Banning the Human Centipede

In a decision that is truly mind blowing in this day and age, Tom Six's sequel to HUMAN CENTIPEDE: FIRST SEQUENCE (Subtitled FULL SEQUENCE) has been banned by the BBFC, Britain's film censor board.  As reported in various sources, though I first read about it in The Guardian, the reasoning behind the decision is based entirely on the certification that the film breaches the BBFC's Classification Guidelines, and poses "a real, as opposed to a fanciful, risk that harm is likely to be caused to potential viewers."


For those of you who have not yet been scarred by what in the film poses such a risk to viewers of the movie, a little taste of the plot:  A man becomes increasingly obsessed with the first film and starts to act out sexual perversions and recreate the centipede by abducting and surgically altering captors of his own.  Two scenes in particular, involving masturbation with sandpaper while watching the film and a rape scene involving barbed wire and the girl bringing up the rear of the man's creation, are singled out by the board in its justification for the classification, which makes any activity having to do with the film (including possession, distribution, and viewing - much like drugs) illegal.


But as pointed out by a favorite film blog of mine based in Britain, Little White Lies, this essentially tells us nothing about what these fears may be.  Clearly the fears of the board are realized within the film itself, but what of the real world prospects of copy cat amateur surgeons?  The first film has been out for nearly two years and I've yet to read a single report of anyone moved to such lengths by a perverse little diversion.  It also bears to recognize, as again pointed out by LWL, that the board has banned films for similar reasons before, including THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, which created an absurd situation that saw one of the defining horror movies of all time, as well as one of the less sanguinary of the last thirty years by comparison, banned in the UK until 1999.


That ban did nothing to stop people from seeing the movie, though, and this one will likely do nothing to stop THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE: FULL SEQUENCE either.  In an era when anything and everything can simply be downloaded via torrent or sold internationally, there's no stopping someone from seeing something if they want to.  It's just absurd to do it with something as fluid and accessible as cinema, no matter how lacking in artistic merit it may be.  And if we start banning things based on that criteria, I say we start with movies starring Rob Schneider.


And then there's the situation brought on by the announcement of the ban itself.  As evidenced by the growing interest in A SEBIAN FILM, a nasty little number from last year's festival circuit which still fails to have U.S. distribution, all the attention about how horrific and immoral it is has only given it free publicity and increased the likelihood that more people will actually see the movie at this point.  Not to mention the fact that adults are allowed to make decisions about what they would like to watch or read because they are adults, hence the very need for a classification system at all.  Tell us what's in the movie, and then let us watch it if we want to.  I know I, for one, can't wait to decide whether or not to watch Tom Six's follow-up to THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE.  That's because I'm an adult, and not a child to be coddled and told what is appropriate.  All that aside, though, there's more seriously fucked up material written in literature these days anyway, but I guess that's okay because the luddites out there who want us to be on the lookout for perversion don't read anything anyway.

Review: BLACK SWAN

Director Darren Aronofsky (REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, THE WRESTLER) is not a subtle filmmaker.  His films often feel like they're pounding, pounding, pounding their audience into submission, with deliciously all-too-human horror that confronts the viewer in such a way that forces them to either love the film or hate it.  There's really no in-between for an Aronofsky film.  His body of work could probably best be described as typically divisive.  His latest effort, the psychodrama BLACK SWAN, is no different.  The thriller, starring Natalie Portman as Nina Sayers, a ballerina up for the role of the Swan Queen in SWAN LAKE, a production under the control of hard-line artistic director Thomas (a brilliant Vincent Cassel), starts by recalling countless earlier ballet-centric films, notably THE RED SHOES - a film which can't help but be invoked by the mere mention of a powerful ballet director and a struggling dancer - and ends with notes of body horror, psychological melt-down and the destructive impulse that drives its obsessed central character toward perfection and destruction.

Nina strives for perfection as a dancer, and is selected for the role because the White Swan should be a technically perfected part, but Thomas still has his doubts about her turn as the Black Swan, who he envisions as a bit more loose and wild than Nina ever allows herself to be.  Enter the rivalry of another dancer, Lily (Mila Kunis), much more sensual than Nina's perfected technique would ever allow.  Nina may lose her part, Lily and Thomas may be conspiring against her, and she may or may not be transforming, quite literally, into some horrific thing.  Aronofsky has utilized the thematics of the ballet SWAN LAKE to create a real-world mirroring of its central conceit: two sides of the same coin, dooming one another, and only because they are one and the same, and it works perfectly as a horror film.

Something tells me, though, that this may end up becoming a major issue, as horror can most certainly be used as a derogatory term when it comes to the world of ballet.  It's a largely insular culture, with its aficionados holding strong aesthetic opinions of good and bad that comes with the territory (all artistic and critical communities are the same in this regard), and I don't think they'll be too pleased with the actual presentation of ballet in the film (indeed, James Wolcott's review makes this point for me).  It's a backdrop, and not the show, and even Natalie Portman's year of training for the role doesn't really make much sense considering Aronofsky's film (and the horror/thriller genre in general) is more concerned with intimacy and brooding intensity - a point the film's many close-ups of Portman's gaunt face and leaner, more bruised and calloused frame hammers home more efficiently than any medium shot of the dancing going on around them ever could.  In reality, the close-ups of her body never had to be the real Portman, but, just as it did with Mickey Rourke's scarred torso in THE WRESTLER, the fact that it is only serves to add to the visceral impact the shots have in conveying the physical impracticalities of such a demanding lifestyle on a biological level, let alone the strain it can have on the psyche.

Given the obsession the film has with Nina's strictly-governed and routine-driven existence becoming unraveled by her awakening to her own desires and her growing sensual self-awareness, there is naturally a strong sexual element to the relationships Nina forms with both Thomas and Lily, with each offering some new and thrilling experience that could end up dooming her chances at being a successful dancer.  This sexual awakening is accompanied with both horror and pitch black comedy.  Thomas, perhaps unprofessionally, but with a point nonetheless, in an attempt to drive the point home to Nina, who just can't stop being perfect, asks a male dancer point-blank, "would you fuck this girl?"  In another scene Nina wakes up and starts to masturbate, and just as she reaches arousal, with her back arched and her stomach down, she looks over and sees her mother sleeping in a chair next to her bed.  These scenes serve to shock us and make us laugh uncomfortably.  They are uncomfortable scenes in a film filled with discomforting thoughts and uncomfortable relationships that shed light on the whole absurdity of the assumptions various characters make about one another, specifically concerning sexual desires and inclinations.  Even the assumptions made about Lily are horrifying to hear coming out of Nina's mouth - especially when we find out the truth behind the night in question.  They may as well all be losing their minds.

