Dawn of the Dead (1978)

Review #0014

Here it is, ladies and gentlemen: the best zombie film of all times! "Night" had laid the groundwork ten years before, but it is only with "Dawn" that Romero fully fleshes the genre (no pun intended). A group of four people (two cops, and a couple of newspeople) "run" from zombie-overrun Phillie and find shelter in a suburban mall, which they clean and wall-up as their own personal fortress. They would've been happy there, if it weren't for a ruthless gang of bikers (that includes FX maestro Tom Savini) who forces them into an all-out war. With gripping realism, the film opens in media res during the media shitstorm provoked by the rise of the dead. A talk-show featuring a guest hellbent on raising you-should-shoot-any-dead-family-member-in-the-head awareness is disturbed when protagonist Francine fights an executive over the broadcast of outdated "shelter" information. On the other side of town, protagonists Roger and Peter (fan-favorite Ken Foree who would go on to appear in dozens more genre films, including "From Beyond", "The Devil's Reject" and the "Dawn of the Dead" remake) are involved in a mission to evacuate a low-income housing project, with a trigger-happy racist at their sides, into a mazelike contraption full of the living dead. Concisely enough, the main characters are all introduced within their element, and with them, the chaotic world in which they have learned to live. The action, so to speak, begins soon after, as Roger, Peter, Francine and her boyfriend Stephen ("Fly Boy") copter their way out of the city and into the suburb. Over the countryside, they spot a party of redneck militians enjoying thermos coffee and target practice. Those guys remind us of "Night"s conclusion, but this time around, they're part of a bigger whole. You see, by covering the entire stretch of land inbetween the big city and the suburb, Romero ups the ante in terms of scale (and effect) as world contamination becomes a tangible perspective. Almost overnight, the entire human experience has become a thing of unfathomable horror.



Interestingly enough, the shopping mall thus becomes a hot destination. As the world crumbles, it remains the only shelter against the harsh reality of things, a sanctuary so to speak, from the evils of the world. It is made of bricks and steel, sure, but mostly of dreams and illusions. It is a promise of individual comfort in a world of death and destruction. The zombies frequent it, their motor reflexes dragging them back in, but so do the protagonists. In the end, they even confine themselves to its bowels, and within, a cozy apartment furnished "à la mode" where they eat delicacies and drink liquor, oblivious to the faith of other survivors. They are living the American dream, despite the dreary fact that there is no America to speak of anymore. Nonetheless, there are shades of America: consumerism, individualism, and most of all, the a rigid social stratification. You see, "Dawn" also functions as a social commentary. First, by suggesting that the desire to survive is inherently individualistic. Unlike "Night", "Land", "Survival" and most other zombie films, "Dawn" focuses not on a rag-tag collection of survivors picked along the way, but on one restricted, homogenized group that will defend its own interests against others. The paradigm is no longer "us against them" in the sense of humans against zombies, but "us", a small group of friends, against "them", the rest of the world. Many commentators even argue that the different social actors in the film are related hierarchically. Roger Avary suggests the protagonists represent the upper class (locked away in a "gated community"), while the zombies are the lower class (pushed away from that community). As a working hypothesis, it could be useful, but that's by disregarding the fact that the zombies herein are instinctively drawn to the mall. That is, they represent the growing middle class, drawn to the malls by a motorized desire to consume, which in turns constitutes their raison-d'être. The zombie is a mindless consumer, and vice-versa. In the end, the mall setting offers many narrative possibilities, yet its relevance lies in enabling the critique of consumerism that the multiplication of zombie (consumers) allows.

