Chadzilla ROARS!!! (The Official Blog of Chadwick H. Saxelid, Writer)

Classic Moment of Cinema: Creepshow (1982)

Creepshow (1982) trailer

Creepshow (1982) poster

George A. Romero Presents: Deadtime Stories: Volume 2 trailer

George A. Romero once again plays horror host to a series of three horror shorts.

The first Deadtime Stories wasn't very good (it was terrible, in fact) but even knowing what I will be getting myself into, I will watch Volume 2.  So it goes.

George A. Romero Presents: Deadtime Stories (Volume 1) trailer

George A. Romero Presents: Deadtime Stories (Vol. 1) has the "Original Master of Horror" introducing a trio of what appear to be some very generic looking horror stories:

Okay, I think that looks like an average to below average cheap, painful, borderline awful DTV horror flick.  I say borderline awful because there are a few (a very few) shots in there that hint at there being some degree of talent, other than the slumming Romero himself, being involved in the production.

Original vs. Remake: The Crazies (1973/2010)

After missing its brief theatrical run earlier this year, I finally caught up with the modest-to-large scale remake of George A. Romero’s cult film The Crazies on video.

It turns out that I did not miss anything, at all.

Both versions concern the effects of a biological weapon (code named Trixie) that contaminates the water supply of a rural farming community. In the original those exposed to Trixie suffered one of two fates, the person either went mad, or he or she died. In the remake everyone that is exposed to Trixie goes mad and then dies of what appears to be some kind of hemorrhagic fever, all within 48 hours of their first exposure to it.

In both films the military swoops in, declares Martial Law, and tries to contain the rapidly deteriorating situation by any means necessary (i.e. violence). A small group of townsfolk attempts to escape what has become a brutal war zone, but while they manage to elude the military, they cannot escape the effects of Trixie...

And it is there that the similarities pretty much end.

Romero’s approach to the story was broad and chaotic. He continually jumped back and forth between the military personnel trying to contain the outbreak and the small group of townsfolk trying to escape it. Doing so allowed him to present a pretty even handed view of the situation as it descended into complete and utter madness. A madness compounded by bureaucratic incompetence and panic fueled ignorance, which also allowed Romero to indulge in his love of social commentary and his gift for bitter and brutal irony.

Considering both the time and era the original film was both made and takes place, the early 1970s, the military is shown in an extremely sympathetic light. Even the leader of the fleeing townsfolk is a former Green Beret who, more than anything, just wants to wrap his head around what is going on.

Director Breck Eisner’s approach is much narrower, albeit far less focused. His version discards/ignores the military’s side of the story entirely, thus turning them into nothing more than camouflage and gas mask wearing mass murderers, and instead he focuses solely on the plight of the small group of townsfolk attempting to escape a series of impressively mounted yet oddly lackluster horror set pieces. Also missing is a larger and better defined cast of supporting characters.

For all of its low budget faults and shortcomings, Romero’s version had a real lived in quality to it. The mayor of the town, the sheriff, the doctor and even the town priest all had the feel of reality to the them. Romero gave his supporting characters dialogue that not only moved the plot forward, but also gave them moments that helped define their character and create nuance in the story. In Eisner’s version the high school principal, the funeral director/mortician, the mayor and town priest are just stock stereotypes that serve as background filler until the outbreak spirals out of control. Then they become bland, boring and blood soaked bogeymen. Silent killing machines that have been seen in dozens upon dozens of horror movies for the past 30 years.

Eisner even bungles the outbreak itself and fails to create a credible aura of escalating tension or dread. Instead of dreading the eventual eruption of violence and fearing for the characters safety, I was hoping people would start going crazy sooner and faster, just so that something interesting would happen.

Another thing this version gets wrong is in its presentation of the effects of Trixie. In the original, the effects were varied. Some went made instantly, others faded in and out of the madness, and some, because of the utter madness of the situation unfolding around them, you simply could not be too sure about. In the new version the effects of Trixie become whatever is convenient for the set piece at hand.

