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.

Autumn.

I haven’t really heard much about “Autumn”.  I think it’s a Canadian film based on a novel by David Moody.  I know it’s about a virus that wipes out the most of the population, who then eventually RISE!!!  The movie starts immediately showing a montage of people coughing up blood and dying, and some people surviving the apparent FLASH plague.

[...]

[We are introduced to some survivors.  People somehow immune to this.]

Lovelock: They seem to be taking this rather well.  I would have probably pooped and peed my pants while vomiting at the same time.  And screaming.  And crying.

Starkwell: I don’t think that would look very good on film.

[...]

What is it with these low-budget movies using bad songs for the soundtrack and basically having whole sequences that look like bad and boring music videos?  Not my question, it was Starkwell’s… I just paraphrased since his version contained many curse words.

[...]

Starkwell: The two British actors make the Canadian actors seem even worse at acting than they actually are.

Lovelock: True… but I don’t think that they needed any help.

[...]

Considering that the film’s runtime clocks in at a little less than two hours, both Lovelock and Starkwell are concerned, given the snail’s pace that we are currently oozing at.

[...]

Lovelock: He’s going outside for a smoke?  Oh those polite Canadians…

[...]

Starkwell: How come all of the planes didn’t come crashing down when the virus exploded?  And if the people in said planes didn’t get hit by it, why haven’t the planes landed and the airports been flooded with people looking for answers?

Lovelock: Enough of your ‘what if this really happened’ stuff.  Focus on the movie.

[...]

[The bodies get up and start walking around.]

Lovelock: That’s what I’m talking about!

Starkwell: You were just talking about corpses getting up?

Lovelock: Well… no… but… FUCK YOU.  You know what I mean.

Starkwell: Alright, settle down, I’m excited too.

[...]

Lovelock: Why would the guy dressed as a clown stay dressed as a clown?

[...]

Holy shit this film moves slowly.  Both Lovelock and Starkwell can appreciate a deliberate pace, but this is making Jean Rollin films seem fast moving.  Starkwell still thinks that everyone is way too calm and that they seem to be figuring out what is going on way too easily.  It’s like the walking dead don’t even shock them.

[...]

[Guy shoots gun at a zombie, zombie ATTACKS HIM!]

Lovelock: Well, it’s a start.

Starkwell: Aren’t you the one who always says ‘it doesn’t matter how we get there as long as we get there’?

Lovelock: Yeah, but it shouldn’t have to take this long.

[...]

[Guy watches zombies eat a dog, the movie then freezeframes on him holding binoculars.]

Starkwell: The movie isn’t long enough already? They have to pause on certain shots now?

[...]

Somewhere around the hour and fifteen minute mark, the movie really starts picking up some steam.  Lovelock and Starkwell were quiet, and extremely focused on the screen.

[...]

[Carl finds a wandering Homeless Man.]

Lovelock: David Carradine?

Starkwell: Well that’s weird.

Lovelock: Is that a “Trailer Park Boys” poster?  Awesome.

[Carradine brings Carl to see his mother.]

Lovelock: If they were going to have a guy whose mom is still alive, it might have made sense not to cast a seventy-five year old as Philip.

Starkwell: This whole scene is a perfect example of something that could have been completely cut from the movie.

[...]

[Carl gets eaten.]

Lovelock: Well, it took an hour and forty-five minutes, but we just had our first zombie attack.

[Movie ends mid-sentence.]

Starkwell: For a film that took THAT long to get going, it sure as hell ended abruptly.

[...]

A better budget, better acting, better directing, and better pacing and editing could have taken this movie to ‘Almost Zombie Hall’ status.  But then again, if my aunt had balls she’d be my uncle.

Severed.

Having already said my spiel about Canadian productions, I will simply say that the idea of a zombie film set in the Canadian forest, with like lumberjacks, sounds pretty cool.  I know that this low-budget 2005 picture probably won’t re-invent the wheel, but regardless, I think it’s only fair that we give it a good old fashioned Starkwell and Lovelock try.  This DVD was packaged together with two other similar genre films.  Usually when a distributor bundles discs together, it’s because they can’t seem to unload them on their own.  Not really a good sign, but considering the price tag, how can we lose?  Well, I can think of a few ways.

[...]

[Activists have camp set up outside of deforestation operation.]

Starkwell: Occupy British Columbia.

[...]

It is clear that this movie is going to have a Green agenda, given that the trees bleed, seem to fight back and that the film is implying that pure evil emerges from the destruction of said old trees.  Lovelock and Starkwell seem happy with the message and the premise, Lovelock even stated that he is “fine with hippies so long as we don’t have to smell them.”  Starkwell noted how impressive the filming location looked and that the logging operation offered “great potential for saw-based kills.”

[...]

[Many loggers and protesters have become zombies or been eaten.]

Lovelock: That’s why I don’t get involved.

Starkwell: Yeah, that’s why.

[...]