In many ways, BLACK SWAN is a culmination of Aronofsky's body of work to date, one in which his primary concerns of psychological and physical trauma are perfectly married into a perfect vehicle.  THE WRESTLER with more darkness, or REQUIEM FOR A DREAM with more sympathetic identification.  And, like his much-criticized but underrated work THE FOUNTAIN, he is again here obsessed with doubles, and features many a fantastic shot by frequent collaborator Matthew Libatique that features multiple mirror images of Nina.  The motif is blunt, much like the parallels between the story of the ballet SWAN LAKE and the film, but it hits and it sticks, and it has stayed with me since I first saw the credits roll all the way back in September.  This is Aronofsky's masterpiece.

I feel like I haven't successfully conveyed anything about the supporting actors or their roles, but I also don't feel that it's necessarily important that I do.  As fantastic as Barbara Hershey is as the domineering ex-ballerina mother (an important stock character in ballet films), or as much fun as Winona Ryder is as the aging ex-lead ballerina whom Nina is replacing, the film is really only concerned with Nina.  Even Lily and Thomas are extensions of the almost entirely subjective view we are provided by Aronofsky as a window into this story.  We feel for Nina because she is a classical tragic figure, marching toward an end as inevitable as any the rest of us can expect, albeit one with a much better soundtrack.

Review: LET ME IN

It's always a shaky proposition remaking a film that was considered by many to be an instant classic upon its release, but that's exactly the task director Matt Reeves (CLOVERFIELD) decided to undertake with his latest film, LET ME IN, which isn't so much a remake of the Swedish film as a re-adaptation of John Ajvide Lindqvist's novel (and his subsequent screenplay adaptation) LET THE RIGHT ONE IN.  Reeves' new film stands wholly on its own, though as a consequence of its being adapted so closely from the same source material there are many similarities in dialogue, certain sequences, and even mood.  This isn't to diminish the American film in any way in regard to the original, and I'm simply making mention of the inevitable comparisons many will make (over and over again) between the two films.  I don't really think that's fair to Reeves, or to his actors, or to anyone involved in LET ME IN, which is on its own a superbly crafted film that, though it may tell a tale some may be familiar with, will nonetheless be many viewers' first exposure to all the film(s) and novel have to offer.

The film tells the story of Owen, a bullied kid who lives at home with his mother, who recently separated from his father.  They live in an apartment complex in New Mexico, and he spends a lot of time on his own, either in his room, or on the playground in the courtyard, sitting in the snow imagining his revenge on his tormentor at school, who derisively calls him "little girl."  He spies a girl moving into the complex one night from his window, and things move from there, with them gradually growing closer despite Abby's insistence that they "can't be friends."  Owen undoubtedly finds Abby a bit odd - she smells funny, never wears any shoes, and solves his Rubick's Cube in a day - but he seems to be inexplicably drawn to her as well.  Later in the film, we learn a lot more about Abby, and a little more about Owen as well, especially in his relationship to what Abby is and his need to be protected.

What struck me most as I watched the film almost three weeks ago in Toronto was the overall tonal shift Reeves made in transporting the film's setting from Sweden to New Mexico.  The cinematography is certainly more stylized, with a much darker lighting set-up than I expected, and that leads to the film feeling much more sinister in its implications.  Toward the end of the film, the relationship between Abby and Owen is much heavier than the one shared in the original by Oskar and Eli.  This has to a lot to do with some added nastiness about the actual nature of killing people and drinking their blood than we've seen before.  In a particularly memorable change in sequence, Abby's reveal to Owen features a full-on attack scene that poses questions about what exactly constitutes a monster, and the morals faced when you learn someone you are close with may be something entirely different than what you imagined.

But the surprises don't end with the simple additions of gorier scenes and different kills, although one such sequence does have a rather fantastic camera maneuver in it as we are stuck in a car that is crashing over a snow-filled bank off the road.  The film also offers some fantastic performances by its young cast members, who are full-fledged actors, and not mere "child actors."  Chloe Moretz once again proves she is every bit as amazing as she has been hyped to be, and Kodi Smit-McPhee is no slouch either.  As Abby and Owen, they are every bit the onscreen pair as Kare Hedebrant and Lina Leandersson were in Tomas Alfredson's film.  There is certainly something sweet and endearing going on that is conveyed even through the very thick, sad atmosphere brought to the film by their adult counterparts.  They are the perfect balance between knowing adulthood and ignorant youth, and perfectly show us a couple of children who are, literally and figuratively, old before their time.  I haven't even gone into the performances by Richard Curtis and Elias Koteas at all, and they were fantastic as usual.

The film drew me in with its similarities and by the end it left me in the same sense of wonder and suspense I had when I finished LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, which I will make no secret of being my absolute favorite film of 2008.  This is no small feat, and it's one that Matt Reeves pulls off by being unwaveringly faithful to the source material while still taking stylistic risks that American audiences may not necessarily be prepared for, and which serve to form additional layers of depth to a film many people already enjoyed in its first adaptation.  Think of it like a companion piece about the same people and with the same themes and tones, but with slightly different viewpoints.  It really is quite fun and interesting in its own right.

I also want to single out the score by composer extraordinaire Michael Giacchino, that demonstrates a very nimble approach to scoring a film of this nature, which could come off as a very, very heavy-handed experience.  Instead, he toys with creepy choirs while never going full-blown "HEY!  THIS IS SCARY!!!" style, and he never rubs anything in for too long or keeps a theme going far past the time the music should have died down.  Like his amazing overture at the end of CLOVERFIELD - notable because it was the only score in the film, over the end credits - he has given us a series of compositions that perfectly evoke mood and theme while never intruding upon the space the film needs to properly breathe.

Of course, I could go on and on about the many, many similarities between LET ME IN and its inspiration, but that's not what I want to do.  You can surely find that out there on any number of straight-up review and fan sites, and most of them will probably tell you it's not as good as LET THE RIGHT ONE IN and not to bother.  But I just can't do that.  LET ME IN is its own thing, and it doesn't deserve to be diminished in a climate that produces untold hours of absolute dreck every single week.  To say that something isn't as good as something that is near-perfect is to say absolutely nothing about it.  But to perhaps show how it made me think and react, which I hope to have done here, is to encourage others to give it a chance.  It may make a believer out of you that all remakes aren't necessarily bad.  After all, there were how many versions of the Dracula story in the past century?  And at least a dozen of them are more than worthwhile.  Regardless of all that, LET ME IN remains the tender, horrific and very poignant vampire film that LET THE RIGHT ONE IN is, and that means that it's totally unlike any other film to come out of the current vampire craze.