Those set pieces in and of themselves are well handled, the film is well made, it just lacks character and meaning, the two things that made the original a cult classic.

Original three stars out of four.  Remake one and a half star out of four.

Survival of the Dead (2010)

The zombie movies of George A. Romero, Survival of the Dead being the sixth one, have become a sub-genre unto themselves. There are all the other zombie movies out there, then there are George A. Romero's zombie movies.

Granted this is a distinction that is, by and large, made only by genre fans, but it is a valid one nonetheless. For the big thrill for fans is in discovering just what the acknowledged (by all but Romero himself) creator of the contemporary zombie movie will be doing with the shambling flesh eaters in his new movie.

This goes far beyond mere special effects splatter, although there are quite a few short sighted genre fans that have zero interest in anything other than watching zombies eat or get dispatched in some spectacular fashion. But the real reason for the excitement, and devotion, is that Romero always has something interesting to say about people (remember, the zombies are us) and how they do and do not get along during times of crisis, and he always finds a completely different way of exploring it in each new zombie movie.

Despite having made "the same" movie six times over, George A. Romero does not repeat himself. He reinvents each new zombie movie as something utterly new and, to this very day, he has been utterly fearless in what he chooses to explore and just how far he will allow his zombies to evolve. In Survival of the Dead we watch a zombie start a car and try to drive. We also see a zombie riding a horse, and riding it quite well.

Something else new about Survival is that this is the first time in Romero’s career that he has been able to bring back pre-existing characters. Each of the previous four "Dead" films in the "original" series (Night, Dawn, Day, and Land of the Dead) are owned by different corporate entities. However Diary of the Dead, the film that Survival follows, both creatively and narratively, is owned by the same corporate entity. This allowed Romero to take minor characters from the pervious film and follow them on their own separate adventure.

Those minor characters are the thieving National Guard soldiers that the documentarians in Diary had the misfortune of meeting. While the soldiers were a malevolent threat in the previous film, here they are presented as reluctantly noble leaning heroes that get caught up in a tribal war between two feuding families on an isolated island off the coast of Delaware. One family, the O’Flynn’s (led by the hilarious Kenneth Welsh), wants to "put the dead back to sleep." The other family, the Muldoons (led by the far more serious Richard Fitzpatrick), wants the walking dead to be "cured." Since there is no cure for death, they eventually settle for trying to teach the dead to eat something other than the living and thus tame them.

Wait, that last plot point sounds awfully familiar. Didn’t a well meaning, albeit utterly insane, scientist attempt that very thing in Day of the Dead? Yes, and that is not the only time I found myself thinking along that line. The journey that the deserting National Guardsman take is not at all dissimilar to the one taken by the SWAT team and news crew deserters in the original Dawn of the Dead. The characters are not all that different, either.  At least on the surface. There a three men and a woman, with the group split into two pairs of comedically bickering couples. The only real difference is that the Fly Girl character (Athena Karkanis) is a lesbian (with her introduction to the audience being a far more degrading one than Fly Girl's take charge introduction in the original Dawn) and the group tools around in an armored car instead of a helicopter.

The many call backs and references the film makes would have been irritating (to me, at least) in the hands of a lesser film maker. But Romero brings enough fresh ideas and set pieces to his new movie, not to mention an obvious sense of humor about it all (he clearly doesn’t want the audience to take his characters or their story all that seriously, which might bother some) that it all goes down quick and easy.

Three stars out of four.

Survival of the Dead trailer.

George A. Romero's Survival of the Dead (a far more comedic take on his traditional zombie apocalypse story) opens in limited release on May 28th.  I can only hope that it will be playing somewhere near me, I would hate to miss the chance to see in on the big screen.

 

 

Land of the Dead (2005)

"I always wanted to see how the other half lives."