[Nerds in lab make nerdy nerd joke, cuts himself, turns zombie.]

Lovelock: That’s what you get for making a bad joke!

Starkwell: So, you take comedy a little too seriously.

Lovelock: The punishment fits the crime.

Starkwell: Harsh.

[...]

[Gate is blocking the bridge out of there.]

Starkwell: They have an enormous pickup truck… why are they worried about a little gate?

[Truck gets stuck in mud.]

Starkwell: Oh.

Lovelock: That is the worst pickup truck ever.

Starkwell: That’s like anti-product placement…

Lovelock: Totally… I’ll never buy a Chevy.

[...]

[They find another camp full of crazy homicidal trigger-happy loggers.]

Starkwell: I think it’s safe to say that cabin fever has settled in to this camp.

Lovelock: That guy is totally on “Glee”.

Starkwell: Why do you know that?

Lovelock: Sadly, he’s not very gleeful in this.

Starkwell: Yeah, cabin fever isn't the same as Saturday night fever.

[...]

[Rita and Tyler kiss and do it and stuff.]

Starkwell: What about the current circumstances is making them feel all sexy?

Lovelock: Maybe it’s the fresh mountain air.

[...]

[Turns out that Rita Vegan-Granolahemp caused the whole thing, when she spiked the tree.]

Starkwell: So wait, is deforestation bad, or is protesting bad?

Lovelock: Both, I guess.

[...]

This is a shining example of how to make a cheap zombie movie properly.  It is cookie cutter without being completely unoriginal, low-budget without ever looking too cheap, and a lot of fun without ever being overly stupid.  Don’t get me wrong, this movie has many problems, but if more of the saturated zombie genre films from recent years were made with this much care, I’d have a lot more DVDs on my shelf, and Lovelock and Starkwell would never sleep again.

Pontypool.

Being Canadian, I take a great deal of pride in Canadian productions.  I love the “Kids in the Hall”, dug the “Trailer Park Boys”, and am so proud of “Kenny Vs. Spenny”.  That being said, it doesn’t mean that I’ll like something just because it’s Canadian.  The original “Degrassi” makes me feel all icky inside, I don’t understand the appeal of “Corner Gas” or the “Red, Green Show” AT ALL, and, amazing theme song aside, “The Littlest Hobo” makes me want to blow my brains out.  Why am I telling you this?  Well, I’m about to have Lovelock and Starkwell watch Bruce McDonald’s 2008  Canadian Production, “Pontypool”, that’s why.  Let’s see if this is one to make us proud, or make us feel great shame for our Northern roots.

[...]

[CREEPY DRIVING OPENING SCENE FULL OF SNOW.]

Lovelock: You know it’s illegal to not have winter tires in Quebec now?

Starkwell: Why would you say that right now?

Lovelock: I’m trying to distract myself from how scared I already am.

Starkwell: You know it doesn’t always snow in Canada, eh?

[...]

The film proceeds to introduce us to the main characters, with dialogue, acting and directing that is as good as it gets.  No sign of a zombie outbreak yet, but the mood is definitely bleak, and they continue to hint that crazy shit is going down, in the small Ontario town of Pontypool.  Creepy shots of snow accompanied by a terrifying soundtrack aplenty, Starkwell commented on how scary everything looked and felt and then basically shushed Lovelock any time he would try to say anything, not wanting to miss any dialogue in this dialogue driven movie.  I may have shushed them a few times too, because, damn, the main character Mazzy is SO COOL.

[...]

[Horrible zombie attack is described via a radio correspondant.]

Lovelock: So, are they not going to show us any zombie action?

Starkwell: If it’s all as effective as that, I don’t think that they need to.

Lovelock: You’re probably right, since well, I just sharted.

Starkwell: Nothing to be ashamed of, I’m pretty sure I just peed.

[...]

[Radio show takes calls from crazy people, and attack victims.]

Starkwell: I definitely just peed.

Lovelock: I think I might try and watch the movie from the toilet.  I can’t afford to soil any more pantaloons.

[...]

[Dr. Mendes starts explaining what is going on.  The English language is the problem.]

Starkwell: Well, now I’m both confused and scared.

Lovelock: I kind of want to stop talking, just in case.

Starkwell: I kind of want you to stop talking too.

Lovelock: Devrons-nous continuer en Français?

Starkwell: I really want you to stop talking.

[ENTER CRAZINESS.]

Starkwell: TABARNACLE!

Lovelock: Well, thankfully I was already on the can for that one.

Starkwell: I think this movie should come with a warning.

Lovelock: I think this movie should come with a diaper.

[...]

Although actual zombies are barely ever shown, this is one of the best zombie films I have ever seen.  Yes.  It’s that good.  It’s also further proof that a good zombie film has little to do with zombies.  It helps that the closing line was incredible.  As the credits rolled, Starkwell and Lovelock held hands and claimed that they will remember this moment forever.  Oh Canada.