Recent Reviews
Film Reviews: Undead and Nightmare
By John Marrone
Dec 17, 2005, 16:20

Face it - some movies just suck.

UNDEAD (2003) - I grew up in awe of Night and Dawn of the Dead, and love the idea of a good zombie movie.  This movie was the worst piece of crap I have ever viewed in my life, and I'm warning you all, don't pay a dime to see and support this film because The Spierig Brothers (writers, editors, producers, and directors) should be hunted down and have a digit removed for making such an insulting waste of time.  This movie has been out for a bit but wasn't extremely accessable until just recently, at least to me anyway.  I'd heard the hype about the film, I liked the title, it looks balls-to-the-wall in the trailers.  Undead is a complete farce and comedy with boob music and plays out like lame-Evil-Dead imitations meet The Southside Clown Circus, as Biff, Boff and Boink bounce around like goofballs running from zombies that are made fun of more than they are respected and feared.  For God's sake - haven't we all been waiting for decades, for somebody to make a worthy zombie epic?   The dead coming back to life and attacking the living for their warm flesh and blood, in real life, would be horrific.  Absolute Hell on Earth.  Its not funny.  Even Romero threw pies and had silly moments.  I dont want to laugh at the dead rising from their graves.  When did it all become comedy?  Return of the Living Dead is a classic, but funny still.  One of the better undead films that I can think back on is Zombie.  Minus that "I'm Peter West and I'm a reporter" crap, that movie took the situation pretty seriously and was a horror flick to be respected back in the day.  Snyder's Dawn of the Dead started off great.  The first 15 minutes of that movie was gem, and had people gasping with watery eyes at the calamity of its outbreak.  But it got blown by so fast - the simple neighborhood survival that would be essential and dominant in any zombie survival situation.  Why hasn't anybody approached the story dark and seriously, just once?  Undead was a slap in the face to true horror fans.  And to Tony Timpone of Fangoria, to The Film Asylum, to Michael Adams of Empire Magazine, and Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News - you people who gave this movie a positive review - I wholeheartedly disagree and think your taste in movies is unreliable, to put it kindly.  You all lost my respect.  Undead blows.  Somebody owes me 7.99.   

NIGHTMARE (2005)  -  This movie is a feature film running the festival circuit this year.  Its been winning a lot of awards.  More than not, its for Best Actor and Actress, Jason Scott Campbell and Nicole Roderick respectively.  Dylan Bank wrote and directed this film.  I have mixed feelings about this so-called horror movie.  Writer/producer Morgan Pehme is a clever man indeed, with a sharp and extremely professional filmmaking mind.  Dylan professes in a folder that accompanies the screener, that he wanted to go "into NIGHTMARE to make the most intense, insane and surprising horror movie of all time..."  This film is almost two hours of confusion, as a director meets a sultry and mysterious actress - they sleep together and wake up to a camera on a tripod with footage of them brutally murdering some people.  They can't remember much, and become paranoid - but all the while the director/film student played by Campbell is involved with a school film project, and begins to almost chronicalize his life, as a film, as it unfolds.  The sex had a lot of male frontal nudity - so much so that your opinions on the matter will weigh heavily on how much shunning or gazing you'll be doing.  I didn't enjoy it.  The acting was bright and talented - the soundtrack was spell binding - but dammit, I watched it for 2 hours, and the ending explained nothing.  Myself and everyone else in the room was confused, just wanting to know, "What the hell is the reason for all this murder and mayhem?  Is it a dream, is it real, are they working together...."  Much like American Psycho - a good movie dupes me into feeling frustrated and angry and confused in the end.  What, do I have to watch it again to get it?  Can't I just understand what happened?  Offer a clue.  Im sorry, Dylan and Morgan - I went in ready to solve a puzzle, I enjoyed your style of direction and atmosphere - but I was bombared back on my heels, reeling from repeated images of a naked man, and a story my friends and I couldn't figure out for our lives.  We all left the room disgruntled.  Kudos to your talent and ability - but somebody failed to get the story across clearly.  I wouldn't even want to waste time dreaming a movie as bad as Nightmare.