Finally, a few comments about the score and gore because it would be a crime to mention this film's importance without mentioning the dream team that surrounded Romero at the time. Fresh from their crucial contribution to the classic "Suspiria", Italian noise machine The Goblins (featuring the great Dario Argento) cross the Atlantic for a great cause indeed. Their warped, keyboard-heavy score, is trippy and exhilarating, making the celluloid pulsate to the beat. Most of all, it is quite unique. As if the stars had perfectly aligned so we could hear this. Then, there is Tom Savini, for whom the film constitutes a breakthrough. Deservingly so, because the bits of gore contained in the film (concentrated mostly at the beginning and end) are all disturbingly realistic. Zombie teeth break human flesh in loving close-ups, characters are eviscerated, machetes are plunged in zombie heads, all of this as extra butter on a delicious croissant. All in all, "Dawn of the Dead" is Romero's best film because it happens at such a great time for exploitation cinema. The rise of consumerism, and the multiplication of shopping malls provided the sociological framework of the film, the green-light on violence made the zombie film all the more viable, plus Romero benefited from a bigger budget (due to previous film successes), and from the contribution of Dario Argento, The Goblins, and Tom Savini, all at the peek of their careers. Statistically and historically, there is almost no chance of such a happy coincidence reccuring in horror cinema. Let us weep then, and watch "Dawn" yet another time!

5/5

Scream 3 (2000)

Review #0013

Three years after the second installment, Craven is back, but Williamson is not, nor is Nick Cave. And it shows. The first mistake of the film occurs when Cotton Weary is bumped off during the opening sequence. What a drag! For a series that distinguished itself with evolving characters, it was a wrong move right off the bat. What we're left with is a Neve Campbell far underused, a plethora of unsympathetic, expandable sub-leads and a plot involving Arquette and Cox in a tedious investigation that uses dreary plot twists to tie the series together. Truth is, we don't care to revisit the events of the first film, nor do we need extra exposition about Sidney's mother. Moving backwards is not moving forward, despite what Randy tells us (in a cameo that looks tacked-on at best). Wasting Lance Henriksen, Carrie Fisher, and yes, even Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith in bit roles just to gloss the cast over is not moving forwards. In the end, with a finale far more ridiculous and vain than the second film's, we are left to wonder if the "Scream 3" venture was not as ill-advised and irrelevant as that of "Stab 3", which the film shows as utterly artificial. Craven's direction is on par, but it does little to salvage a scenario that showcases not one bit of the tongue-in-cheek humor, excitement or movie-induced teenage psychosis that made the series great, but only lame settings and plot devices (pinnacle of which is the doppleganging voice box). As if things weren't bad enough, there now seems to be yet another sequel in the making. Williamson is back onboard, meaning we might get something not completely awful. Nonetheless, I just feel that thirteen years after the original "Scream" rejuvenated the slasher sub-genre, there is little else to upgrade upon. Tired as we are of its inescapable conventions, it would literally be a tour-de-force if they could pull it off.

2/5

Scream 2 (1997)

Review #0012

Craven and Williamson come back in great shape for this slightly superior sequel that opens with an exhilarating sequence set at the premiere of "Stab", the movie adaptation of "The Woodsboro Murders" by Gale Weathers. Omar Epps and Jada Pinkett are the first two victims of the Ghostface copycat killer, proving Jada's contention that "African-Americans are misrepresented in the horror genre" (the only other Black character in the film being a clichéd cameraman). Cut to Sidney in loose, grey underwear (it's a shame she didn't get the Ripley treatment here...). Now a drama student at Windsor College, she is very much trying to get her life back on tracks. But the killer (or killers) will do anything to prevent it. Most of the cast for this film is comprised of returning characters, including Randy, Dewey, Gale and Cotton Weary (who's now got a primary role), all of which have evolved, and thus become rounder. Arquette is a hoot once again, plus he now has his own heroic theme song (!). Cox is great as the resurrected Weathers, now a self-styled, best-selling author, and Kennedy also as Randy, who dispenses yet another relevant set of rules pertaining to horror films. The self-referential style is back also. This time around, the film showcases many levels of mise-en-abîme, all of which function flawlessly. The discussion about the effects of film violence, and the legitimacy of sequels that the characters engage in directly partakes in the drama. It seems we are constantly in the backstage of some spectacle-in-a-spectacle, be it the film "Stab", a crude parody of the first film (an excerpt from which provides the comical high point of the film - think Wilson and Spelling), or the school play starring Sidney (as Cassandra, no less), which provides the setting for the final confrontation (a showcase of Craven's directorial flair). And although the ending is more than lackluster, the journey was well worth it.

