Priest (2011) Action Horror Vampire

Priest (2011) - Based very loosely on a Korean comic book created by Hyung Min-woo, Priest is a straight up action film with little depth but lots of CGI and fighting. The introduction done with comic art and voice over tells the tale of a long war between humans and vampires. Unlike the classical vampire these creatures are more like the creatures in the movie Alien. They are hive creatures with a community centered around a queen with many drones, monstrous and vicious and eyeless. They are stronger and faster than humans and it is unclear how we really won the war against them. It is true humans had the advantage of the sun, and then there are the Priests. The church, a future or alternate version of the Roman Catholic Church, recruited and trained a crack group of Vampire fighters called Priests. (or Priestesses for females). They seem to have their own set of superhuman powers. We see them jumping from great heights, moving really fact and fighting exceptionally well. It is unclear to this writer why they had these powers but maybe I missed the line of voice over that explains it away. It is the case that if you are not paying very close attention during the early part of the film some things could be unclear to you. The film is talky at the beginning to get everyone in the rules of the world but after that it is event driven. The plot points explaining the world are underdeveloped and it is a bit irritating. Why did the Church put the aliens, oops Vampires on reservations instead of killing them? I really don't understand; is there some reason these monsters were spared? I know they have some sort of hierarchy are they more intelligent than shown in the film? Why would they then allow themselves to become captures of their food source? The church after the truce disbands the priests and they have outcast lives in society. Why would you do that when your protectors are the only ones successful against the monsters? They played up the idea that because of winning the war and camping all the remaining vamps that the threat was gone. Since the priests are the heroes the church leadership felt threatened by their success and thus disbanded them. Since they had contained the vamps there was no threat there anymore. This is awful thin and I questioned it while watching the film. Also if the people knew the priest were the ones who saved them then why would they shun the priests after the war. The film makes a point to say society was not a place the priest could fit in and so they took the lowest of jobs. Is this a metaphor for soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan? Oops, forgot this is an action movie there is probably no metaphor at all in it. So some years go by and the church is in control of society, in a direct rip off of the film 1984 the imagery of the a society control by a central power, in this case the church. I kept feeling that the leaders of the church were a bit odd in there approach to the priests. Here they have this controlled society all doing there confessions and prayers. Sure the priest were maybe a threat as the saviors of the wars with the vampires but there is never any detail given to what actions they took to be a threat. Just a given that they somehow could upset the order of things. We as an audience though have to see the priests as a bigger threat than the vampires. Even after reports of vampire attacks come into the church they refuse to accept that the vampires are again a threat and thus refuse to gather up their priest forces. This struck this writer as ridiculous. If the greatest threat to the society was the vampire I would think that those in charge could recognized it. They after all just a couple years earlier came close to losing it all. How could they in the face of another vampire war not see that as the greater risk. I was expecting more meet to this conflict also. It was given really short thrift and never we never fully see the motivations of the different factions. This is often a problem with action movies, they are lean with just enough information to move to the next action sequence. Not that there is no complexity to the plot, it is just that everything is very bare. In the opening we see the Priest raiding a vampire hive and the culmination of the set piece is that our main character Priest (Paul Bettany) is holding the wrist of his fellow priest but can not hold on as the vamps drag him into the dark. A trope or a cliche? I lean on the side of the cliche and expect to see the pulled away priest again. Later when the farm family is attacked and the girl Lucy (Lily Collins) is taken alive by the vampires, and the father is mortally wounded, you can bet they have some connection to our main character. We learn that the man is Priest's brother and the girl his niece, so now it is a personal story as he goes to rescue Lucy. Joining Priest in tracking the vampires is the boyfriend Hicks (Cam Gigandet) a local sheriff. Since the church does not want Priest taking this action they counter his move by sending four other priest after the men to stop them. Again to me a weak point in the script, they can't reinstate Priest but can do it for the four to stop him. If reinstating priests is such a risky thing then why was it so easy when it suited them? Priestess (Maggie Q) comes out after the Priest but instead of hunting him comes to help. Again in a one line of dialog her whole story is told and we know she loves Priest. It continues to go this way in the film, a line or two to explain something and then another action sequence. I don't want to go too much into the story which seemed poor to me. The film did the thing I least like about action flicks, big explosions and then the character standing up after being in them and shaking off the effects. No one important is even harmed by the massive destruction. Sure they have wounds but nothing like they should have received. It is why I don't like many action movies.

So the film moves to the stage where we learn what is on the line and a secret about little captured Lucy. Then the turn of who the leader of the vampires is. When the final sequence finishes you will be so ready to leave the theater. Set up for a sequel one could only wish never takes place. No really, never.

Rating (4.5) 5.0 and above are recommended, in the Zombiegrrlz system I would Rent it!

Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971) Mystery Giallo

Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971) - 4 mosche di velluto grigio (original title) This decent giallo by Dario Argento is one of his better pictures. Not as dark as but better than Deep Red, or as good as the wildly weird and superior horror of Suspiria, but certainly not close to the great (and Argento's best) Tenebre, but a solid effort not without problems but it keeps the audience engaged and guessing. The problems with the film are in plain view but they are not so bad that they make the film a dud. The first being the lead character Roberto (Michael Brandon). He is just not particularly likable. An introverted drummer in a rock band he is intense and not the most loving person in the world. In the end you find this is exactly why he is the main character and it is really good writing by Argento. Early in the film we see him plying his trade and in between, him noticing the same mustached man watching him from the distance. Annoyed by the man, Carlo Marosi (Calisto Calisti) always being around one night after a practice he chases the man to a empty auditorium and confronts him. He wants to know why the guy is following him. The man denies that is what is happening and tells Roberto to get lost. Things go horribly wrong when the man pulls a knife. Roberto grabs at the man and accidentally stabs him. He fall into the orchestra pit and looks dead. Roberto sees someone up in the balcony saw what happened and was taking pictures as it happened. What the hell? Here is the mystery, who was the person taking pictures? What do they want? Blackmail? This is the central theme of the film.
Roberto stews and worries about the incident but tries to go about his life. His wife Nina (Mimsy Farmer) wonders whether he should go to the police, but Roberto fears being in trouble. He is sure that being an angry guy and confronting and killing a stranger would not look good if the police were to get involved. The body is discovered but his wallet is not on him. This does not make anything easier on the drummer. Roberto and Nina continue there lives as if nothing happen, at least outwardly. They have a party, or have people over however you want to see it. During the gathering Roberto finds a photo print of his incident stabbing the man slid inside his albums. Now not only does he know that the picture taker knows who he is he also knows there are games afoot. It may be someone who is in the room at the party. Who in his group would want to make his life a living hell? Why?
Since this is a mystery I don't want to go too much into the specifics of the plot. The general direction is that the blackmailer, (even though they never make a request) continues to up the ante. There is home invasion, pet disappearance, and a murdered maid. There is a growing sense that the game may become dangerous and Roberto wants Nina to leave so she will not be in danger. Still Roberto does not want the cops involved. We the audience start to learn that Roberto is being set up for some mysterious reason. Mixed in are these scenes, flashes of a mental hospital and the voice of an angry dad. It is designed to lead the audience towards thinking Roberto had a bad spell in his life but after the big turn we learn this is not the case. Wait, have I already shared too much? Maybe not...
Roberto is not sitting around letting this happen, he gets some help from a friend of his Godfrey (Bud Spencer) they send "The Professor" (Oreste Lionello) to keep a watch on the house, and he also hires a private investigator Gianni Arrosio (Jean-Pierre Marielle). Unfortunately the entire film must play out the the big turn and by that time several people are dead, we know from the mental hospital flashbacks that who ever the person in there was, they were criminally insane and we know that Roberto is a bit of a dick. His wife is not away a couple days when he and friend Maria (Laura Troschel) end up in bed together. Did I mention that Nina and Maria are cousins. Mixed in are characters being murdered and who I will not say. There is this really strange part where pseudoscience is used to figure something out. After the death of a character the retina supposedly holds the last image seen before death. This happens to be four flies on grey velvet. It is such a contrived way of getting this information that it was annoying. Then that allows Roberto to make the connections he needs to for the big reveal. The end is just freaking wonderful and you come away feeling like this was a decent film. The music in the film is pretty grooving at times and some of the shots are quite well composed.
Rating (5.3) 5.0 and up are recommended in the Zombiegrrlz system Rent it!

Splatter Beach (2007) - Horror Satire

Splatter Beach (2007) - Okay I have a confession to make, I take perverse pleasure in films like this. Super low budget total plays on films of the past. The characters are horrible exaggerations of beings without connection to anything in real life. The monsters are silly suits with some truly low budget effects thrown in. Still I watch and laugh and enjoy, What is wrong with me? What kind of early life attention was I lacking that made me stunted enough to like films like these? This film a parody like take off of maybe Creature from the Haunted Sea, or Humanoids from the Deep is not quite a fresh take. Rupert Pine (Dave Fife) and his friends Rodney Spinner (Brice Kennedy) and Tonya Smith( The very lovely Erika Smith) rent a cabin by the ocean so that Rupert can investigate mysterious disappearances in the area. He quickly and with only hear say believes something lurks beneath the waves.
The makers of the film the brothers John Polonia and Mark Polonia leave nothing to be discovered as they show the Monsters early and increasingly during the film. Right from the beginning scene when shower woman Leslie Culton is killed we know the score. Leslie may be better known for her parts in Terror at Tate Manor, MILF and Honey 3, Seduced by a Cougar 6 and Women's Extreme Wrestling: Big Pimpin Booty Kicks Butt but does an adequate job of being bloodied here.
The Rodney character is the most ridiculous of the group with his YO-yo-yo hip hop attitude and West Virginia basketball uniform he is a marvel to behold. Rupert is the nerd wanting to score a story and Tonya is Rodney's hot girlfriend happy and playful glad for the time at the ocean.
When the group arrives the people dying really starts to pick up Johnson the Fisherman is driven from his cottage by his nagging wife and heads down to the beach to cast a rod. Running into Duke (Ken Van Sant), the iron pumping comic relief who really serves only that purpose until the end of the movie.
Bodies start to pile up or drift into the ocean, in the scariest scene a lone swimmer Amanda Kerr is dragged beneath the waves. It happens early enough in the film that you think there might be something to make this a horror movie but alas it is the high water mark and everything that comes after it leave us marooned in moronic silliness.
Erin Brown (Misty Mundae in movies where she undresses) plays Tess Gardner, a local who knows something is going on and may be having premonitions or at least dreams about the creatures. At the same time Rupert is getting no help from the locals in gathering information for his story. Everyone is down at the local beach party where The Rip Tides are performing. Tess yells and tries to warn the girls dancing in front of a green scree, er I mean on the beach, about the monster but no one listens. Except Rupert that is and now he has a lead on his story. The film turns into a bit of a music video for a while while the Rip Tides play. When we finally get back to Rupert he talks to Tess about she and her boyfriend being attacked and how she is the only one to survive. Now everyone thinks she is crazy but sea monsters are real.
Bald boat guy and Tonya are killed but not before we get repeated up skirt shots of Tonya's ass. Apparently this is the main selling point of the film because it is repeated. She didn't like how Rodney was talking up girls on the beach and storms off to her doom by going to the beach. Upset Rodney drinks himself into a state when she does not return by dark. Creature from the haunted Sea is on the tube when Rupert find the drunken Rodney passed out but nothing really happens. They set up a scene that could be scary but instead Duke comes by with his witty one liners and ruins the mood. So it was all for nothing.
The next day things pick up, with Rupert and Rodney looking for Tonya and discussing how they should not call the police because Rodney would be suspect number one. Rupert alone find the bloody bikini that belonged to Tonya and as he discovers an egg a creature almost gets him. He runs away to the beach party that apparently is still going on. Rodney of the short attention span decides to stop looking and get high, now what happens next? Come on guess. Yes! right he is killed by monsters. Rupert runs into Tess and together they start breaking eggs, this apparently only pisses the monsters off because they attack in a group. Off to the beach party where we get a second music video "Splatter Beach that happens to recap the entire movie. NOTE: You could enter at this point and skip the rest of the movie because the song and accompanying visuals are a great catch up.
Chaos ensues as the creature eventually trap Tess, Rupert and Duke in the house. Outcome certain to end with a hatching egg. So what to say... It is what it is, low budget parody fun. The sound quality is the most noticeable thing that is wrong. Just sounds low rent, like I said in the opening I really get a kick out of these type of films so I enjoyed it. Unfortunately the script is a bit of a mess and the acting is purposely campy and characters are less than compelling so when it comes to recommending this to someone else I have to NOT. If you know this kind of thing is for you give it a try otherwise no. Note also if you are a skin seeker this movie only has a couple booby shots to go with the up skirt shot mentioned early. It is not the purpose of this one.
Rating (3.3) 5.0 and above are recommended, in the Zombirgrrlz system SKIP IT!