All that Riley (Simon Baker) wants is to get out of Fiddler's Green.  All Cholo (John Leguizamo) wants is to get into Fiddler's Green.  Fiddler's Green is the luxurious tower from which Kaufman (Dennis Hopper) runs the tattered remains of a fallen city (Toronto standing in for Romero's Pittsburgh stomping ground) with an iron fist.  Outside of that city, beyond the protection of the river and an electrified fence, is a world overrun with walking, human flesh-eating corpses.

It is Riley and Cholo's job to venture out into that world and collect supplies for the Green and those that live on the streets around it.  Riley does it to help the very people he claims to want to escape.  Cholo does it to raise the necessary capital to buy himself a place inside the Green.

On his last night out, Riley notices that the "stenches" (the term used to describe the walking dead) have begun to behave oddly.  "It's like they're thinking, that they're communicating," he tells Cholo, his second in command.  Cholo, certain that this will also be his last night out, brushes Riley's warnings off and things go bad.  Very bad.

The team returns to the Green and both Riley and Cholo find their hopes of escape crushed by the ruthless Kaufman.  Cholo attempts a brutal act of revenge and Riley is sent to stop him.

But the walking dead are thinking and communicating.  Under the leadership of a sentient zombie (Eugene Clark) the "stenches" are massing to attack the Green...

Although highly flawed, and arguably the weakest film in the four film Dead Series, (Diary of the Dead, a reboot "do over" that starts off an entire new series of films, does not count) Land of the Dead is nonetheless a fitting and more or less somber and much more than less hopeful conclusion.  Yes, Romero himself stated that Land of the Dead has become the official ending chapter of his original Dead Series.  Having watched it repeatedly and having read the original Day of the Dead script, I have no problem agreeing with that statement.

First there is the "civilized" behavior of the zombie leader Big Daddy (Eugene Clark), who does not eat and even goes so far as to stop the zombies he is leading from eating the people that they are killing.  Clearly Romero wants to show that the smarter a zombie becomes, the less likely it will be to engage in the type of behavior that has made it famous.

Second is that Land of the Dead is almost entirely composed of unused ideas and events from his original (and "unfilmmable") screenplay for Day of the Dead.  Here Romero finally gets to film the "epic" final battle between man and zombie, to play with the have vs have-not societal structure he had originally wanted to fuel the human conflict, and...well, it sort of ends there.  Land has the ideas, it just doesn't have a strong enough story, or conflict, to really drive home all of his political commentary.  His cast of characters and their intriguing personal and political conflicts barely have time to be introduced before he has them running off for the Grand Finale.  One message board commentator, back when the move was playing in theaters, said it best, "It's a movie with a first and third act, but no second."  Which is why I recommend watching the Unrated/Director's Cut, because an important character building scene that was deleted has been put back in.  The scene not only makes Cholo a more interesting character, but a far more sympathetic one and Kaufman's inevitable betrayal all the more heartless and heinous.  Cutting the scene did the film a tremendous disservice and considerably weakened what was already a far too dramatically weak film.

Not weak is the film's political commentary.  It is my opinion that, as far as the series trademarked commentary goes, Land of the Dead is the strongest and most fearless of the series; and that makes it well worth watching, at least once.  So strong is the commentary that when I read Naomi Klein's article Disaster Capitalism in an October 2007 article of Harper's Magazine, I could not help but think of Romero's film:

"Not so long ago, disasters were periods of social leveling, rare moments when atomized communities put divisions aside and pulled together.  Today they are moments when we are hurled further apart, when we lurch into a radically segregated future where some of us will fall off the map and others ascend to a parallel privatized state, one equipped with well paved highways and skyways, safe bridges, boutique charter schools, fast-lane terminals, and deluxe subways."

That is the world of Land of the Dead and that is why, despite its weak story elements, I give the film a strong recommendation.  Watch it and know that is exactly what is happening right here, right now, today.

George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead (2008)

"We don't stop to help.  We stop to look."

University of Pittsburgh student Jason Creed (Joshua Close) is out in the middle of nowhere filming a short horror film for a class project when the end of the world begins.  As he and his crew of friends struggle to reach both family and safety, Jason stays firmly behind his camera, filming the events so that the truth of what really happened can be known.