3,5/5

Scream (1996)

Review #0011

In 1994, Craven gave the "thinking man's horror film" a try. With "Wes Craven's New Nightmare", whose title was pompous at best, he had challenged his followers in their own courtyard, and de-mythologized the figure of Freddy Krueger. Although the film was fairly good, it wasn't strong enough to pull the "Nightmare" series out of its underwater grave. Just enough to give it back the nobility it had lost through the endless mutliplication of sequels. Just like Sly recently, with Rambo and Rocky, Craven tried to reclaim his own series for himself. Having somewhat corrected the mistakes of Sholder, Harlin, Hopkins and Talalay (Hit the showers, Russell, you're off the hook. Hell, I even liked your remake of "The Blob"!), he was ready to start again on the right track. The result is "Scream", a self-referential slasher, and Craven's best effort since " A Nightmare on Elm Street". Following a fun, little phone exchange (which alone seems to rejuvenate the entire slasher formula), some blonde high school girl (Barrymore) gets stabbed and hung by an horror film fan wearing a ghost costume. Cut to the heroine, gorgeous Sidney Prescott (Ontarian Campbell) whose shady-looking boyfriend (Ulrich) may or may not be the killer. By then, she is unaware that the murders are related to the death of her own mother. She is just your average traumatized, virginal beauty. As the story progresses and the bodies pile up, the entire town gets involved and paranoia becomes contagious. As viewers, we are given many clues to the killer's identity, some of which are minute details (such as close-ups on boots), others huge revelations, but mostly dead-ends. Yet, the guessing game constitutes a tiny fraction of the film's fun. Fueled by a savvy Kevin Williamson script, which multiplies film references, loveable characters (above all Dewey, a rookie cop "oozing with inexperience", and Randy, the geeky film buff whom the target audience will surely identify with) and a stellar cast (completed by David Arquette, Rose McGowan, Matthew Lillard, Courteney Cox, Jamie Kennedy, and Henry Winkler) "Scream" is a sure-fire killer that made an instant star out of lovely Neve Campbell. With a breakthrough performance that won her a Saturn Award for Best Actress, she became the queen for a new generation of horny fanboys. Just to say how much the film had an impact on pop culture: it gave birth to a new scream queen at a time nobody expected it. Hats off to Craven, Williamson, and Campbell, but also to Arquette, Cox and Kennedy for resurrecting the slasher genre.

3,5/5

George A. Romero's Survival of the Dead (2009)

Review #0010

This sixth installment in Romero's fractured, forty-years old Dead franchise is by (very) far the worst. Maybe, we're just tired of the same old set-ups and characters used ad nauseam. Maybe we've seen too many zombie movies altogether, and no novelty could ever stimulate us again. Maybe we're expecting too much from old fox Romero (a towering presence I must add, now that I've actually met him)... Truth is, it's only because we love him to death that we try so desperately to find reasons for disliking his latest outing other than the overall suckiness of it. Truth is, it's lame, it's lame, it's lame. The protagonists are a bunch of military assholes (one of which is the officer who ransacked the kids' van in the previous film!) with all the charm and personality of toilet seats. Tagging along is a Justin Long-type whiz kid, a wisecracking Irish patriarch and his bland horse-riding daughter. Aside from Patrick O'Flynn, who's a real hoot, flipping guns out of his sleeves while peppering the script with tasty one-liners and Tomboy, the tough lesbian chick who makes fun of men while masturbating in an army truck, you'd like to see the rest of the cast die from frame 1. It is arduous enough just to follow them, but it is even harder to see where the flimsy scenario takes them. You see, "Survival" is not a typical zombie film since it focuses on a closed, zombie-controlled area: Plum Island, Delaware. While watching the film, I thought to myself and made a painful realization: it offers us nothing in the way of expectation. One comes to wish the protagonists would never reach Plum Island, because once there, the zombie menace vaporizes. Once there, the film shifts gear and becomes a western centered on a family feud opposing two clans of Irish settlers: the O'Flynn and the Muldoon. As long as you dig a premise involving a closed-circuit western with zombies tacked-on as cattle, you might enjoy this film. But you also have to dig all of the tedious exchanges between the two families, and all the lame bits of exposition peppered here and there (including the spontaneous generation of twins, the re-emergence of old infatuations, and the lamentations of a daughter). The final stand-off is great, but the way there was excruciating. Before the film, George promised us some slapstick humor, and although the film does sport some funny bits (including some great zombie kills), we're still a long way from the cream pies of "Dawn". To be perfectly honest, "Survival" actually looks like the bastard child of "Dawn" and "Day". From the former, it borrows the basic structure involving the "fort" besieged by outsiders, but without the social commentary that made "Dawn" so great. From the latter, it borrows the idea that zombies can be tamed, yet there is no zany Dr. Logan. It also posits military forces as probable survivors, yet there is no sadistic Rhodes. All in all, "Survival" fails because it recycles a lot, and brings nothing new to the stew, no thematic innovation (like the thinking zombie of "Land"), or technical novelty (like the subjective camera of "Diary"). Nothing in fact, to atone for the subpar acting, characterization, scenario, and soundtrack (the Goblins, and even John Harrison are sorely missed). Better luck next time, George.

