.  Like Anita Hardcock or something.

[...]

[Intro credits go on seemingly forever. With the theme song dragging on endlessly.]

Starkwell: I mean, you’re fucking joking right?

Lovelock: Shot on a Nikon Coolpix camera.  From ten years ago.  Edited by a free program that came with Windows Millenium Edition.

Starkwell: I’m waiting for the starwipe.

[...]

[Characters are introduced in a western ‘town’.]

Lovelock: I think I said this last time we watched one like this, but I think this was filmed at the Great Escape in Lake George.

Starkwell: Judging by the buildings, they’re not trying very hard to look authentic.

Lovelock: Those are some fancy light fixtures for the WILD WEST.

[...]

So there’s a snake oil salesman who sells the townspeople stuff.  And the ‘saloon’ is some dive bar with stuff written in permanent marker all over the ceiling and the bar, stuff like “James and Mindy 4 evah”, which all looks and sounds very authentically western, of course.

[...]

[A bunch of zombies eat some cowboys in the woods.  The one survivor tells the sheriff and FLIPS OUT!]

Starkwell: I know this is terrible, but it’s reaching some seriously insanely, near funny, bad heights right now.

Lovelock: Seriously, I’m nearly entertained by just how much of a trainwreck this actually is.

Starkwell: That guy’s a good actor.

[...]

There isn’t much point in documenting this any further.  There were a lot of laughs.  A lot. I doubt this was meant to be a comedy.  Given how painfully bad this was, I can’t help but want to track down the sequel “Few Brains More”… Of course, Starkwell and Lovelock would need some time before they'd agree to watch it.  Don’t believe the IMDB user review claiming this is like 'Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead” set in the 1800s'.  I mean I suppose it’s true if you change ‘Sam Raimi’ to ‘High School Drama Club', ‘Evil Dead’ to ‘total piece of shit’ and ‘set in the 1800s’ to ‘filmed in a small town using the local townies as the cast’.  I will say though, the film ends with a girl being thrown off a cliff and has a pretty sweet dummy shot.  A good dummy shot tends to make everything ok, and Starkwell and Lovelock ended up leaving feeling pretty good.

[...]

Lovelock: In a word, TRAINWRECK I CAN’T LOOK AWAY.

Starkwell: That’s more than one word.

Lovelock: This movie could never be described in one word.

Starkwell: Sure it can.  Terrible.

Lovelock: Fair enough.

[...]

This movie is bad in the way that old eighties or seventies movies were bad, which is kind of refreshing.  It looks like a lot of care was put into making it, a lot of time, a lot of effort.  It's kind of fun to see that, even when it is - especially when it is - a colossal failure.  When movies TRY to be 'so bad it's good', it never works.

The Roost.

I don’t know a whole heck of a lot about this movie other than that it is now a few years old and that the director has recently been involved in some of those anthology horror films.  None of what I just said leads me to believe it will be very good, but I’ve been wrong before.

[...]

[DVD Menu and intro has that grainy “faux” grindhouse look…]

Starkwell: So it’s to be one of those?

Lovelock: This was made for the Showtime network?

Starkwell: If it was ScyFy I’d be running for the hills.

[...]

Anyways, the intro is set up as if we are watching some old black and white horror television program.  The director does a decent job making fun of old fashioned black and white cheeseball TV horror.  Unfortunately it takes too long to get going.  Like, yeah, we get it, old horror.

[...]

[The “frightmare” tv show thingy goes on, as he introduces the story of people on a way to a wedding.]

Lovelock: The intro to Disney’s Tower of Terror is more gripping than this.

Starkwell: The movie is only eighty minutes, and he had to pad the beginning with this?

Lovelock:  Plus these credits are taking a good five minutes.

[This is the second round of intro/credits if you count the ones before the fake TV show thing.]

Starkwell: Long, unnecessary… even a bit confusing.

[...]

Around the seven or eight minute mark, now the movie starts.  It’s Halloween (?) and some college kids are on their way to a wedding?  Then a bat or something flies into their car.

[...]

[Old farmer guy goes to lock up his barn and is turned into a zombie by… bats?]

Lovelock: Wait what?

[His wife goes to find him and it cuts away before we see anything, so maybe he isn’t a zombie.  I don’t know.]

Starkwell: Is the movie just going to keep NOT SHOWING us something and then cutting away?

[...]

The film is really poorly lit.  There are a lot of dark shots of the actors holding flashlights and honestly, you can’t see anything.  So the college kids are stranded, and thankfully they are near the farmhouse, which hopefully means someone will get eaten soon.  Thirty minutes in and not much has happened except some college kids getting their car stuck in a ditch.

[...]

[Finally the “goofy” college kid goes to check out the barn.  Dies?  There’s a cop that goes in next, and he… also dies?  Actually we actually SEE the cop die, unlike everything else so far.]

Lovelock: Wait, he didn’t die by bats, he fell out a window?  That’s lame.

Starkwell: Is the cop Trent Reznor?

Lovelock: What?  No.  You’re an idiot.

Starkwell: I’m just trying to find something, anything, to be even just a touch excited about.

Lovelock: Maybe he jumped out the window to hurt himself, today.

Starkwell: Please don't.

Lovelock: To see if he still feels.

[...]

All of this is followed by a whole bunch more of the college kids being all “what should we do?  I don’t know.  What should we do?  Let’s talk about it forever”.  Honestly, JUST DO SOMETHING.  Also, why did they bother make it Halloween, and mention it explicitly... it's fully irrelevant.

[...]

[Finally, zombie cop pops out with a melty face and a rabid demeanor.]

Lovelock: There we go.  More of that, movie, and less of EVERYTHING ELSE YOU’VE DONE SO FAR.

[The college kids beat him to death with a shovel.]

Starkwell: They had him locked up in a barn… why would they just kill him when they don’t even know what’s wrong with him?  Crazy.

[That happens a lot in these movies.  I like to think in real life people wouldn’t go right from “Bill, is that you?” to “SHOVEL YOUR FACE TO A PULP”.]

[...]

Anyways, more running from bats, and hunkering down in a farmhouse, and then running from bats again, and eventually more zombies… but it’s all fairly slow moving.

[...]

[Guy with glasses shoots old lady zombie in the face.]

Lovelock: Wait, he had never even seen her before, and all she was doing was shuffling around in a room…  There was NOTHING about her that suggested zombie, or monster, or SHOOT ME.

[Zombie farmer pops out and bites glasses guy.]

Starkwell: Well that’s more clearly a zombie.

Lovelock: Maybe not.  I mean the dude just shot his wife in the face, maybe he’s just getting revenge.  In conclusion, this is some bullshit right here.

Starkwell: OLD LADY! KILL IT!  That's just bananas.

[...]

Then, as if to say “just when you thought this shit was ending soon” it cuts back to the fake tv show, and the “host” says some dumb shit and then it goes back to the movie.  WHY?!?!?!?!

[...]

[Everyone dies.]

Lovelock: Good.

[...]

The end.  But not before another shitty black and white tv show segment, which, for some reason, this time is in widescreen as opposed to being in full screen as it was earlier.  If you're gonna be lame, at least keep the lame consistent.  GIMMICKS EVERYWHERE! Hate.