Strange Bedfellows: A Double Feature of the Grotesque

I love when films come along that are deemed immoral or have claims made against them that they glamorize violence and really serve no purpose.  This just reinforces the reasons for these films to exist: to push boundaries, make people uncomfortable with what they're seeing, and to provoke thoughts about what exactly are the roles that violence (in all its forms) play in our day to day lives.  While this may be evident in the discourse a film like THE KILLER INSIDE ME is having with the moral assumptions within every day society, being set in reality, and completely subjective in its point-of-view of a seemingly normal man who does unspeakably horrible things, it is also useful to understand that violence and its role in society has long been the territory of the horror film, and that Tom Six's THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE, for all its over-the-top shock value, is a perfect example of what power the visual realization of horrific circumstance on film can have on an audience, and how important it is that such images exist to provoke and disgust.

THE KILLER INSIDE ME, director Michael Winterbottom's dark noir adaptation of the pitch-black novel by Jim Thompson is the stronger of the two films in question, but with the pedigree behind it, that's not terribly surprising.  We're given small-town Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford (another absolutely spell-binding performance by Casey Affleck), who appears normal, and even knows and explains to the audience how he's appearing normal, to everyone around him, but who nonetheless has the impulses of a psychopath, and who isn't afraid to act on them when need be.  As Lou descends into an ever-growing spiral of sexual assault and murder, mostly in order to preserve his innocent status, the film forces the audience to experience his acts in the most visceral manner: explicitly, visually, and unflinchingly.

Winterbottom has never been a director to shy away from utilizing the medium's advantage of being able to give physical life to something that otherwise could only be imagined.  From the literal visions of Tony Wilson in 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE, to the explicit sexual relationship catalogued in 9 SONGS, and the very visual representation of adapting an unadaptable work (more successful than even ADAPTATION) in TRISTRAM SHANDY: A COCK AND BULL STORY, he is consistently one of the most confrontational directors for an audience to enter into a discourse with, specifically designing his films to provoke and push the viewer into places they may not be comfortable in, but which nonetheless serve to make them think about what they're watching.

The scenes in THE KILLER INSIDE ME that leave everyone so disgusted and puzzled as to just what the film is supposed to be telling us are the scenes in which Lou Cobb brutally murders his lovers, who he may or may not actually have any feelings for, but whom he nonetheless must kill in order to satisfy his need for personal survival.  The first murder in particular, of the prostitute Joyce (Jessica Alba), who Lou seems to regret his actions toward the most after they are complete (though he analytically decides there was really no other option), is exceptionally disturbing.  As part of a plot to get personal vengeance while also making a little money, he repeatedly beats Joyce in the face, her skin eventually giving way and exposing some of the bone underneath.  While this is definitely brutal enough, what I think most people find most repulsive is the desire for Joyce to kiss her lover and attacker one final time, and the fact that he does it.  The fact that all of this happens just after they've had sex so he could say goodbye to her only compounds this disgust.

But what does it all mean?  I think that, aside from attempting to tell us about society at large, these scenes are meant to get us thinking about how we process violence on a personal level.  What is more disturbing: to see this woman brutally murdered by the man she loves, and who apparently loves her on some level alien to those of us without a psychological disorder, and that she continues to love him despite his faults and the fact that she is very well on her way to death, or that we can watch countless action films where hundreds of people die and not feel anything at all about whatever brutal ways they meet their end?  I think both are equally disturbing, and neither is more condemnable than the other.  In fact, I think that both serve very visceral purposes for the viewer: thrills that are meant to provide some sort of release, whether it's one of disgust, or one of some sort of vindication.  Maybe both at the same time, and in varying levels.

Before getting into THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE, I'd like to address something that has been said of both films: that they are in some way misogynistic fantasies.  I don't know that this is necessarily an incorrect assessment of the films in some way, though I feel it oversimplifies and disregards a whole lot of other things the films are interested in or seek to provide some sort of insight into.  To simply say that a film is demeaning to women completely disregards the fact that sometimes the demeaning portrayals of certain acts toward female characters may come with the intent (and I think very easily noticeable) to deliberately make the audience feel disgust at the ways in which these characters are treated.  Why are women treated this way on film?  What advantage would a filmmaker have to simply make a film that absolutely does not care in any way about its female characters?  Is it the responsibility of the filmmaker to curb the possible or supposed interpretations of how "cool" some behavior may or may not be to the audience?  To the latter, I think absolutely not.  To the rest, I think these are things that must be considered at all times.

People lobbing accusations of completely pointless existence at THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE seem to be missing a bit of the point: the film is much more interesting if read as a companion piece to a film implicitly interested in showing violence to its audience like THE KILLER INSIDE ME (or HOSTEL, or A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, or anything else).  Rather than dwelling on the fact that the victims are women, which is important, and which I want to discuss a bit more shortly, assume for a moment that you are shown the actual "violent" scenes of THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE.  Well, for one, they're completely antiseptic medical scenes, and in most cases you can find more graphic representations of surgical procedures on any number of television hospital dramas.  Aside from a few incisions, the most violent scenes involve gunplay and a couple of instances of physical altercations during escape attempts. This is actually pretty standard fare for any number of films.  Second, four of the six victims in the film are male: two abductees, same as the women, and two police officers in the climax.  That the women get the worst treatment, in that they form the second and third portions of the centipede, is kind of a hollow argument, in that it's all pretty horrible, no matter where you are in the warped creation.

In any case, I think that the key to what THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE is about is in the pivotal performance of Dieter Laser as Dr. Heiter, a stock mad-scientist with a diseased mind character.  Laser's interpretation is chilling, in that Heiter enjoys what he's doing more than anyone logically could, and is obsessed not with killing people, but in furthering the field of biomedical surgery.  It's a concept that is interesting in its implications, given not only that Heiter is of course German (and the ties to actual biological questions infamous Nazi doctor Mengele posed and attempted to answer), but that we are, as a society, constantly attempting to find ways to prolong and save lives by forcing our bodies to accept foreign biological elements (i.e. - another person's body parts) into our own ailing frames.  Arguably Tom Six's twisted little horror film is more interested in bio-ethics than in creating any sense of horror at all, though it definitely succeeds on that level as well.

