I added 2003′s Dead End to my Netflix Watch Instantly queue on little more than impulse, but I’m glad I did, because I think I discovered a lost gem. It’s a small-scale supernatural horror movie that starts strong and carries an unsettling atmosphere throughout the whole runtime, and well worth a watch for anyone who just wants to be spooked.
It’s Christmas Eve, present day, USA, on a winding, wooded backroad somewhere in an unnamed state. Fifty-something grouch Frank Harrington (Ray Wise) is at the wheel of his elderly station wagon, transporting the whole family to his mother-in-law’s for Christmas dinner. His wife Laura (Lin Shaye) is riding shotgun, and staring at the backs of their heads for the whole trip are their college student daughter Marion (Alexandra Holden), their surly teenage son Richard (Mick Cain) and Marion’s clean-cut boyfriend Brad (Billy Asher). Frank, bored with the highway he’s driven for the last twenty years, has made a unilateral decision to try an alternate route instead, and by the time we join them the sun has already set, Laura is nagging, Marion is carsick, Richard and Brad are at each other’s throats, and the last thing Frank is willing to do is admit that he doesn’t know where they are. So it’s a pretty ordinary holiday scenario, but then they spot a woman (Amber Smith) in a white dress walking through the woods, clutching a swaddled baby to her chest, and shortly after that things get pretty dreadful for the hapless Harringtons. As the circumstances worsen, tempers flare, secrets emerge, sanity is abandoned and the body count rises.
Jean-Baptiste Andrea and Fabrice Canepa wrote and directed the film, and although they don’t break away from horror cliches, they do succeed in telling their story with both deftness and confidence. The atmosphere, as I said before, is consistently creepy–the narrow, unlit road helps a lot–and the tension builds at a steady pace, punctuated by moments of pulse-racing gore. It’s all very European, which shouldn’t come as a surprise considering it’s a French-American co-production. Andrea and Canepa get a lot of mileage out of spooky imagery like an old-fashioned baby carriage in the middle of the road, and an ominous black hearse that always seems to show up just when things are about to get bad. And yet it’s not overwhelmingly gloomy, as the tension is lightened with just a little bit of humor, including a few well timed Gilligan cuts.
Since this isn’t a big-budget splatterfest, the bulk of the movie’s weight rests on the shoulders of its small but capable cast, led by veteran actor Ray Wise. He gives a solid and believable performance as a middle-class patriarch, proud of his accomplishments (meager though they might be) and unwilling to show weakness even as reality breaks down around him. Everyone else reveals hidden depths as well, even Richard, who turns out to be more resourceful and insightful than we might expect, whereas in a lesser movie a snarky teenager would do nothing but take up space while we rooted for him to die.
Dead End has its flaws, of course. If you’re the type who demands mindbending puzzles in your movies, you’ll probably want to stay away, as any genre-savvy viewer will figure out the twist ten minutes in. There’s also a mid-credits stinger scene that tries to add one final fillip of mystery, but instead just comes across as cliched and meaningless. But even so, I’ll argue that the good outweighs the bad and recommend this one. The tension and atmosphere make the movie worth watching, and there are a couple of scenes that will stick with you for days. Take Dead End for a ride. You won’t regret it.
| Ugly Americans | Weds 10:30pm / 9:30c | |||
| One Year of Ugly Americans | ||||
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It’s been a while since my last update here. Sorry about that. One thing I was able to find time for, though, was watching the first season of Comedy Central’s Ugly Americans on DVD. Since I don’t have cable, I’m behind the times on a lot of new media (I still haven’t seen season 4 of Dexter), but Michelle and Danny from Wiredset were nice enough to offer me a review copy in advance of the official release.
And you know what? It’s pretty good. The premise is golden, set in an alternate-reality New York where vampires, zombies, demons and monsters of all natures coexist more or less peacefully with each other and normal humans. The execution doesn’t quite live up to the promise, but it definitely gave me a few laughs, and I expect things to pick up in later seasons.
Ugly Americans falls very much into the modern “illustrated radio” subgenre of animation, where the dialogue drives the comedy and the visuals are of less consideration, but the art (made in Flash, I understand) is serviceable. The colors are bold and flat, and a lot of the character design is stiff and blocky, which was done as an apparent homage to Al Feldstein’s art for EC Comics. I feel like I would have preferred a somewhat wackier, bigfoot, Jack Davis-influenced design, but that’s just my taste.