I walked into Diary of the Dead with caution, mostly due to the fact that I was not completely sold on the concept and the fact that Romero was going backwards (to the beginning) and restarting his acclaimed zombie series from day zero instead of moving the story beyond the events of the simultaneously impressive and far too lightweight for its own good Land of the Dead.  (More on that in another review, okay?)  My concerns turned out to be ill-founded.  Diary of the Dead is a smart, scary and, at times, funny as hell (intentionally so, I am very happy to report) zombie movie.  It's every bit as good, in its own unique way, as Dawn of the Dead.  Yes, I think it is that good.

Yet the movie is not without its faults.  It falls far short of achieving an epic feel, there just aren't enough zombies around when certain sequences require them (i.e. when the group arrive at a deserted hospital), and some of the performances are a bit wobbly.  Many of the issues are no doubt a result of the film's small budget (just a hair over two million dollars, I believe) and rapid shooting schedule.  Romero also does not commit himself fully to the POV style narrative.  Diary, far more often than not, looks too commercially polished in its narrative and production values to allow the audience to fully suspend its disbelief that this is a collection of "recovered footage."  But it isn't like Romero had not been forthright about that from day one.  "This isn't like The Blair Witch Project!" is the famous director's most frequent, and quite accurate, description of his latest zombie epic.  No, Diary of the Dead is most certainly not like The Blair Witch Project.  It is the kind of zombie movie that made Romero famous.  That fact alone should be more than enough to get the faithful shambling off to the screening nearest them.

Diary of the Dead trailer

Diary of the Dead - Exclusive Trailer

Add to My Profile | More Videos

George Romero at Comic-Con 2007

Dude is awesome.

Land of the Dead trailer (Original Version)

I have always prefered this version of the trailer over its replacement (this version was pulled due to copyright issues regarding the use of clips from the original Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead).

Classic Moment of Cinema: Day of the Dead (1985)

The first week of shooting Diary of the Dead:

Just watch the Master at work:

The First Week

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Land of the Dead #5

"You have no right!"

As Fiddler's Green falls to Big Daddy and his zombie army, Riley and the crew of the Dead Reckoning try to save as many human lives as possible.

The conclusion of the Land of the Dead comic is every bit as action packed as the film it's adapting.  Like the movie, the comic ends right when it should be starting.  Like the movie, the story seems a bit too light and fast.  It's just a mad dash from one action scene to another.  Since Romero did not bother to populate the Green with fleshed out characters to feel one way or the other about, it is hard to care about all the bodies being torn apart and feasted upon.

The thing I liked best about issue five was the comic irony of the Fiddler's Green PA announcements as Big Daddy and the other zombies break in.  "Our computers indicate unauthorized entry at one of the building's entrances" while zombies tear several of the Green's residents apart.  The "Mister Kaufman wants you to know..." portion, played out as Kaufman and his lackey flee the Green, is arguably the most blistering social commentary of either the book or the movie it is based on.  In the film version there was so much screaming, groaning, and gun shooting during that sequence, I don't know if it was even in the movie.

An interesting alteration that I noticed, the two children cowering beside/behind Mr. "We're Fucked" have be excised from the comic book.  Now it is just a gathering of adults.  Hmmm, an interesting and subtle toning down of the movie's harder side.  (Then again, it might not have been specifically mentioned in the script.)  One thing I did like about that sequence, when the now smarter zombies shrug off the hypnotic allure of the Sky Flowers and march on the trapped survivors, for one brief moment the zombies' eyes have pupils.  For most of the comic's run the zombies' eyes aren't given pupils, which makes them look like they are glowing.  But when their rotted minds seem to be thinking something over, they have pupils.  It's a nice, creepy touch.

If only the rest of the story had been given as much detail, I think it would have done far better with audiences.  It is my hope that either Romero or Universal (whoever holds the copyright) gives a collective of writers and artists the chance to expand upon the rich and fertile universe that Romero has created in Land of the Dead.