1,5/5

Antichrist (2009)

Review #0009


First of all, let's call things what they are. A severed clitoris is a severed clitoris, and Lars von Trier's new film is a horror film. Let us not be so afraid of genre cinema, people! Even if a famous director does it, it still is what it is, especially when it draws so much from the very themes that are (were) central to the genre. Equating femininity with nature, nature with Satan, and Satan with femininity is not new. People have made that association for the most part of Christian history. And believe me, it isn't brilliant just because it is von Trier doing it. It is fucking retarded. Yet, despite everything, despite the misogyny central to his work, von Trier is not a bad director. Not bad at all, in fact. The photography, the acting in "Antichrist" are superior to anything you've seen recently, or will see for a while. Poor Charlotte Gainsbourg even won an award in Cannes for her complex, humbling performance as The Monstrous Female. It's just too bad she had to do what she did to earn that prize... "Antichrist" is the story of He (Willem Dafoe), a somewhat ill-advised psycho-therapist, and She (Gainsbourg), a psychotic female, both of which were fucking in slow-motion when their son took a deadly dive from the apartment window. When their son died however, only one of them cared. She. Despite the fact that she used to torture the kid by inverting the sides of his shoes. Nonetheless, it's her who has to seek psychiatric help in the person of... He. And so the story begins, with the death of a child some He must make sense of by psycho-analyzing a She that has gone bonkers. Simplistic in the extreme, the film gets points for framing nature as it does, making it opressive and monstrous. It also gets points for having guts, and showing the audience what it shudders about: agressive sex initiated by the female party. Nonetheless, despite the savvy use of natural settings, the recontextualisation of the witch character, and the gutsy showcasing of X-Rated sexuality, the film is little more than a misogynist attempt at mythologyzing female sexuality. Sorry Lars, but you had that review coming.

3/5

Amer (2009)

Review #0008

Winner of the public's price at the last Festival du nouveau cinéma, "Amer" is less of a simple variation than the savvy autopsy of the horror genre. It bares mechanisms so simple and effective they completely challenge the use of the constraining Hollywoodian narrative to propel the genre. Through technical breakdown, Cattet and Forzani create what is truly a pure incarnation of affect cinema, opposite to the talkative and theatrical American horror film. Thus, they successfully "visceralize" a genre too intellectual (too bourgeois) and stale. The experience is such that, despite blood, breasts, and gloved hands, the film feels more like a Pudovkin than an Argento.
"Amer" is above all an experience in editing, reminiscent of those undertook by the Soviets and French impressionists. Both the rhythm and texture of the film were created through editing, which builds horror as a sensual experience. The use of the close-up, which transforms the human eye in a telephoto lens, exacerbates the voyeurism inherent to the genre. The heroin's thighs fill the screen, then her fleshy lips, or her hair floating in the wind. Her pain also, and her fear, which we scrutinize in minute details. Onscreen, she is threatened by the killer's razor. Offscreen, she is threatened by the editor's scissors. Violence against her is twofold: she is both cut and bruised within the frame, but also fragmented between the frames. She is transformed in sensuality incarnate, represented simultaneously in all of its manifestations. She represents the "experience" of a woman from a killer's viewpoint. Also, she is confined to the frame, and surrounded by a menacing offscreen. By narrowing the borders of the frame, the close-up proportionally enlarges the offsceen, and the latent threats lying therein. All one has to do is imagine every shot as the subjective viewpoint of a killer. The heroin thus becomes surrounded, scrutinized perversely from within and from without. She is Laura Mulvey's typical victim of the male gaze. She is Argento's ballet dancer or Dreyer's Joan of Arc. Yet, the film also projects her own personal, sensual experience of the events unfolding. Through the rhytmic juxtaposition of close-ups, within which the sound is amplified to the point of physical sensation, editing creates the impression of being there, rather than simply exposing facts. The panicked gaze of the victim is emulated opposite to the perverse gaze of the killer, and thus is created affect, primordial tenet of the horror genre. Cattet and Forzani succeed mostly because they have put the spectator in its rightful place: caught between the pleasure of seeing (represented by the fetishistic fragmentation of the female figure), and the pain of experience (represented by the sensual fragmentation of the events onscreen). Hats off to them for their understanding of horror cinema as creation of affect instead of simple repetitions and variations on a theme. "Amer" is sure to draw a cult following.