13 Assassins (2011) Action Samurai

13 Assassins (2011) - This is another historical Japanese sword story of the time period towards the end of the Shogun era. In the little lesson text in the screen we get the setup of the time period. As Feudal Japan enjoys peace, the Samurai era is waning. But this fragile calm is threatened by the growing power of Lord Naritsugu Matsudaira (Goro Inagaki), the Shogun's sadistic younger brother. Sir Doi (Mikijiro Hira) realizes Naritsugu will run the Shogunite if he gains higher political standing. As Naritsugu's evil deeds are quickly hushed up, Sir Doi must act.
In the first scene The Akashi clan house elder commit hari kari opening a position the young cruel Naritsugu could occupy thus setting himself up as the next Shogun. Sir Doi goes to Samurai (Shinza) Shinzaemon Shimada (Koji Yakusho) who he convinces with scenes and stories of the cruelty of Naritsugu. The first where in a rival clans elder's house rapes the daughter in law and then kills her and the Elder's son. He is so callas believing that because of who he is all are there to serve him in any way he wishes. Next Doi shows him a peasant woman who was punished by Naritsugu as a way to punish her peasant husband for a peasant uprising. She is disrobed and Shinza sees she has had her arms and legs cut off at the knees and elbows. They develop an idea to kill the young Lord before he can take political office.
At the same time the Samurai, (Hanbei) Hanbei Kitou(Masachika Ichimura) protecting the Lord is active too. He is loyal to his Akashi clan and takes his job seriously. He learns that Doi has visited Shinza and suspects a plot. There is an old personal animosity he feels towards Shinza. He was never quite able to rise as high as the other man or command the same respect. He will do everything possible to keep Naritsugu safe for his clan and his honor and to prove himself against his rival. There is something else going on here too. Hanbei is from the school that the purpose of the Samurai is to protect the structure of the ruling order. Even with a horrible leader he sees his duty to be about doing his superiors bidding no matter how bad that is. Shinza believes that the purpose of the ruling structure is to protect the people and that in a case of a truly bad leader the Samurai must protect the people from him. These two beliefs put the men on paths towards a confrontation only one can walk away from.
The spies that Hanbei sends to get information surround one of the young warriors who will be in the plan being designed by Doi and Shinza. It is a plan to take this guy and get the plans, luckily Ronin Sahara (Arata Furata) is nearby and intervenes. We get to see what a bad ass he his and can look forward to him dispatching more than these four thugs later. Shinza goes about collecting the men who will make up twelve of the 13 assassins, the last will be added later. Shinrouko (Takayuki Yamada) wants to redeem himself from his gambling debts. There are other stories about the various men but honestly I have a hard time after the film connecting the faces to the character names. Horrible I know but reading subtitles and taking notes at the same time is hard.
We gets scenes of them training in the dojo, practicing and learning to set explosives and in general taking there planning seriously. Hanbei makes a surprise visit in the midst of this and we get the meet of what I explained earlier as Hanbei confronts Shinza with the little he knows but lets him know, he does know something is going on. The different philosophies are espoused and the men part knowing they will meet again on the field of battle.
The plan is to attack and kill Naritsugu when he is traveling to his spring house. There are a couple of things the group needs. One is to get the Elder in Ochiai Provence to block the way so Naritsugu is force to go the other possible route to a village they will be waiting at. This will be accomplished because that elder is the father of the couple the Lord killed earlier in the film. He just has to have the will power to defy ta direct order from the ruling clan leader. Not positive this will happen but Shinza sends men ahead to try to convince him. The second thing is that the Mayor of the village they are going to attack in must be bought off. This is done by two of the men and a case load of gold.
Shinza and his remaining eight men travel towards the village and are confronted by paid thugs from Naritsugu. They fight hard and dispatch them but realize the entire trip could be like this. Hanbei has set up a situation where they could be worn out by the time they reach there destination. This leads them to leave the road and cut across over the mountains. Getting lost in the hills is a horrible end to this shortcut, but luckily they run into a mountain man named Koyata Saga (Yusuke Iseya) who joins them and leads them out and to their target village. I only had one pass on this film but is seemed to me that Saga was very obviously killed in the final battle. He had a spare through his throat if I remember correctly. Then when the battle is done he reappears unhurt and it made me wonder whether he was some deity who joined in for his own purposes. I could be wrong there is so much great stuff going on in the final twenty five minute battle.
They all get to the village where they will launch their attack and start to prepare it. The writers (Kaneo Ikegami and Daisuke Tengan) and director (Takashi Miike) do a great job in this section not showing you everything that is being done to prepare. Miike and Tengan also did one of my favorite films of all time, Audition which is a strange mix of weirdness and horror. So that when the battle starts later there are some great surprises for us as an audience. In fact this film is worth seeing just for this final sequence. Similar in idea to the Seven Samurai protecting the village from bandit but still not so concerned with leaving the village intact at the end. After all the goal is to kill Lord Naritsugu. As they work we they learn that the army of 70 and the Lord were successfully turned towards them. We the audience get to see it and I was smiling at it. Naritsugu is such a prick of a bad guy to see him fail was excellent.
All of this was for the final battle where all the preparation is put into use, but first we wait, the assassins wait, no troops come. When they do the 70 has been reinforced and is now 200 men. The battle will be epic and surprising and worth every penny I paid to watch this film. I am not going to spoil it here but when the final showdowns come it has been an excellent fulfilling ride. One give away I will give you is that the most frightening thing I never thought about but now can is flaming cows.
This was an excellent film, the cinematography by Nobuyasu Kita is both gritty and beautiful at the same time. The script is tight particularly for this genre which can be plot heavy. The direction is wonderful and scenes very well shot. The acting is subtle and powerful bringing import to the characters and letting us feel what is at stake as an audience. So lets rate this puppy remember I am a bit bias as I love these kind of stories.
Rating (8.5) 5.0 and up are recommended inthe Zombiegrrlz system Go see it!!