Land of the Dead #4

"...I've always wanted to see how the other half lives."

Time is quickly running out.  While Riley and Cholo fight for the Dead Reckoning and Mr. Kaufman prepares to flee Fiddler's Green with his money, Big Daddy and his zombie horde launch their attack on the city.

Land of the Dead #4 is so packed with action (both human and zombie) that I wished some of it could have been fit into issue three.  I still can't figure out what it was about issue three that made it read so stiff, but issue four does not have that problem.  There's a well rendered action scene on just about every page and Romero's commentary, not to mention his considerable gift for narrative irony, literally glows off of the pages of this comic book adaptation.  The punchline to how Mr. Kaufman answers the question of what's in the bag has to be one of my favorite moments in any Romero film.  I was pleased to see that its ability to make me chuckle survived its transferal to the comic format.

If there is any weakness to the comic, it is the underdeveloped characterization of Big Daddy.  In the film he was a true leader.  In the comic it seems the he is just one of the zombie pack.  Issue four does include the sequence where Big Daddy shows the Number Nine zombie that a machine gun is a far better weapon than her softball bat.  Ryall/Rodriguez give the reader a glimpse of Big Daddy's more animated emotional reaction to Number Nine learning, but the comic needed something like this in every issue to better communicate the evolution of the lead zombie's intelligence.  I'm guessing that its absence had to do with either space limitations or the inability to transfer Eugene Clark's powerful and subtle performance to a sequential art narrative.  More than likely it is a combination of both.

The stage is now set for Land's explosive climax and, as was the case with the movie, I don't want the story to end.  Is it too much to ask that there be more stories with these characters that explore this fascinating universe George Romero has created?  (I would just love to read a novelization of Land that takes the time to explore its world and characters, and their background stories, in far greater detail than the movie or comic back has.  Yeah, like that is ever going to happen.)

Land of the Dead #3

"I'm here to do something.  Why are we standing around?  Let's do something."

With no way out of the Green, Riley agrees to help Kaufman get Dead Reckoning back from Cholo.  Knowing that Riley will be tempted to run off with the Reckoning himself, Kaufman sends along three "assistants,"  Manolete, Monica, and Pillsbury, to make sure that the expensive vehicle is, in fact, returned to him.  If Riley is killed in the inevitable gunfight crossfire, so be it.

The money never arrives at the drop site, but Big Daddy and the other zombies do.  After a brief snack, they begin to cross the river.  Knowing that Kaufman has refused to pay within the given deadline, Cholo prepares to launch his "jihad" on the Green.

"Why are we standing around?" was the question that came to mind while reading issue three of IDW's comic book adaptation of George A. Romero's Land of the Dead.  While the first two issues were brisk affairs, filled both with action and exciting plot developments, issue three just seemed to sit there.  This is probably do to the heavy amount of exposition that is required in getting all the characters into place for the action packed finale.  It just reads slow and has very little action to liven things up.  (Liven things up, in a zombie comic, ha!)  Sure there is the stuff going on at the armory, but that reads rather stiff.  Then there is my dislike of the headless priest gag.  Chris Ryall and Gabriel Rodriguez did such a great job with the first two issues that a "slow middle section" can be forgiven.  (Considering the issue stems from the way Romero structured his story, it would be foul play on my part to blame them for something beyond their control to begin with.)  Besides, I know there will be plenty of action (both human and zombie) to go around in the next two issues.  It's the getting there that is the hardest part.

Are we there yet?

On the positive side, I have to say I think the attack on Mouse was handled far better in the comic than it was in the film.  (The dude was wearing headphones, come on!)  The issue also closes on what has now come to be one of the most iconic images from Romero's Dead Series: Big Daddy and the zombie horde walking out of the river and up into Fiddler's Green.  It is as beautifully rendered in the comic as it was in the film.

