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.

Dead End

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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.

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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.

Check out Jebediah on Facebook, and wish me luck.

Go forth and multiply. Jebediah shall follow and subtract.

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.

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.

Watch and rate all the trailers on Eventful.

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?

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.