Stake Land (2010) Horror Vampire

Stake Land (2010) - Opening on a country road in Pennsylvania the voice over from our lead character Martin (Connor Paolo) sets the tone immediately. "But lets begin at the beginning, I was like every other kid. I had a family. I went to school. I didn't believe in the bogeyman, but then the world woke up to a nightmare." Kicking off how Martin's family was killed by a vampire and just how he ended up in this car driving with this man only known as Mister (Nick Damici). The scene is well done and really relays everything we are going to need to be part of this world. Dad is frantically working on hi car, trying to get it running. On the radio reports of attacks by creatures are spreading across the country. People are being told to hunker down. Mom is holding the baby and fretting about whether running is the right decision. When Martin chases the dog out in the rain you think he will see a creature but instead the attack happens back in the barn. His Mother screams and his return inside is to see his bloody Mom on the ground. Mister shows up and with Martin kill the vampire that killed his Mom and then fed on the baby. His bloody gurgling father is finished off by the stranger. Traumatic for sure for Martin. He is just a teenager and if Mister had not shown up hunting this monstrous creature his incompetence would have been his downfall. We learn that you have to kill those who have been bitten or they change. Why else kill the father in the aftermath. That the vamps are animal in nature, the monster vampire instead of the romanticized version.
Now we know what we are in for in the world where a vampire plague has spread and people are few and far between. It is a solid start for a film that really is a road survival movie at its core. Martin journeys from the scared teen to capable vampire fighter trained by the experienced hunter as they travel looking for a place where they can settle down. This place New Eden is in Canada since the vampires, cold blooded do not like the weather. It is a goal and while Mister and Martin move towards it the film captures the need for connection among humans as well as the growing up that young Martin must do.
There are some more interesting ideas also, of course the expected militant groups of survivor running there self protected communities like military camps. Surprisingly though there are also more liberal places in the world where the people struggling to survive realize that protection can come without an iron fist if people work together. It is something rarely seen in these kind of films and was welcomed. Then there is the antagonist group, the Brethren. They are a group of fanatical religious zealots that believe the vampires are doing God's work driving new followers into the cult and when God's will is done they the vamps will be taken away by God leaving the Brethren to inherit the earth. Martin and Mister save a nun, Sister (Kelly McGillis) who has been raped by a couple of these thugs. Mister kills them running afoul of the group since one of the thugs was Brethren leader Jebedia Loven's (Michael Cerveris) son. This group is captures the writer's feelings about this group perfectly when in Martin's voice we get "In desperate times, false Gods abound. People put their faith in the loudest preacher and hope they are right." When captured by this group, Mister's punishment is to have his hands bound and left for a group of vampires. Sister and Martin are to be kept as new sheep in the flock. What is great about this film is that all along all the new decisions Martin has to make are training and he becomes more complete and likely to survive. I skip scenes in this review of Mister attacking vampires so Martin can practice killing them, at first not so well. When Mister is left to the vamps Martin runs from the group, now brave enough to make such a bold decision. He makes it back to the car to find Mister who also found a way to survive. Making it back to a safe town they pick up Belle (Danielle Harris), a young pregnant singer they see in the gathering place. She joins the group and it is something I like about this movie, people in it need connection to each other. It really is human nature and Mister is a vampire hunter but also a human looking out for those who need looking out for. Soon a fourth joins there party, Willie (Sean Nelson) an ex marine who is primarily there to fill some of the back story of how the government and military eventually broke down as the plague spread.
These four travel through Brethren country together, up the back roads to the colder mountains of New York State. Here Mister gets some sweet revenge on Jebedia when they come across him manning a checkpoint. Of course this can't be the end for the main bad guy we are only two thirds the way through the movie. Leaving him cut for the vamps though is a nice payback at the time. Finally reaching the border the group can relax. When they have to leave their weapons with the people running the town I knew that something really bad was going to happen. When Belle and Martin dance at the towns party, and Mister joined in I thought "Oh Oh this is not going to end well." Then when they see Sister and the group is complete I knew the bad was just around the corner.
The attack is awesome and I will not get into it here but it was surprising and really a cool thing to do. Our group gets out of it and heads for the hills going high to the cold country. When the car dies they are on foot, an older Sister, a pregnant Belle and the three guys. They seem safe from vampires but it is taking its toll on them. Even as they grow closer struggling together they are getting weaker and Belle is quite pregnant. Martin in the ever present V.O. says "Away from people I stopped thinking about the past and my family, I've found a new one." Since that was a bright and positive sentiment something bad has to happen. They come down from the hills because it is also too cold for them. They camp in this large traffic jam of abandoned cars that had been heading to the now really close Canadian border.
After another very good tense attack scene we have our survivors hold up in an old bus. Mister senses something amiss but can not put his finger on it. When another member of the group vanishes we get the big turn in the story. It is nicely done and although veteran horror film fans could figure it out I bet a fair number of people out there won't. Building to a climax as the last three remaining in the group get so close to safety only to have to fight yet another battle. When the final group of three are hold up at roadside diner, after the climax we see the journey's end for Martin as he is a proven survivor and vampire killer. The happy ending is well done and expected.
What I liked about this film is that it never lost track of whose story it was. At its heart it was always about Mister and Martin and it held true to the relationship. Although the voice over always in the voice of Martin showed that he was the main character from the beginning. Still the story of Mister played a very complementary role inter connecting with Martin but never drowning his story out. It was well done. I do wish though that more character development was done with interactive scenes instead of using the V.O. so much. Way too much we are told about the connections of characters instead of them showing us the connections they are developing. Some of the characters are less developed and thus obviously expendable. Overall this is a wonderful entry into the genre, instead of big loud and super action filled it is quiet scary, a study of people. A bit on the predictable in what must happen, with some characters obvious feed for vampires but also some surprises. The music was a real mood setter and I am not always sure it is the mood I wanted in the movie, some really melancholy tunes more appropriate for a dreamy summer road movie than a survival one. I think that they were going for a haunted mood but I wanted a bit more tension. The vampire presentation was just excellent and monstrous, the feel of the vampire attacks was closer to the 28 Days Later feel but less frantic, so positives there. Writer/Director Jim Mickle does a nice job with what he has and he with co-writer Damici have created a worthy film for lovers of horror that I think general audience could also enjoy.
Rating (6.7) 5.0 and up are recommended, in the Zombiegrrlz system Go and see it!