The DVD itself is well packaged, with EC-styled cover design. All seven episodes are on one disc, with bonus features like audio commentary and short “webisodes,” and the package includes “A Field Guide to Ugly Americans,” a pamphlet from the Department of Integration explaining the sorts of things you’re likely to encounter in New York and how to survive them. On the downside, the DVD lacks subtitles, like far too many other TV shows on DVD (can we get a movement to complain about this, please?), so you’ll have to settle for the closed captions if you need them.
Despite its flaws, I recommend Ugly Americans. The characters are well written and the premise, again, is pretty much unbeatable. Check it out.
I wholeheartedly endorse Raw Dog Screaming Press, and not just because they throw good parties at conventions. They’re a small publishing company based right here in Maryland. They’re dedicated exclusively to bizarre and weird literature, and they’ve published some of my favorite horror-related books of recent years, including 100 Jolts: Shockingly Short Stories by Michael A. Arnzen. They’ve even expanded into non-fiction under their Guide Dog Books imprint, and published the indispensable Horror Isn’t a 4-Letter Word: Essays on Writing & Appreciating the Genre by MicroHorror contributor Matthew Warner.
RDSP has been around since 2003, which is frankly an eternity in the small press industry, and they’re running a special Retrospective event to celebrate their longevity with sales, interviews and writing contests! For August, they want three stories of 1000 words or shorter, so if you dig MicroHorror, this is right up your alley.
Read the PDF press release for more information and an idea of what else they have in store as Retrospective continues throughout the year. Take my word for it: this is a publisher worth watching.
Tomorrow I’m going to audition for a role in Jebediah, a new slasher film by Joe Ripple and Kevin Kangas, a couple of very big names in the Maryland horror scene. I auditioned unsuccessfully for Kevin’s Fear of Clowns 2, but I have a good feeling about this one. You see, Jebediah takes place in Amish country, which means that for a change my beard is actually an asset. And yes, if I land a part and the directors want me to, I will shave my mustache, a notion that both excites and scares me. It’ll be the first significant change I’ve made to my physical appearance in about ten years, after all.
Check out Jebediah on Facebook, and wish me luck.
Go forth and multiply. Jebediah shall follow and subtract.
There’s no two ways about it–yesterday was fun. I drove up to a town called North East, Maryland (astonishingly located in northeast Maryland), to help out Joey Russo and Rio LaCour of Stormbringer Productions on the set of Trailer Park of the Living Dead, and I had an absolute blast in front of the camera as well as working behind the scenes.
Trailer Park of the Living Dead is a trashy gross-out horror comedy, best described as George Romero meets John Waters. Joey and Rio themselves star as a trailer-dwelling couple forced to contend both with a zombie apocalypse and their own dreadful neighbors, including the indescribable Babette Bombshell as Starleen the Trailer Park Queen. You’ll even get to see a zombie impaled by a pink flamingo.
We shot an evisceration sequence for the ages and a scene in which a horde of zombie children chase an ice cream truck, along with other footage. Not only do I appear as a zombie myself, but I also lent a hand with the makeup. After we wrapped, we watched the work edit, and I can assure you that this movie is sick, tasteless and funny. Joey and Rio are great people, I had loads of fun helping out with this project, and I can’t wait to work with them again soon.
Good old Fangoria is pushing a slate of eight new movies. They want everybody to watch the trailers on Eventful and rate them, and the one that scores highest will be given a “limited” theatrical release (I suppose that means that the remaining seven will be dumped directly to DVD). As an extra incentive to vote, three lucky winners (21 and older, contiguous US residents only) will win trips to Las Vegas for Halloween. Pretty cool.
How do the actual movies look? I applaud Fangoria for offering a broad variety of horror: I see some haunted houses, some serial killers, and what appears to be a psycho hillbilly flick with a rampaging monster thrown in for good measure (namely Pig Hunt by James Isaac). I also like the fact that the selection isn’t entirely US-centric, with representatives from Australia and Spain. Unfortunately, though, the trailers didn’t get me too excited. We know how trailers lie, but even the best didn’t strike me as more than promising, with some others coming off as downright “meh.” On the low end, I didn’t much like the looks of Grimm Love, which strikes me as a sensationalist bit of fluff that relies too much on its true-story inspiration, and The Tomb, an “updated adaptation” of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “Ligeia,” looks like a muddled mess hanging on gratuitous sex appeal and some downright amateurish special effects.