The key to understanding these films (and any others like them), I feel, lay in attempting to understand ourselves within the context of what we're watching.  And while you can certainly find them to be murky, problematic, or in some cases completely non-existent, it's at least a more worthwhile exercise to think about why we are shown what we are shown than to simply dismiss it as something that shouldn't be shown to begin with, for any reason whatsoever.  There may very well be no moral compass at work within a film like THE KILLER INSIDE ME, and certainly there is less of one to be found in THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE, but that doesn't discount what they may tell us about our own sense of morality, or the world we inhabit, and who we inhabit it with.

Of Fleshy Blobs and Bio-Ethics: SPLICE (2010)

Thankfully, there's Canada.

Without their particular brand of crazy, I don't know where the sci-fi/horror genre would be.  Sure, there are the French, but that's another thing altogether.  No, the Canadians have had this market cornered for decades now, with David Cronenberg's body horror oeuvre being most prominent, and now we have SPLICE, directed by CUBE mastermind Vincenzo Natali.

SPLICE follows superstar geneticists Elsa and Clive (a terrific Sarah Polley and Adrian Brody), who are also a happy couple, and their attempts to splice a new creature together and track down an enzyme that is a gateway for all kinds of cures.  So, we have Fred and Ginger, two slug-like organisms who are apparently far more complex creatures, who bond ("imprint") with one another, and who are extremely successful at producing the protein that the pharmaceutical company is looking for.

After this success, Elsa and Clive want to move on to human splicing - the next logical step - but are told no by their big-pharma employers, who want them to shut down their operation and attempt to synthesize the protein now, so they can start making some money off of their years of research.  And of course, Elsa and Clive ignore all of this ad create the thing anyway, "just to know that they can."  Things are never as simple as they seem in these movies, and inevitably, they decide to put off destroying their creation, and stuff eventually goes very, very wrong.

And then the film becomes absolutely, thrillingly insane.  I mean it: crazy.

After the initial shocks of the experiment - the premature birth, the rapid development of the creature, their fear of its potentially deadly abilities - Clive and Elsa decide to keep it, especially once Elsa becomes attached to it, and gives it a name, Dren, which is significant ("nerd" backwards) in that it stems from a discovery she makes while bonding with "her."

The decision to assign a gender to Dren is a significant one, because it fuels a lot of the most intriguing questions the film raises.  It also makes complete sense, given the fact that during one of the most amazing sequences, while dancing with Dren, Clive notices Elsa's features in her, leading to the realization that the human DNA spliced into her was not some random donor, but was in fact her own way of having a child (a subject brought up by Clive, but which disinterested Elsa, perhaps as not being "enough" for her).  This realization is where the film completely changes into something profoundly interesting, with Dren developing self-awareness, drawing conclusions about relationships, and, of course, typical adolescent urges.

The resulting final hour of the film is packed with questions and ideas about bio-ethics, relationship dynamics, greed, species and gender identities, sexual ethics and so much more it's mind-boggling.  I was so breathless by the time I left the theater that I felt like I had just run a marathon (the way I feel after watching Cronenberg's films, too).

Now, I'm not going to spoil much of anything for you, but I will give this piece of information:  the relationship between Dren and Clive sets all of this in motion, and it's one of those oddly erotic moments that you're quite simply unsure of at the time.  The model and sometimes actress Delphine Chaneac was no doubt chosen to play the oddly attractive Dren (from the waste up, at least) because the creature is supposed to have some sort of sex appeal.  The film thrives on our identification with this thing as a humanoid.  It totally works, too, because throughout the narrative, the film consistently plays with who the audience identifies with based on their relationship and reactions toward Dren.

The six or seven college kids behind me hated it.  They weren't kids, just immature adults.  SPLICE is not a movie for someone who is just looking for a big dumb horror flick (which is acceptable, too), and it certainly is not anything like what you would expect.  It is, however, excellent, and then you even get the traditional final reel freak-out horrorshow to top it all of.  It's nothing short of brilliant, and easily one of the best films I've seen this year.

In A Really Red State: RACE WITH THE DEVIL (1975)

I just can't escape this movie - it burns white-hot in my mind just like the first time I saw it.  It's a lightning rod of a flick, a film that separates two stages of my watching life (a designation few films share with it): things seen before, and things seen since. Unwittingly, I have succumbed to its power.

When I think of Warren Oates and Peter Fonda witnessing the satanic ritual that will endanger their lives from their campsite in the woods, it still gives me a chill, a rarity among those magical 70s horror films that I've become so familiar with, and even rarer still that it completely holds up to this very day.  When they slowly realize they've been spotted, and flee in their motor home only to be pursued by the cultists, it's horrifying, exhilirating, enthralling and just a wee bit gleefully hokey, in that way the best of these genre films can be.

And that's just the beginning.

Oates and Fonda (and their wives, the fantastic Loretta Swit and Lara Parker) are pursued throughout small-town Texas, encountering members of the cult at every turn and in every strata of society.  This is classic horror movie stuff, and it gets my rocks off.  And I haven't even mentioned the crazy 70s road movie part of it all yet; a genre with which both Fonda and Oates are synonymous with.  Let's not forget this is RACE WITH THE DEVIL, after all.

The chase scenes, in which the boys must fend off assailants as they attempt to board the RV, attack them with guns and sharp objects, and sometimes threaten to run them off the road (successfully, finally), are thrilling and suspenseful.  True to form, the movie also starts out with a couple of stressless dirtbike/motorcycle sequences for good measure - to please the real gear-heads in the audience, no doubt.  If there's one flaw in all of this, it's there is no scene in which Fonda is pursued while on his bike.  That would be movie heaven.

The ending is also ballsy, even if reminiscent of other endings from the time - a freeze frame that allows us to assume the worst as the RV (and the heroes inside it) is surrounded by the flames that signaled the beginning of the first sacrificial ceremony.  And it's satisfying.  And unexpected.  And still horrifying.

Watching RACE WITH THE DEVIL, I realized how life-changing movies could be all over again.  I've loved Oates forever (especially as GTO in Monte Hellman's superb TWO-LANE BLACKTOP and as the title character in over-looked gem COCKFIGHTER), but he was pitch-perfect for me here, and I re-learned the many charms an actor like that posesses for a viewer.  Like film critic Kim Morgan's other rough-guy heroes (among them both Oates and Lee Marvin, another similar screen-love of mine to hers), Oates plays to his physical strengths, which are definitely not those of a matinee idol.  He's all real, all tough, and all American male.  And despite co-billing, Fonda's a supporter.  This is truly Oates's show.