Decoys (2004) Horror Sci-Fi Aliens

Decoys (2004) - Let me say right up front I kinda like this movie, there are things in it that are appealing and not just all the hot young women that fill the screen, although no harm there. It does some writing things well as far as foreshadowing and moving the plot through action. For all it does well though there are some really hap handed things that drag it into mediocrity. So lets get into it. Decoys starts on Halloween, kids are trick and treating, costumes and the such and we come in and follow a college age guy into his buddies house. It is too quiet, way too quiet. He creeps into the living room and it appears his friend is watching static on the television. He moves around the couch to see his dead friend. Here is something I like, because it is Halloween the dude is initial scared by the corpse but then thinks it is a prank. Only after he sees the second friend dead in the corner does he freak. It was a small nice touch. The scene does not play into the film until much later when the final turn refers back to it, but it is also a good establishing scene for the kind of death we are to see.

Two months later in the heart of winter the movie picks up on a college campus. A Hollywood style college campus where all the women are way too hot, we see the dorms and various hotties ending on an artist doing sculpture with a blow torch, I looked at my wife at this point and said "We are going to see that flame thrower again." as it was one of those obvious visuals to set up something later. Two guys head to the laundry room to do clothes, Luke (Corey Sevier), our lead and his roommate Roger (Elias Toufexis). Here we get a bit of character development, with Luke the more responsible freshman and Roger already into partying. There is also the open window in the dead of winter. The guys close it after commenting but here it is a smarter written foreshadowing since laundry rooms get hot it sort of makes sense that someone may have opened the window. You could think nothing of it even though it is winter, it plays into the plot and is not too obvious.

Luke is a lucky guy because after sharing a few brews with Roger he comes back to the laundry room and is joined by the lovely Lilly (Stephanie von Pfetten) and Constance (Kim Poirer) who flirt relentlessly and in a clunky piece of "I have to give Luke a reason to go to the girls room" thinking, Lilly OBVIOUSLY leaves her roll of quarters in the room before they leave. He heads up and finds the room oddly empty, super clean and the window open, it is freezing in there. I like the touch of letting the audience know there is something up with these chicks by leaving a Yanni cd on the night table. Something ain't right there! Luke does not have to wait long to find out either as the plot immediately picks up. He hears the girls coming and does not want to be caught smelling their nighties so he hides in the closet. He gets to see what at first he thinks is some hot lesbian loving but instead after they get mostly naked Constance sprays Lilly with liquid nitrogen. Shit and all the tentacles that spring from her stomach really seem to like it. So we now after not much time know that these two chicks are not right, and most likely aliens from outer space. So does our main character but since he was drinking he will naturally doubt what he saw. In fact most of us under the influence will rationalize the things we see so makes a bit of sense. SO when he is with his crew of Roger, Alex (Meghan Ory), and DJ Nathan, uh Gibby (Ennis Esmer) they are reluctant to believe him. There are some subtle hints in here about who is what but the director and cowriter Mathew Hastings (with Tom Berry) does a good job at misleading later so the ending can be a surprise to the audience. I have seen way to many of these kind of films to be fooled though to the final turn was not surprising.

Roger is a virgin looking to get laid and alien Constance is just the solution he needs. So the gang heads to the blondes sorority house for a party where he hopes to get lucky. Although after seeing the girls flirt luck does not seem to be a factor in it. Lilly makes another move on Luke, with some sweet kissing but something about the memory of seeing tentacles spring from her abdomen turns him off so she moves onto the college hockey star. I really liked that they got the hockey star Bobby (Marc Trottier) to read something at the mic and he could barely read. Very funny. When Luke ends up in a fight with him though he is totally overmatched and has to say No Mas! It is really all for the best because when Lilly and Bobby head out into the cold for some nookie she shoves those tentacles right down his throat, it could have been our boy Luke. At the same time Constance is aggressively attempting to get Roger into the same position but since they are in the bathroom of the sorority he does not want his first time to be so down and dirty. She is annoyed but lets him off the hook for now.

Oobvious set piece number three when the next day the roommates talk about Rogers heart medication. Okay so now we know there will be a heart failure for poor old Rog. Geeze! They are interrupted by a knock on the door and Amanda (former Baywatch babe Nicole Eggert) a cop is there to get Luke for questioning in the death of Hockey player Bobby. Now here is the biggest problem with the rest of the film. Amanda is a bit more than 10 years older than Luke and they have a history, she dumped him. Besides the fact that he must have been in high school at the time, the script does nothing with this information. It is like there used to be a storyline there but it was edited out leaving these traces that do nothing for the story. It almost seems like later they wanted to give Luke a choice between Amanda and Alex but because the Amanda part is so stunted it is never really a choice.

Then there is Detective Francis Kirk (Richard Burgi), who plays his part as dickhead cop like William Shatner plays Capt. Kirk in Star Trek, meaning way over the top. He is horrible and distracting because he is so bad. Maybe that is what he was going for but damn it did not work. It could be that Kirk was going to be a love interest with the other cop Amanda. At some point in the screenwriting it felt like maybe there was more there where Kirk's motivation included knowing that Luke once was involved with Amanda. What ever the reason he and the cops in general have really no purpose in the outcome of the movie.