One that I’m looking forward to, though, is Fragile, a ghost story starring Calista Flockhart and directed by Jaume Balagueró, who was responsible for the excellent [REC]. It gives us an old, creepy hospital, some spooky kids and a really creepy villain. Check it out:
And even though it’s much lower of brow, I’m thinking that the Australian Road Kill, directed by Dean Francis, looks like a lot of fun. It starts with a carful of teenagers driving through the Outback when they’re run off the road by a gigantic, three-trailer truck, but this is no Duel ripoff. Instead, the truck itself turns out to be some sort of self-propelled, demonic… um… oh, who knows? It’s ridiculous, and I think I’ll enjoy it. Maybe you will, too.
Okay, so I’m a little behind the times. That’s why I never got around around to seeing Neill Blomkamp’s District 9 until last night, when I watched it via Netflix streaming video. But take my advice–if you haven’t seen this one yet, don’t wait any longer. It’s magnificent.
You probably know the premise by now: In an alternate 1982, a massive but disabled alien mothership appeared in the skies over Johannesburg, South Africa, and sat there for three months until the government sent up a team to cut their way in and investigate. When they did, they discovered over a million insectoid aliens, weak and malnourished. The aliens were brought down to earth and placed in a temporary holding camp that soon turned into a permanent slum called District 9. When the job grew too big for the government to handle, the reins were given over to MNU, a transnational megacorporation. The aliens, unflatteringly nicknamed “prawns” (they look like Parktown prawns, large and pestilent crickets native to South Africa), never integrate into human society and speciesism is rampant and institutionalized. Now, over twenty years later, MNU has decided to relocate the entire alien population to “District 10,” a purpose-built tent city two hundred kilometers away from the city, just to get them out of the humans’ collective hair, and have given the job of spearheading the whole eviction to ineffectual bureaucrat Wikus van der Merwe.
The parallels to apartheid (and, in particular, to the forced eviction of District 6 in the 1970s), are obvious and deliberate. This is no subtle allegory. But nevertheless, Blomkamp (who himself grew up in apartheid-era South Africa) is careful to avoid facile “the-humans-are-the-monsters” characterization. Unlike the Newcomers of Alien Nation, the prawns are utterly inhuman. Most of them are antisocial and violent, and we can see that full, peaceful integration is unlikely if not downright impossible.
At the conclusion of District 9, there are few happy endings, just like in real life. The ultimate fates of many characters, both human and alien, remain ambiguous. Roger Ebert’s review is right about the third act, which abandons a lot of the movie’s cerebral nature in favor of gunfights and explosions, but this is never to the movie’s actual detriment. Blomkamp demonstrates the greatest strength of genre fiction: its ability to confront raw political and emotional issues such as bigotry, culture clash and immigration without being bogged down by history. District 9, viewing the world through the lens of science fiction, is able to tackle these themes and explore them in detail.
I recommend this movie to anyone interested in grim, realistic science fiction with no obvious heroes or villains. I’ll be picking up the DVD soon, so I can explore the universe further through the added features.
I’ve been getting e-mails lately from a marketing firm trying to push the third season of True Blood on HBO. I’ve never seen the show myself (is it any good?) but this latest tidbit was entertaining enough on its own to be worth sharing. Apparently Snoop Dogg is a big fan, so with the network’s blessing he recorded his own ode to Sookie Stackhouse, the show’s heroine. It’s pretty catchy.
I admit, I’ve got a soft spot for Snoop. I prefer West Coast hip hop to East Coast on the whole, and I like Snoop’s lazy flow. Plus, he’s a horror fan. If you haven’t seen Hood of Horror, you should–it’s a great tribute to EC comics and the horror anthologies of yesteryear. The best segment is “The Scumlord,” which stars Ernie Hudson (a real nice guy, by the way; say hello if you see him at a convention) as one of a group of war veterans who get their revenge on a racist, sadistic landlord. Billy Dee Williams, Jason Alexander and Danny Trejo pop up in other segments, and one thug gets killed by a 40 of malt liquor through the skull. What’s not to like?