And what a show, guys.  What a show.

(For Kim Morgan's brief write-up on RACE WITH THE DEVIL as well as a bit about Peggy Cummins in GUN CRAZY and how amazing The Runaways are, check out her piece at Sunset Gun).

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY in "Found Footage" Films, from BLAIR WITCH to GHOST HUNTERS

In the past few years there has been a rash of "found footage" horror films, from the J.J. Abrams-produced CLOVERFIELD to horror maestro George A. Romero's DIARY OF THE DEAD.  The modern spate of these films comes from the parameters of experimentation successfully explored by THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT a decade ago: create a monstrous opposition to characters fleshed out entirely by their presence on screen, utilizing only their viewpoint - the camera - to put a distinct subjective mark on the developing events.  Some are small snapshots of epic-sized events, as in CLOVERFIELD and DIARY, while others deal in specific afflictions, like the apartment building outbreak in [REC] (remade in the U.S., well, I might add, as QUARANTINE) or the documentary crew's supernatural encounters in BLAIR WITCH.

Small-scale documentation of large-scale disaster in CLOVERFIELD.

The found footage in all these films relates "truth" to the audience.  The aesthetic choice of first-person video or newsgrade HD-tape to tell the story is, after all, something we are used to from our own exposure to home videos and the nightly news.  Its image is grainier, usually a bit darker, and somehow seems less artificial than film, especially the often well-lit, detached, third-person omniscient narratives of mainstream filmmaking.  Interestingly enough, the lighting and camera movement is often less natural in these films than in any other type of film, with light having to be filtered and created in various locations, and the camera movement much more pronounced than even regular head movement, all to produce the illusion of how things really look.

PASSING SHLOCK: New Horror, Innovation, and Putting One Over on the Mainstream

There is always a slew of new horror films ready to make a cheap buck at the cineplex, and audiences eat them up. So many exist, in fact, that a few films have recently snuck into wide release (none financially successful, I might point out) that, were it not for their questionable genre pedigree, would have never seen the light of day, and which would have easily passed in an arthouse if they weren't so defiantly "genre" in their setup and conventions. Up for consideration, I offer Rob Zombie's HALLOWEEN 2, Karyn Kusama and Diablo Cody's JENNIFER'S BODY, and Sam Raimi's brilliant DRAG ME TO HELL. All three films, with varying degrees of success, use and manipulate genre conventions to unnerve the viewer, and they do so with such slickness that it sort of passes unnoticed, leaving mainstream audiences used to simple, clichè-filled cookie cutter horror sort of satisfied, but scratching their heads at what the hell it was they just saw.

Rob Zombie is a director who is definitely an auteur of exploitation. Unnerving, raw and brutal are the trademark adjectives for his two best films, THE DEVIL'S REJECTS and HALLOWEEN 2. For all the psychobabble and theories about familial relations written about in countless papers and articles as the underpinning subtext of all horror, Zombie's films are almost completely, exclusively about familial relations and generational psychosis, masquerading as exploitation schlock for the masses.

Consider his interpretation of Michael Myers, and that character's arc from film to film. Ultimately, Myers is a child trying, in his own way, to please his mother and find his way in the world. I don't think this development is too far of a stretch, especially given its place in slasher film history, and it's easy for an audience to accept. Where Zombie sneaks one in, however, has more to do wth actual content and visual thematics, specifically the heavy allusions in the sequel, which pushes just as many buttons and boundaries as his earlier film, DEVIL'S REJECTS.

The content of HALLOWEEN 2 I'm referring to, and which people in cineplexes seem to be having trouble with, is the "white horse" motif. Providing a description of what the appearance of a white horse in dreams or nightmares means in analytical terms right at the beginning of the film, Zombie sets up H2 to be explicitly concerned with dreams, often obscuring whether or not Myers himself is even committing the brutal killings. Certainly, Myers gets a lot of screentime, but often the design of the film is hazy and smoke-filled, much like in the multiple dream sequences with the horse and Myers's mommy dearest. What this does is create a sense of uncertainty as to the reality of the film, and it has varying degrees of success.

Along with that, Laurie Strode, the Final Girl in the films, played by Scout Taylor Compton, is portrayed as increasingly unhinged and wreckless, just as likely a culprit as a killer whose head was blown off at the end of the last film. And then there's that wonderful, clichèd final shot of Laurie in the cell at the end, finalizing her descent into madness. Zombie isn't afraid to raise questions and leave them unanswered. Laurie may have imagined everything and committed the crimes herself, but there's no certainty. Is Laurie simply inheriting madness through genetics? Is it due to the traumatic events she goes through herself in both movies that leads her to the hospital? Is Michael even "undead" at all, leaving Laurie as the most likely culprit? Boldly, the film operates in much the same way as an art-house psycho-drama, though filled wall to wall with gruesome and brutal violence, and featuring one of the most intense sound designs I think I've ever heard. Zombie's pushing forward with his exploitation art-house, but sadly the audiences don't seem to be there from either side.

Sam Raimi is interested in pushing boundaries in ways completely different than Zombie, but with similar subversive results. With DRAG ME TO HELL, he continues his fascination with genre-bending, blending horror and broad comedy into something wholly singular. Unlike Zombie's visceral approach to undercutting genre conventions by juxtaposing slasher films with their implied social context and theoretical meanings, Raimi seeks to point out the absurd moments of horror by making them patently absurd through slapstick and overt camera moves. Some may argue that this was already pioneered with his own EVIL DEAD 2, which is stylistically similar, but his inspiration for DRAG ME TO HELL's comedy is more Tex Avary than Moe Howard.

Consider a scene in the middle of the film where Christine, the afflicted heroine, encounters her gypsy tormentor in the shed behind her house. While being strangled by the gypsy woman, Christine is able to grab an ice skate and use it to make an anvil, suspended from the ceiling of the shed via rope and pulley, fall down and crush the old woman. Only in a cartoon universe could such a scene make sense, and Raimi's sense of horror is the absurdity of the situation being put out front, in full view, for everyone to see. Yes, it's absurd that this woman came out of nowhere to pull a jump-scare out of you, but isn't it absurd all of the coincidences that usually get rid of monsters in our movies? Is the anvil trick really any different than the last-minute escapes from Freddy or Jason just as they are about to kill their final victim? Of course not, though unlike those instances, Raimi's version of the situation could just as easily come from a Bugs Bunny/Elmer Fudd short. The earlier fight in the parking garage is equally as absurdist and disturbing, with Christine being gummed and drooled on, and cursed for not offering a loan extension to the elderly woman who will soon curse her and doom her soul.