The film becomes Luke and Alex trying to capture evidence of the aliens, the Detective suspecting he is the killer, Alex puppy dogging around after Luke wishing he would spend more time noticing her and trying to look out for his friend. Luke knows something is going on and the aliens are killing people but does not know the full story. We as the audience get the full story pretty quick through our boy Gibby and the alien Constance. She takes him out to a graveyard crypt. After making it Gibby is a Popsicle and Constance is disappointed. It is obvious that the alien woman don't want the dudes to freeze solid and so there is some sympathy for them. In this scene there is a from inside Gibby's mouth camera shot. You gotta love that

Luke puts the pieces together slower than you may like but in the end he realizes what is going on. These aliens are trying and failing to breed with man. On the I could do without side, I could do without the dreaded musical interlude, there were three of them in this movie, once when Luke is seducing Lilly on web cam to get evidence, once when a major character dies, and one at the end when Alex and Luke finally hook up. I hate them they only serve to piss me off.

I am not going to talk about how the alien invasion is stopped. When Luke gets his plan together to fight them, he goes off the rails. His acting fails him completely almost like he thought acting poorly would be a good thing. I don't know if he was going for laughs? Some of the dialog in the climax is really poor and he delivers those lines with gusto that is laughable. "Belt of Orion? How about belt of O frying!" Then there is the less than stellar special effects, we get some cgi reveals of the aliens true form that are not really very good. Oh the film has such potential why can't they execute?

In the end though with all the things I didn't like about this film, I enjoyed watching it. Maybe it is the girls are hot, or that the script does a good job selling them as not really evil. They are just trying to survive and they can have feelings too. (sob :( ) Decoys is an annoying little fun flick that could have been better but goes on my bad but I liked it list.

Rating (5.1) 5.0 and up are recommended, in the Zombiegrrlz system I would Rent it.

Scourge (2008) - Horror Demon

Scourge (2008) - In the 1800s in a small town the church and people dealt with a demon that entered into citizens through their belly buttons or some other orifice, like the thing they put in Neo in The Matrix. It then within hours used up there bodies and then moved to the next victim, when I say use up, basically the upset stomach that comes from the demon in your stomach becomes a violent stream of vomiting blood and then your death. So in the 1800s they learned how to capture this critter they called The Scourge and stored it in the floorboards of the community's church. Now in the present a fire at the church has released the creature and it is back out in the world.
Our main character Scott Miller (Nic Rhind) has just served a couple years in prison and is out and checking out his old stomping grounds including exgirlfriend Jesse (Robyn Ledoux). Now this movie seemed really familiar, with The Hidden (1987) first coming to mind, in that it is an alien hiding in humans but totally using them up. Recently there was the supermarket thriller Alien Raiders (2008), I am sure there are others I am forgetting, in this one though we will take the writer at his word and call the alien, a demon. Unfortunately for Scott his current girlfriend Lydia (Marina Pasqua) is screwing around with the newly infected firefighter Josh (Mensah Iruoje) so when the critter uses him up, she gets it. Scott looks like the angry boyfriend and possible murderer, as he follows Lydia around to confront her on her affair , but is a bit too late when she is finished with by the demon. She is transfering the critter to another guy and stupid Scott thinks she is so slutting herself out, she bleeds out and dies in his arms and instead of dealing with it and the police he runs out after having been seen by a couple girls who walk in. So starts the process of him trying to clear his name and at the same time figure out what the fuck is going on. He will need help and that is where an exgirlfriend can come in handy. They obviously still like each other but of course she is the niece of the local sheriff so probably not the smartest person for Scott to team up with.

What is wrong with this film? Well...

1. The filming is static, the camera is placed and the scene is shot and almost never does the focus change or the camera move. It is filmed like a TV show which does not help the need for it to be more action oriented. Looking at Cinematographer Corey Robson imdb entry I see that he has worked a lot in television and it really shows here. Director Jonas Quastel will also have to take some blame for not planning it any differently.

2. The acting is really flat and unappealing, besides veteran Russell Ferrier who plays Sheriff Durst the cast is sooooooo flat in their delivery of every line. It was so bad at one point that when the Skater Girl, Frankie Nash powered out her line, I was just happy some emotion was being expressed. Leads Ledoux and Rhind had no chemistry at all because neither could emit anything through their acting.
3. It does not help when the script by Quastel is so full of holes that the story doesn't at time make sense. So this critter gets out and people start dying but at first there is really no connection to Scott at all. You could not tell by how he reacted, sculking and hiding like he actually did something wrong. Then there are times when the creature in full view of people transfers from one body to the next but still the police are after Scott?
In the end this film failed to pull off the simplest of stories and the outcome you can guess by the little that I have relayed here. There is a minor personal plot point at the end between Sheriff Durst and Scott that is reasonable if too late, I like Ferrier in the role as he was spot on. Deputy Sam (Jason Harder)was also great as the nervous cop who never fired his gun. He kept it controlled enough not to become Barney Fife and really was a plus in a bleak pallet of actors.

Rating (3.1) 5.0 and up are recommended on the Zombiegrrlz scale I say Skip It!

Source Code (2011) - Action Thriller

Source Code (2011) - SPOILER ALERT!!! Through the magic of quantum mechanics scientists have made it possible for a personality (entity, soul, consciousness) to travel from the current time back in time to the body of another person's last eight minutes of life. Really that is the science fiction of this new film by the director Duncan Jones and writer Ben Ripley. In case you are not as into science fiction as I am, Jones made the wonderful and thoughtful Moon (2009) which asked a lot of good question about the meaning of life and what it means to be human. If you have not seen it you may want to find it. Ripley gets his first big gig in this script that has kicked around Hollywood for many years. What they create is a decent science fiction effort with the usual holes left by the time travel theme. You would be hard pressed to find a film involving time travel that has not been picked apart b y the fandom, it is just the nature of the beast and so with that in mind the rating of this film will only slightly reflect the issues around time travel. As the film begins we see sweeping vista as a commuter train rolls towards Chicago. The music in these opening credits is definitely thriller suspense in mood and as the credits end Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) wakes on the train confused. He is greeted by the lovely Christina Warren (Michelle Monaghan) is such a familiar way that he is totally freaked out. Colter is a soldier who has been flying sorties over Afghanistan not some commuter on the C train. WTF is going on! When he gets to the bathroom and see another mans face staring back at him in the mirror his mind is blown, but since right at this time the train also is blown, up that is, it does not get to sink in. He comes alert in the cockpit or some such place and is being spoken to by a firm by kindhearted officer Collen Goodwin (Vera Farmiga) about his mission. Stevens is part of a secret military program, even though he does not remember volunteering that uses the "source code" and quantum equations to place his consciousness into the body of Sean Fentress (only seen in reflection Frederick De Grandpre) at a time eight minutes before Sean bit the big one in the train explosion. That train explosion happen earlier in the day of this film and the military is asking Stevens to try to figure out who the bomber was. They have information that he will strike again later in the day and wish to head off the second attack. So the good soldier begins his quest and through many "Groundhog Day" cycles attempts to track down the bomber while at the same time seeming to fall for the girl across from him on the train. At first there is a lot of adjustment and he does not yet know why he is looking for the bomber, a necessary plot device for the audience but a serious flaw in the script. If Stevens does not know that the bomber is going to attack again later in the day then he can go through several cycles of picking out suspects. Each time the train blows up and he is reset he has a bit more knowledge of those on the train. Problem with this is the awkward excuse making Goodwin has to make while prepping him for another cycle. If they just tell him that the bomber is going to strike again then he would know the bomber has to be someone who got off the train and can narrow his search.