Land of the Dead #2

The zombie horde from Uniontown, led by Big Daddy, draws closer to Fiddler's Green.  While trying to track down his missing car, Riley rescues the prostitute Slack from the Arena.  Mr. Kaufman's latest game to keep the penniless rabble of the city entertained.  Cholo manages to steal Dead Reckoning, the timely arrival of the Uniontown zombies providing the perfect distraction.  Mr. Kaufman calls upon Riley, ordering him to go out and "collect" the Dead Reckoning and "Do what needs to be done."

During an interview conducted many years ago writer/director George Romero, talking about his zombie movies visual look and story structure, stated, "What I'm basically making is a comic book."  I don't recall where the exact statement was made, it could have been in either the documentary Document of the Dead or Fangoria Scream Greats Volume One: Tom Savini, but Romero has made various similar statements in interviews elsewhere.  The second issue of the Land of the Dead adaptation shows just how perfectly suited his movies are to the comic book story format.  The story and events transfer so well that it almost seems that it works better as a comic book than it did as a film.  Chris Ryall's script crackles with energy and, not to sound like a pervert or anything, artist Gabriel Rodriguez and Jay Fotos' colors make Slack look even sexier than she did in the movie.  I also liked the cover art on this particular issue.  Unlike the Lucio Fulci City of the Living Dead inspired cover for issue one, issue two's cover seems to subtly reference one of Romero's early movies, The Crazies.  It also captures the apocalyptic vibe that is the strong undercurrent in the zombie series itself.  This is a book that any Romero fan, or just one of zombie horror in general, will enjoy reading.

Land of the Dead #1

Some time ago the dead began to rise up and attack and eat the living.  Unable to understand or deal with the threat, society quickly crumbled.  What little is left of the old way of life can be found, for a price, in Fiddler's Green, a sumptuous monument to wealth and easy living.  Protected from the hordes of the walking dead by two rivers and an electrified fence, as well as its own private militia, Fiddler's Green is run by the ruthless Mr. Kaufman.  To keep the Green stocked with food and luxuries, Mr. Kaufman sends out a team in an armored vehicle, called Dead Reckoning, to gather supplies.  Land of the Dead's story begins during one of those supply runs.

If you are one of those that felt that George A. Romero's Land of the Dead was too fast paced for its own good, then IDW's comic book adaptation of the movie might be to your liking.  It is certainly far better than their frame-by-frame adaptation of Romero's Dawn of the Dead.  Land of the Dead issue #1 adapts the first twenty or so minutes of the movie and its story progresses much the same way, but with an interesting narrative tweak here and there.

Despite having a 15 million dollar budget to work with, writer/director George A. Romero still had difficulty communicating the scope of a decaying world filled with walking corpses.  The book actually does a better job of it, showing a quick montage of zombies staggering through a rotting city, doing the things that living people do: like going shopping, walking in the park, etc.  There are also a lot more of the dead than there were in the film, so the overwhelming threat of the mindless horde has a tad more bite to it.  The zombies are also not as distracted by the Sky Flowers as they were in the film, so the book version of the raid has a little more action.

The tense relationship between Riley, who does the supply runs to help the people inside the city but that are outside of Fiddler's Green's posh prison, and his far more self-serving second in command Cholo, who is making the raids just to get the cash necessary to get into the Green, is introduced during the action of the supply run.  The third point of the power struggle triangle is Fiddler's Green's iron fisted leader, Mr. Kaufman.  In a nice artistic touch, Kaufman's face is kept in shadow, only his eyes and mouth are made visible.  This makes his brief appearance a far more intimidating one than Dennis Hooper's deceptively gentle mannered characterization.  It's more Randall Flagg than Donald Rumsfeld.

Riley returns to find that his plan for getting out of the city has been thwarted at the last minute and he begins searching to find out why.  Cholo tires to buy his way into the Green, but is turned away.  The strained relations between Riley, Cholo and Kaufman have finally reached the snapping point.

The repercussions of that break will be the focus of Land of the Dead Issue #2, and beyond.