I think I’ve found my new favorite manga. Franken Fran, an ongoing title by Kigitsu Katsuhisa published in Champion Red, brings us the adventures of a little patchwork monster girl by the name of Madaraki Fran. Assisted by a castleful of strange creatures, Fran travels the world as a sort of super-surgeon, collecting huge fees for performing experimental procedures on the deserving and the undeserving alike. It comes across as a sort of medical horror comedy, loaded with weird body horror. It’s a worthy spiritual successor to Tezuka Osamu’s classic Black Jack.
Franken Fran has yet to receive an official translation and overseas release, but you can read fan translations of the first four full volumes at 1000Manga.com (NSFW; graphic violence and nudity). Enjoy.
Good evening, fiends. I confess that MicroHorror and this very blog have not been getting the attention they deserve in recent weeks. The truth is that I’m a lazy bum, but it’s also true that I’ve been spending a big chunk of my time in West Virginia and western Maryland, working with the great Conrad Brooks on his new movie, Zombie on the Loose. Now that my portion of the shooting is over, I wanted to share some of the experience with you.
The master at work
It’s hard work in hot weather, but it’s been lots of fun. A typical day would begin with me getting up bright and early to make the long drive out. I’d pick up Conrad at his home and we’d head over to the Hagerstown/Antietam KOA campgrounds, where most of the movie is filmed. Everyone would convene around 11:30 in the morning and then we’d go to… the haunted house.
Creekside Manor is not merely a haunted house, but it’s also a haunted house. I’ll explain: John and Judi Durham, who own both the campground and the Manor, originally planned to renovate the building and live there, but kept being plagued by apparitions, inexplicable noises and various other disturbances. They called in some ghost hunters, who confirmed that the building was indeed “occupied,” and renovation was called off. Instead, John and Judi dressed the place up, rigged a maze and special effects, and opened up a classic Halloween spookhouse which is now one of the best in the region. It’s certainly the only haunted haunted house I’ve ever seen, and this is where Conrad likes to shoot a lot of his movies.
Zombie on the Loose is the fifth movie in the Gypsy Vampire series, following Gypsy Vampire, Gypsy Vampire’s Revenge, Freaky Vampire and Gypsy Vampire: Final Bloodthirst. After the death of Count Lugo at the hands of Max the zombie, and the subsequent explosion of Lugo’s funeral home, everything seemed peaceful for a time… but some people just won’t let the dead stay dead. Lugo’s old assistant Lucy Black, freshly escaped from a mental institution, will stop at nothing to resurrect her master, and she’ll enlist the help of Soko the voodoo princess and the mysterious Dr. Freagosi to help her in her schemes. Can Max stop her in time to prevent the rebirth of Count Lugo?
Murder most foul! (SPOILER)
The actual filming was a low-tech affair, but ably handled by our cameraman Marvin Kennedy, a veteran of many of Conrad’s previous projects. We’d get into costume, take our places in the various spooky rooms of Creekside Manor and shoot the scenes as quickly and efficiently as we could. Conrad is from the old school of Hollywood, and he doesn’t have time to do take after take. Block the scene, do a couple dry runs for rehearsal, shoot, and move on– that’s the Brooks method. Most days we’d be over well before six o’clock.
Marvin, about to shed light on the proceedings
I got to meet some great people on the set, including a bunch of folks I recognized from Conrad’s other movies. I’m not the most social person in the world, but I was made to feel right at home. It even became a family affair, because not only had Conrad cast me as Max, but he cast my wife Jenesta Matthews to play the role of Jenny the maid, and her mother Harriette Matthews (an experienced actress in her own right, and the best mother-in-law a guy could ask for) came up for a day to blow us all away as Soko.
Nathan Rosen, John Durham, Conrad Brooks, Andy Bakner, Judi Durham
My part is done now, and even though it’s nice to have a little more free time, I’m going to miss the camaraderie. I understand that there are just a few more scenes to be shot, after which Marvin takes over for the editing and scoring. I can’t wait to see the final product. I’ll keep you all posted.
Beware the beast!
Thanks to Frank G. Quillen for the photos.
If you’d like to see more of me and Conrad at work, take a look back at us announcing the winners of MicroHorror’s 2009 Halloween contest.