4/5

Grace (2009)

Review #0007

A great premise involving a living dead baby gets the soap opera treatment in this disappointing Sundance entry. Granola mom Ladd is expecting a baby long overdue since a miscarriage due to hospital incompetence. When the baby dies in her womb following a car crash (that incidentally kills her husband), she decides to keep it anyway and carry it to term. Against all odds, it survives. Rather, it comes back from the dead to surprise mom after a chilling, blood-drenched delivery (that constitutes the high point of the film). It is named Grace, due to the miraculous nature of its birth. Truth is, there is no miracle. The baby is a monster that attracts flies even more than a dead piece of meat, and needs blood in order to survive. Still, it is mom's pride. The only person she has left in the world. And although her distress and impending madness are expressed quite blandly, she is more than willing to provide the baby with blood. First, by squeezing the juice out of steaks (a huge stretch for a vegeterian...), then by murdering. But it doesn't really matter because nobody cares at this point. The characters are all under-developed and bear little relevance to the target audience for this film (no, it isn't pregnant women who line up for this). Suspense is nil, as well as innovation. The film does, however, get some points for discussing the thorny issue of midwife-assisted pregnancy as well as the legitimity of religious faith. Unfortunately, the audience just isn't there. At one point in the film, Ladd's character comments on the images of animal slaughter she is watching on television: "It's like a vegan horror film", she says. Now, that's exactly how "Grace" feels like: an anemic, vegan horror film for anemic, vegan people (who usually steer clear of the horror genre altogether). It is a watered-down version of "Rosemary's Baby" lacking the lifeblood injected by crazy Roman Polanski, specialist of the madness-through-high-rise-apartment-buildings sub-genre (see "Repulsion" and "The Tenant" also). I'm not saying the film is entirely bad. It isn't. But it was an ill-advised venture considering how many horror fans are willing to step into the gynaeceum.

2,5/5

Deadgirl (2008)

Review #0006

A typical pair of high school fuck-ups are spending the afternoon in an abandoned asylum, drinking their misery away and breaking stuff up, when they inavertedly stumble upon the titular "deadgirl". Locked away in a disaffected basement, she lies naked, tied to an operating table, but very much alive. In fact, she is immortal, a zombie remnant of medical experiences past. One of the boys, mind you, sees this as a God-given opportunity to lose his bothersome virginity. His friend disagrees however, and so the story starts to unfold around their contradicting opinions about love and sex. Right off the bat, a note to the die-hard genre fan: the horror elements in the film only serve to contextualize what is essentially a very dark, yet very relevant coming-of-age film. The zombie therein is merely the catalyst of teenage desire. She represents a dark passageway toward adulthood, which only the cynical and disenchanted are likely to cross. And although the film covers some new grounds in regards to zombie rights (by exposing the sadistic pimping of deadgirl), its efficiency lies less in updating an overcrowded sub-genre per se, as in demonstrating the protagonists' nihilism, which in turn constitutes the real horror onscreen. At times, the film even borders dangerously on the psycho thriller. Nonetheless, it is a tight and cruel story of youth with the balls to push the envelope into the dark corners of teenage psyche. The result is truly a film of its era, at once an hybrid, and an expose on nihilism, and the degradation of human relationships in the face of individualism. An examplary teen film.

3,5/5