After leading us through several cycles where he gets it wrong he eventually figures out who the killer is but has some failed attempts in getting the name. Then there is the whole thing that he wants to go back in and save the people in the train. Even though he was told that he really is not effecting the outcome of the events, that they are just shadows of a past that will come to pass anyway and nothing will change that. Still the unfocused and confused Colter wastes valuable time personalizing everyone around him instead of concisely seeking the bomber. Unlike Groundhog Day though he is not there enough cycles to learn the piano and memorize entire movements of everyone in the town. No he finds the bomb and gets the name of the bomber and then his mission is over.

Or is it? He begs Goodwin for one more go at it since nothing actually will change he wants the satisfaction of stopping the train bombing even if it is in this memory world. Against the wishes of her boss Dr. Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright) she allows the final time. During this time you can guess what happens. Yes that's right he saves the day captures the bad guy and gets the girl. Things are not so smooth back in the office as Goodwin has to physically lock herself in the room with the partial body of Stevens to keep the evil Dr. Rutledge from prematurely rebooting him. We get to see at this point the horrible real life condition of Stevens, pretty much he is a torso and a partially active brain. You can see why fellow soldier Goodwin wants to give Stevens his final wish. Just out of shear respect for the service he has performed. So she guards the room while his eight minutes runs.

Then the film give us the ending where we learn that since Stevens has stopped the bomber and gotten the girl that when the eight minutes are up in the memory world the train does not blow up. His personality is still in the teacher and he can spend the rest of his life with the beautiful Christina. Happily ever after. Except for the wonderfully dirty left overs for us in the audience. Stevens has created a new version of the universe, there is this tripe in Science Fiction writing where we pretend there is basically a new universe created every time a decision is made. An infinite number of universes existing all at once through space time allowing everything to be possible. It is a really horrible theory and an easy out for the science fiction writing like in this film to manipulate for a happy Stevens ending. In this case the consciousness of Steven is now in that universe where he saved the day and got to keep the bod of the teacher and now can start a life with the woman he now is getting to know. In this reality the teacher Sean Fentress is dead, not by being blown to bits but by being displaced by Stevens. I am sure when the glow wears off Stevens is going to see the myriad of problems he now has being in Fentresses body. Then the ending also shows up that the memory world was much more, as we learn not only did Stevens change things on the train, back in what supposedly is the real world he contacts Goodwin and we learn that he actually changed reality for her also. In her day the train never blew up and the entire movie from her perspective never happened. She knows about his body in the the tank and can guess that the program they are running has amazing implications for changing the course of human events. BUT it also means there are two versions of Stevens in this reality, one that is in Fentress's body and the torso in the tank. Just not a very clean ending.

Feelings about this film overall are pretty good. It was a fairly tight action thriller that kept the tension twisted up aenough to entertain. Although there are problems with some of the logic in the movie so be it. That is a common sciencefiction time travel issue and I can let it go. In fact I sort of like that it leaves the reality flawed, if everything was solve I may have been more critical. There are many films besides groundhog day that this takes ideas from, 12 Monkeys, Quantum Leap (the TV show) and Deja Vu to name a few. It is certainly most like the last of this list and even could be seen as remaking that idea.

Rating (6.2) 5.0 and up are recommended In the Zombiegrrlz system I would say rent it.

Red Riding Hood (2011) Horror Werewolf

Red Riding Hood (2011) - Taking on a classic tale is a difficult task. Everyone who knows the story comes in with preconceived ideas about the meaning of the tale. In the Grimm tale Little Red Riding Hood is a moral tale about following your Mother's directions, but not this new film by writer David Johnson which is about love, trust and family secrets. In this case Red Riding Hood is Valerie (Amanda Seyfried) a beautiful villager in a small wooded community. She is a pretty but tough girl and has a man in her life named Peter (Shiloh Fernandez). As children they were best friends and as twenty somethings playing teens they are in love. Unfortunately for Valerie her family has promised her hand in marriage to Henry (Max Irons). It would be a marriage that financially would benefit Valerie and why her Mother Suzette (Virginia Madsen) arranged it. Suzette does not want Valerie to end up like her, married to Drunkard Cesaire (Billy Burke who scratches out a living cutting wood. Finishing out the family is the Grandmother (Julie Christie) who live out in the woods away from the walled village and her soon to be dead sister. The town itself is set in a middle ages type setting without all the nasty dirt and disease of the actual time period.

For years the village has held a precarious appeasement relationship of a wolf that in the past has killed, by each month putting out a living sacrifice for it to eat they keep their children from going missing. This go horribly wrong when the sister is found dead in the strange haystack field. Strange not because of how she died, it was a wolf attack but because of the strange blue flowers that were all over the haystacks. It was distracting and I found myself thinking I would have to do some Googling to find out what appeared as a decoration. It turns out I could not find anything on blue flowers in haystacks and it appears to just be a set design choice. Like in my viewing of the film let me pull myself back into the story.