And then there's the sèance toward the end, where the possessed man, after a couple of pretty intense moments, breaks up the situation by dancing a jig while floating above the table with flames rising underneath him. The clear inspiration? Daffy Duck, of course, who often breaks up his own intense arguments with absurdist asides and remarks, or by simply acting, well, daffy. This is Raimi trying to find out how far he can push audience limitations in form, especially since the horrific is rarely the comedic, creating a film that zig-zags back and forth more than slams together to create a single tone, a là SHAUN OF THE DEAD. The closest the horrific comes to being the joke itself is the director's insistence on putting his actors through hell by seeing just how much fluid he can soak them in at any given time. Alison Lohman, as Christine, is doused by bile, vomit, drool, muddy water, and blood by the end of the film, literally representing the trials and tribulations of the traditional horror heroine as disgusting and vile.

And then, we come to JENNIFER'S BODY, easily the most divisive film up for discussion. In reality, it combines a bit of both of Zombie and Raimi's films' ambitions, though I think it's a bit less successful than either of the other two. Anyone who knows me personally is well aware of my strong dislike JUNO - particularly Diablo Cody's hipster-lite, pop-culture-reference laden dialogue. I'm all for writers having distinctive voices and styles that shape their every project, like David Milch (DEADWOOD, NYPD BLUE) or Woody Allen, bu something about Cody's script just rang false, with everyone in the whole damned town sounding like an idealized version of what a sixteen year-old thinks adults talk about and sound like when discussing adult things. It was lame, and inhibited the few positive things I found in the movie.

But here, we have a movie that makes all of that make sense, taking place in high school, featuring a bitch as a main character who eats people (literally), and isn't afraid of the corny side of genre fare. In short, JENNIFER'S BODY is a giant leap forward for Cody stylistically, and as a horror film, it's pretty fun, and the dialogue doesn't get in the way, mainly since we expect high school students to act self-absorbed and speak in ways that don't quite make sense outside of their social strata.

The main leap forward for JENNIFER'S BODY as a horror film, though, is its insistence on toying with genre conventions and following through with them while attempting to make the personalities of the characters the parodic targets. Jennifer and Needy are strong archetypes for the two major personalities in horror: the Final Girl, and the generic victim. By making Jennifer, the victim, turn out to be the monster as well, the loops in regular sexual interpretation are filled in and twisted until their unrecognizable. How can the sexualized sacrifice be the horror that must be stopped and still make sense in masculine/feminine terms? Well, apparantly, by obscuring the sexual impulses of all characters into some sort of amalgamation of bi- and homo-sexual tendencies, where nothing makes sense, and social class doesn't really factor into any of it. Jennifer's choice of morsels stems from nothing more than convenience for her condition, and the demon inside her is likewise not picky about who she kills and consumes. The killing boys motif, it turns out, is out of simple convenience, for who would ever question why a boy would go off by himself with and throw himself in the path of a monster like Jennifer.

Kusama and Cody innovate the generic monster in this way, making the motives and impulses difficult to read, and simultaneously obscuring and highlighting the subtext of horror films in general. Not unlike Zombie or Raimi. I'll likely return to all of these films at some point in the future, but for now, I'll leave it at this thought: Why, when Hollywood is full of bankrupt ideas and ready to funnel out money for the next remake, are these films even getting made? HALLOWEEN 2 seems most obvious, as it is a remake of sorts, though only briefly, but what about DRAG ME TO HELL and JENNIFER'S BODY. These films are the serious works of seriously talented people who somehow pulled one over on the suits who would never greenlight ambitious, complex retoolings of genre fiction were it not for their names and bankability. And obviously, given all three films' low box office receipts, the audience for these ambitious undertakings are not in the mainstream. Could these be marketed toward a more arthouse-prone audience?

After all, the French have a stranglehold on the arthouse right now, producing visceral, gory, ultraviolent horror that seems to be playing well at international film festivals, and gets plenty of recognition for the advances in genre from the likes of Film Comment and academia in general. Until American horror quits being underrated as a genre fit only for numb-skulled idiots who want to watch the latest FINAL DESTINATION film (which there's nothing wrong with, fundamentally, mind you), these films will continue to fall by the wayside, finding their audience on their own terms, and with no help from either the mainstream or the serious cinephile.

INSIDE

Watching INSIDE is akin to running a marathon, albeit a marathon through a house of horrors so unimaginable that it's difficult to breathe during or afterward. Like ILS (THEM), and FRONTIER(S), it is a film that is relentless in its pacing, and unflinching in its horrific brutality. Another win for the French horror filmmakers, I guess.

INSIDE is without a doubt one of the more disturbing films in recent years, concerning not only its subject matter, but how far it is willing to push the envelope with its violence and cruelty. As a horror film, it succeeds on every level, creating an atmosphere of dread that becomes blood-soaked very quickly, and with a series of events and an ending that left me, and no doubt will leave you, feeling like I had been bludgeoned and stabbed myself. I haven't felt as uncomfortable watching a film in quite a long time.

The film is about a mother-to-be named Sarah who, four months after a car crash killed her husband, is about to deliver her baby. The day before she is to deliver, a strange woman comes to her door, knowing
Sarah's name, and that her husband is dead. Sarah calls the cops, but the woman is nowhere to be seen. Promising to check in periodically, the officers leave Sarah to go to sleep, assuring her the woman probably fled when they show up. What follows the police, I'll leave you to discover, though it's all very bloody, elaborate, and utterly realistic.

Apart from the violence, there is some interminable suspense and mystery that oozes through the film, mostly regarding the woman, who she is, and when she will strike. Beatrice Dalle, who plays the woman - that's the character's name, as she is never given one proper - is no stranger to French horror, having herself starred as the woman afflicted with cannibalistic desires in TROUBLE EVERY DAY. Here she plays a largely emotionless killer who is obviously faced with bouts of rage and denial about what she is doing and what has happened to her (especially noticeable after the "twist").