At its core the film is a "who done it", with the knowledge that there is the wolf, or in this case a werewolf, but we the audience having to guess which villager is the culprit. To spur the story along the village priest Father Auguste (Lukas Haas, who gets bonus points for having appeared in the cult sci-fi film Solarbabies) calls in a werewolf hunter named Soloman (Gary Oldman) to deal with the wolf. Soloman is a damaged soul who had the horror of finding out his wife was a werewolf and is a driven hunter because of the experience. When he arrives at the village with the cast iron elephant and introduces his distrust to everyone he gets the entire village on edge. What is that elephant?

The story lead by this madman works to drive the wolf out of hiding, and to put distrust into everyone. The werewolf could be anyone and director Catherine Hardwicke and writer Johnson creates a web of deception to lead the audience in the direction of various suspects. I say they lead us because through tricks of the script and basically failing to show the audience anything important to solving the mystery push us to thinking the werewolf could be anyone. Is it the boyfriend Henry? Maybe the grandmother? The blatant manipulation is very off putting in this film. In fact every time the film pushed a new suspect at me I figured I could eliminate that character from consideration, and felt a bit cheated that the filmmakers treated me so disrespectfully. Then because of the amazingly over the top plot manipulation the they had to create a scene that showed you all the things they purposefully kept from you. That way they could reveal the killer and show how they fooled you. Grrrrr!

The film is also so incredibly clean, the people, the village the forest are all wonderfully perfect sets, but I let that go because if you take it as a fantasy story you can have lovely sets. Overall I just came away feeling a bit cheated though because the realism was missing from the design. The best actress of the group Julie Christie was under utilized and instead the overacting Gary Oldman put forth as the main antagonist. The film to me. treated me as a stooge to be fooled and then pats itself on the back at how smartly it deceived me. So I don't think this is going to get a recommendation from this blog.

Rating (4.5) 5.0 and up are recommended, in the Zombiegrrlz system Skip It!

Ricco the Mean Machine (1973) Action Gangster

Ricco the Mean Machine (1973) - Ricco (Christopher Mitchum) has spent two years in prison and now he is out and looking for the guys who killed his father. The opening scene is the Father being ambushed, he is a crime family head and kills a lot of bad guys before he is finished off. We never see who does it but get a great gory effect of a bullet in the head. In fact it is a point made when Ricco is talking about his father that the killer made it so he could not have an open casket funeral. Even though the guy was sitting bleeding out the killer made the point of ruining his face. Through the opening credits we see Ricco walking on the highway until the cops come by and stop him. They give him a ride and talk to him about what he was in prison for. He is too cool for school though and only half answers. What a mystery man, the long blond locks the fir rimmed coat this guy is a tough John Denver, I wonder if he can sing.

His sister and her husband spend their days having sex instead of serving the many cars that come to the gas station they own. When Ricco arrives they are so excited that they literally tackle him and shower him with kisses. So ridiculous and very quickly we have the story connecting the first scene to the theme of the film. Ricco's Dad (Luis Induni) has been killed and Ricco is going to get to the bottom of who did it. Then in a flashback we see how Ricco's father tried to toughen up Ricco by having his factory guys fight with the son he thinks is weak. We get to see that Ricco can really handle himself, with some amazing karate chopping action Ricco turns quickly into the Mean Machine of the title. His Mom is a women confined to a wheelchair, who pushes her son as he pusher her along to get revenge for her husband's death. She lets him know the disrespect of the way they killed him, that it was a family disrespect. He says he will do it but that it has to be on his own terms. He is a free spirit of the seventies and not an old time Mafia thug. That really is the kicker in this film, it is a Mafia movie, with the "Godfather" soundtrack but the protagonist is a hippie kind of guy, but not the peace out hippie you would first think of, no he is a bad ass mother fucker with a karate chop and a cool exterior.

The new leader of the family business is Don Vito (Arthur Kennedy), so he must be the guy who offed his father. They are not too quick to show this but the idea has to be floating in your head early on. His old friend and counterfeiter Guiseppe Calogero and his niece Scilla (Barbara Bouchet) helps him getting his revenge. Scilla is a hot little number who scams guys with the counterfeit cash can get him into Don Vito's estate but wants to help in return. Complicating matters is that Ricco's old flame Rosa (Melisa Longo) is now controlled by Don Vito because he likes beautiful things and boy is she a pleasure to look at.

Since this is a revenge movie I think it is safe to say the title character gets satisfaction, But before that there has to be a squeezing of Don Vito that will get him out in the open. He steals the cash from his collections with an excellent striptease by Scilla. I really have to hand it to this film for having such incredibly beautiful women in their films. Barbara Bouchet is a Czechoslovakian lovely who continues to work in film to this day. She has 88 titles to her resume and get bonus points for appearing as Kelinda in the Star Trek episode "By any Other Name" in 1966. Malisa Longo who still looks good after all these years is an Italian actress who gets her bonus points for appearing in "The way of the Dragon" with the incredible Bruce Lee. After a string of exploitation films and a group of horror low budget flicks she seems to have stopped working by 1997.

Ricco ends up captured by one of Don Vito's friends and is going to be killed but right as he is about to pull the trigger Scilla shoots at him. She although stunning to look at misses but it is enough of a surprise for Ricco to get the drop on the guy. Saved by his new girl he can continue his plan to get Vito. Don Vito has a great way of doing away with problems or those who fail him. In his factory he has a vat of acid. When Vito finds Rosa fucking his best assassin Don Vito tosses him in the vat and then gives the order to end her life the same way. So sad as the music plays and he walks away, she is screaming in the background, "I want to Live, Vito! Please, I want to live."

Since this is a revenge movie you can guess the final bit of the film, but be warned Vito is a mean man and to get Ricco to come out in the open he pulls some cruel crimes. Overall this film has a lot going for it. The fighting is horrible so that really has to take points of, but the plot is a simple revenge flick with a bit more depth. Ricco is an antihero and also reluctant before finally being moved into the Mean Machine of the title. The film gets to make up some points by having Christopher Mitchum, the son of the excellent Robert Mitchum as the protagonist.

Rating (5.5) 5.0 and up are recommended. In the Zombiegrrlz rating system Netflix it!