Speaking of that twist, I think I should point out how well it is executed within the film's story, and how it makes perfect sense, but is something that isn't put together far in advance based on the clues of what the woman says or does to Sarah. Once it hits, though, before the film's climax, it makes everything that happens afterward a bit more horrific, and after an hour of being subjected to things I thought I would never find anything more terrifying than, this one thing pushes the last bit just that much farther. I was truly disturbed by the film's finale. I'll leave it at that, because to say anything more would give it away.

INSIDE is not a film that should be seen by everyone. In fact, I would wager that it would not appeal to the vast majority of viewers. But for a horror fan, or a fan of films that disturb, provoke and leave one's head filled for days afterward with questions, images, and just in general shake someone to the core, this one's for you.

ILS (THEM)

ILS (THEM) is a French horror film that fits only somewhat into the French Transgression, the current mode of horror filmmaking that is having its heyday right now that insists on explicitly exposing the human body in every way imaginable. Most films in this genre are ultra gory [see my brief write-up on FRONTIER(S) for an example] and subject their main characters to what amounts to torture, for better or worse, and with varying effects on the viewer. Some are amazing works, satisfying and layered explorations of what it means to be a certain thing - in this case, human [FRONTIER(S), IRREVERSABLE, TROUBLE EVERY DAY]. Others are mere exploitation, or just can't seem to get over the trappings of their own mechanics to achieve that greatness, as is the case with the much-lauded HIGH TENSION, a film that manages to be scary, gory, and all sorts of other wonderful before falling apart with what must be the worst ending to a good film I've experienced in many years of seeing horror films in theaters, or with any of the American attempts at the same experience [HOSTEL, VACANCY, et al].

And so, we have now THEM, a film set in Bucharest that tells the story of the terrorizing of a French couple in the middle of nowhere by someone in and around their remote house. It is basically the plot of a million other movies (the recent American release THE STRANGERS has the same exact story, if it moves in a completely different direction), but that doesn't matter, because THEM is a film entirely about the execution. For 70 minutes, it is a rollercoaster of creep-outs, the majority of them taking place in the humongous house the couple, Clementine and Lucas, owns in Bucharest, where she is a teacher.

Also like THE STRANGERS, THEM is allegedly based on a true story, though like anything claiming to be so this must be taken with a grain of salt. I tend to err more on the side of the Coen Brothers' FARGO when it comes to adapting "truth", and believe that the statement only serves to enhance the film's capability if it is pulled off well. And THEM certainly is pulled off. Clementine and Lucas are believable characters, and they don't act like idiots throughout their assault, so that serves as a plus right from the get-go. Even when they do behave like morons, it's at least in a way that is believable and grounded in reality, and not some mere setup for them to get into more horrific shenanigans like so many characters in your run-of-the-mill schlock.

There are sequences in the film so terrifying and claustrophobic, like a masterfully executed pursuit through a corner of the house under renovation, that I felt like I was under attack myself. Clearly, these are filmmakers who know their territory, and they don't even use an overabundance of blood and gore to do it (which is why I say it barely fits into the current wave of French horror). On the flip-side, however, there are places where the film is lacking. I felt it should have been a bit longer, perhaps showing more of the dynamic of the titular characters as the film enters its final third, and its final chase, beneath the town, and through an elaborate and wonderfully creepy tunnel/sewer/aqueduct system. But this is a minor quibble about a film that managed to nonetheless make me feel uneasy from beginning to end, and which was truly unpredictable in its details.

THE RUINS

In 1998, we were blessed with A SIMPLE PLAN, a gripping story of greed and its natural ability to destroy anything and everyone, adapted for the screen from his own novel by Scott B. Smith. In 2008, we have another such case of self-adaptation in THE RUINS, a movie that, though taut and horrifying at several points, carries almost no emotional weight, and even less insight. Now this isn't an entirely bad thing, as THE RUINS sets out mostly to terrify its audience, which it certainly accomplishes. My problems is with the characters, only one of which I found genuine.

The movie opens, like most others of this sort, with some teenagers on vacation in an exotic location - Mexico - and quickly begins picking them off one by one. Oddly enough, the one character I found myself liking and even rooting for was the obligatory "hot blonde," Stacy, mainly because she doesn't turn out to be quite so dumb as the others, and because she is the most believable in her actions as the story progresses. Played by Laura Ramsey, who I've only vaguely known of from other films like VENOM and THE CONVENENT, Stacy is a realist, understanding the harrowing events going on moreso than any of the others. She knows early on they're probably going to die, and it's probably not going to be pretty.

Sadly, the other characters suffer from being totally unlikeable and completely dense. Not that they aren't presented realistically - they are, and they behave in perfect logic with how they are written as personality types, part of what I liked about the film - but they are simply types of people I tend to ignore and not care for.

The plot concerns these teens finding their way to an archaeological dig for some Mayan ruins that aren't on any maps. Once there, they are chased to the top and not allowed to leave by some villagers - none of whom speak Spanish. Soon, they find that the ruins are home to an ancient evil, a predatory vine that works its way into people, mentally and physically, until it can claim them for itself.

I know this sounds more than a bit hokey, and it is very sci-fi oriented, but this premise is nonetheless employed to very horrifying ends. The scene when the two girls are in the temple searching for a cell phone they hear ringing in its depths is among the best constructed scenes in any horror film, and like the rest of the movie, plays out logically and realistically - the movie's strongest point by far.

Despite my personal disliking of some of the characters, they do behave like a person of their ilk would be expected in such a situation. And as far as the killer plant goes, even the most outrageous things are grounded - albeit far removed - in actual botany. When things play out to their foregone conclusion (gory deaths, a "final girl") it doesn't ever feel unsatisfying as in so many other recent horror films. That in and of itself is a small achievement.

All in all, I liked THE RUINS far more than I disliked it. But really, who doesn't like a gory killer plant movie? And one that doesn't completely suck, to boot...

Brain-dead: AUTOMATON TRANSFUSION (2007)

AUTOMATON TRANSFUSION is one of those movies that does well on the festival circuit and gets picked up for distribution, not because anyone sees any real merit in it, but because someone thought it was enjoyable and thought it had a chance at making money. As a direct-to-DVD release, it has most certainly made money, and I’ve put off watching it for the sheer lack of interest. In short, I thought it was probably just another crappy HD horror movie shot cheaply by some film students over the course of a week and then shuffled onto the shelves at Blockbuster so the unsuspecting masses could fork over their cash to see something that really isn’t any good.

But then something funny happened. I saw many positive reviews of the film online, especially at Indie sites that tend to have pretty decent credibility and it was getting pretty good word of mouth. So, this weekend, I took a chance and watched it, and I was ill prepared for the horror that awaited me. Not only was AUTOMATON TRANSFUSION everything I thought it would be, but it was one of the worst viewing experiences I’ve had this year.

Oh, how I long for the days when, in order to make your first film, you had to mortgage your house and sell your body to science and max out your credit cards and hope that what you made was something someone would want to pay you money for. At least there were several factors, like shooting on film, having decent editing equipment, and believable effects and acting work, that could contribute to the enjoyment of said film.

This monstrosity was shot over nine days on a $30,000 budget, and contains what I consider to be the absolute worst example of editing on HD video ever perpetrated by a major release. Seriously, between the lag and the grainy texture of the footage, I couldn’t tell if they had just edited and rendered their movie on a sub-par Mac book sitting on their buddy’s dorm room desk, or if they were simply content making whatever shitty decision was available at the time. At least when I think they used the Mac, it doesn’t bother me as much because they probably had their minds in the right place.

That being said, and apart from the production “values” of it, AUTOMATON TRANSFUSION suffers from several factors that are purely problems with the film itself, and include but are not limited to its unimaginative script, horrible acting (even by lo-budget horror standards), and the unforgivable sin of uninvolving and completely lackluster zombie effects - something that should be essential in creating a zombie movie.

The story concerns three friends who are going to see a concert in the city, and when they arrive, are overrun by zombie hordes and escape back into suburbia. Oh yeah, there are also some people at a party who get attacked, and one of them is one of the main guy’s sort-of girlfriend, and he needs to get back to save her from the onslaught...yadda yadda yadda. It’s all been done before, and it’s redone here, only with worse acting. Seriously, can someone please make a zombie movie that doesn’t involve the main character having to go back into the horror and save someone he loves? It’s tired, it’s unconvincing when you can’t even believe either character would even touch the other, and perhaps worst of all, this concerns characters in high school. Can we please stop casting people who are very, painfully, obviously much older than high school age to play teenagers? It hasn’t worked since PORKY'S.

I know this isn’t a proper “review,” per se, but I thought it was terrible enough to merit this ranting condemnation. As for zombie horror, I’ll take Romero, RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, and 28 DAYS/WEEKS LATER almost every time. I will, however, recommend finding a downloadable version of this just to see the one worthwhile scene: a fetus, ripped from its mother’s womb and eaten. Other than that (and possibly that included), this movie is a disgrace.

George A. Romero's DIARY OF THE DEAD

I have been looking forward to this since the first reviews came out of Toronto’s Midnight Movies late last year. The buzz was positive, and many critics claimed it was Romero’s strongest film in 30 years (that’s about the time DAWN came out, you know...) Anyway, I was hoping this would be true, since I’m a huge fan of Romero and was really wanting him to get back into the swing of things after some middling work in the last few years. So, I set out to see just what the master of zombie horror had concocted this time, and was pleasantly surprised.

Picking up on Day 1 of infection, a student film crew shooting a horror flick for class is caught up in the madness that ensues once the dead start coming back to life. Out of a sense of mission, the director and cameraman of the crew, Jason Creed, decides to keep filming in the hopes of being able to turn the footage of their journey into a documentary feature of his own, with the naive and somewhat narcissistic goal of informing people of what is really happening in the face of the lies being spread by the popular media. This is the set-up for Romero’s trademark social commentary, which is a bit more in-your-face than normal, albeit with mostly good results.

Romero’s take on the consumption (and production) of media in our current cultural climate is a breath of fresh air, and is infinitely more successful than CLOVERFIELD (a movie I also liked, by the way) or Brian De Palma’s REDACTED, mostly because the editing is put front and center by the film, and is acknowledging its own manipulations. Unlike CLOVERFIELD, where the back story is simply - albeit cleverly conceived - present as original portions of a videocassette that weren’t taped over, the film of DIARY OF THE DEAD is completely produced, providing a glimpse at both the way in which information is constructed (via downloads on the Internet, stock footage, voice-over narrations, etc.) but also the way in which we actively participate in horrible events by providing said information for consumption and/or production. The relationship between the zombie holocaust and traumatic global events like war and famine are linked explicitly (and sometimes a little clumsily) by Romero’s film, and the result is simply devastating as social commentary.

What the viewer is left with is a pretty nasty indictment of the consumption of media, or more precisely, HOW it is consumed. Every day, the public eats up thousands and thousands of images, bits of half-informed information from modern anomalies like blogs and personal websites with no filter on the content they can share with anyone willing to take a look. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing until the process of production/consumption begins to actively detract from that which is being documented, be it war or zombies or anything else. Once we refuse to come out from behind our screens - our safety nets - we have already lost. And that’s the message that ultimately is given.

Apart from the commentary and critique, the film also works as a horror film, though it goes against the current trend of ultra-violent gore and predictable methods of terror. That’s not to say that there aren’t bucket loads of blood or the really creepy moments, or even bits where things jump out from nowhere, but that all of this is really insubordinate to the horror of exactly what this would be like in the world we currently live in. How would we ever know it’s actually happening if no one is willing to report the truth until it’s too late, or until we experienced it first-hand with the deaths, and then reanimations of our family members who then turn around only to consume us.

The group eventually begin to die off one by one, with the moral questions of filming and production of a documentary with such events going on around you becoming the focal point of the film both in its meta-narrative structure (its editing and self-conscious narration) as well as in its story, with characters constantly calling into question the validity of it in place of actually doing anything. How, after all, can one help his or her friends survive attacks if they are unwilling to take a side, and are only there to observe?

I really liked the interaction between much of the cast, and though some of it was a bit corny, the dialogue was actually really believable. I can see how some people may have a bit of a problem as far as credibility goes. After all, how many people are actually going to just keep shooting instead of helping out. But, then again, many people watch horrible events day in and day out and instead of stepping in and saying enough’s enough, simply pull out their various portable devices so they can take video and send it to their friends without even thinking about becoming involved. Once again Romero has found a more-than-apropo link between the living and the undead, only this time by indicting that which has the inherent ability of proving life - the ability to record and remember.

As a zombie film, Romero’s latest certainly delivers, and there are plenty of gross-out moments and trademark Romero cheese thrown in for good measure. Is it his best film in thirty years? Maybe, though personally, I’d only go so far back as CREEPSHOW, which is more fun than DIARY OF THE DEAD, but devoid of much commentary, so it all balances out in the end. I may end up discussing this film more in the future, if and when time permits.