Number seven Halloween commercial comes to us all the way from Singapore. IKEA dives into horror inspirations and pulls out a Stanley Kubrick The Shining reference and it is fantastic.
The commercial has a small boy mimicking an all too familiar and famous scene with the boy and his big wheel trike. Take notice of the small easter eggs along the boys ride until he reaches the twins!
This is a good use of reference to market IKEA’s massive, maze-like store while paying tribute to a horror classic.
My apologies for providing reviews days after a show airs. This past week has been hectic with a trip to Canada, work, and new baby! I’ve managed getting around to “Z Nation” and “The Walking Dead” this week (nor would I miss them any other week). “The Walking Dead’s” second episode in season five entitled ‘Strangers’ keeps us guessing. Rick has had bad deals with strangers (as the title of the episode suggests) and he holds a cloud of suspicion over everyone one that crosses his path.
This time a preacher named Gabriel has crossed Rick and his group’s path and Rick, being paranoid Rick Grimes, has his suspicions about the man of the cloth; he knows the preacher man is hiding something. Carl, being happy-go-lucky Carl, wants to believe that not everybody is bad, but his beliefs are starting to turn as he starts to see the clues surrounding Gabriel’s church – knife marks on the windows, “You’ll Burn for this” etched into the side of the church – and Carl is now seeing what Rick see’s: a man’s guilt and past.
On the tail of Rick’s group, the cannibals of Terminus have captures and started to munch on one of the group’s own. These folks are twisted and I’m talking about way, way out there. More looney than The Governor. I have a sneaking suspicion that more than one major player will die this season at the hands of the long pig delicatessen enjoyers. I’m also pretty positive that the deaths will be fairly significant meaning that the deaths will be of characters we actually like. I’m still waiting for Carl to bite it. Sigh.
‘Strangers’ certainly brings more questions than answers to the table. Carol still isn’t sure if she wants to stay or not. Daryl chases after those who stole Beth. The internal plans between Abraham’s group is still a mystery. Lets not forget the slimy food pit and the stanky zombies that inhabit the dark, dank water hole. Those zombies should have gotten one of them killed being I’m sure they can bite under water. I’m also digging Seth Gilliam as Father Gabriel Stokes. Gilliam does a great job creating a character we’re quite not sure about yet. His intentions seem pure, but his secret could cause Rick and his friends their lives. We’ll have to continue to find out more I guess…
The time has come to have one of the main characters to be killed in action. Episode six ‘Resurrection Z’ delivered as the ideal, soul-sucking episode to kill off a major character since Harold Perrineau’s Hammond character in episode one. The writers of “Z Nation” are not just slapping together a splatter fest of zombie carnage mayhem; instead, ‘Z Nation’ is taking a cue from AMC’s “The Walking Dead” by actually creating and developing characters wroth the sight of our eyeballs. Developing beyond the point of can’t standing it, that when a series nixes a character, in a very public, gruesome, and dramatic way, the show becomes more compelling and real. I won’t mention who got the axe to prevent spoilers for those people who want to catch it On Demand, but I’ll say that that one of our surviving heros will not be making episode seven.
The episode itself consists of good underlying tone that good people will always be naive to their surroundings while the religious nuts will ruin your day by gun toting a AK47 with a deceptive plan in mind. Religious factions have always played into the zombie apocalypse before ‘Z Nation’ had ever introduced “Jacob” and his flock of suicidal crazies who happen to overrun the good guys compound to punished the non-believers of the resurrected. While I give props to a well thought out plan to infiltrate the good guys compound, I found that the fruits of the labors becomes way too easily nullified by Murphy’s Messiah rant.
Murphy has been the character to develop a lot the last two episodes. We find that Murphy is either an extreme sympathizer of the misunderstood Z or he is slowly transforming into one of the undead proving the antibody strain is ineffective. Murphy is immune to zombie affections and he has some sort of mind control over them making Murphy the ultimate guy to be buddy-buddy with in a zombie overrun world.
While we move on without one of the survivors, lets not forget the objective and lets not forget that “Z Nation” won’t tone down the bloody show; instead, the show will continue to get bloodier with each episode, the feelings will become even more twisted, and overall feel of the show will put your head in a vice and your eyeballs will pop out. You’ll enjoy every turn of the vice handle loving the pain the “Z Nation” brings to television.
Another Headless Horseman commercial. Man, this icon is popular this year. I saw this little gem for a Snicker’s commercial while on my way up to Montreal. Short, yet still funny.
“Red Nights” is not exactly a new film. Being released in 2010, the erotic, giallo-inspired, thriller has only been available for DVD purchase in the Belgium market while Germany has the sole blu-ray edition. With much anticipation, Philadelphia based company Breaking Glass Pictures will be bringing “Red Nights” to DVD in the States in all it’s suspenseful and bloody glory.
The ancient box of the Jade Executioner has become the fascination of everyone’s desires. From crooked politicians, to thieves, to sadomasochistic murderers, the box contains a poison that will increase your pleasure by ten fold while leaving you completely paralyzed and increase your pain by the same amount. This twisted tale with a sexual aura constructs a cat-and-mouse game between two femme fatales, Catherine – who just wants a giant pay day for the box and Carrie Chan – who wishes to use the poison for the ultimate pleasure from pain, while a Manau crime lord embarks on a mission to retrieve back his stolen antique box.
This is the first feature length film from French directors Laurent Courtiaud and Julien Carbon and while “Red Nights” looks beautiful on screen – the shot scenes remind me the Wachowski brother’s Noir film “Bound” – the story can be a bit loose and slow at first. The By the end of act one, “Red Nights” really pick up the pieces and the story of how Frédérique Bel’s character Catherine, a personal assistant to the crooked politician Savini, becomes snared in a web of deadly game with Carrie Chan – played by Hong Kong actress Carrie Ng – and in this game, minor players get a slow and painful death which translates very well to screen and relates very precisely to the character’s personas. Carrie is a sadist who can whip a dry martini while skinning you alive. Catherine is a bit more hesitant but her greed can force her hand to kill.
The gory effects are surprisingly realistic for a pair of visual effects crew members – Jam Abelanet and Bertrand Levallois – who don’t have much horror and thriller film credits behind their names. This goes hand and hand with how I described the first time directors and how the crew of “Red Nights” got it right the first time. Where the film lost me a many of times was the back and forth dialect of French, Chinese, and a little bit of English thrown in there for good measure. As much as I like a foreign film to use their native tongue, it’s hard to follow when a conversation between a Chinese actress who speaks in full Chinese and then the French actress retorts in full French. “Red Nights” would not make a good Rosetta Stone substitute.
Carrie Ng creates a fascinating character in Carrie Chan, a respectable, world renowned perfume designer and model. Chan’s dark side involves tight leather, bondage ropes, and razor sharp metallic finger talons that shred skin like shredding a block of cheese. Carrie Ng is lustfully sleek and sexy with her bad girl image that suites her well. Frédérique Bel couldn’t compare to Ng’s prowlness nor clean good looks, but I have to give Bel credit for making her character Catherine a sneaky and aggressive go getter. Maybe the issue was in the script’s writing, but Catherine seemed to lack a lot of intelligence for being in a game that could cost her her life. Catherine trusted everyone too easily and let people go too quickly without any kind of punishment or pain.
While “Red Nights” won’t break the DVD retail shelf bank, I’m still glad Breaking Glass Pictures and Vicious Circle Films are releasing this foreign gem to the masses of ‘Merica. And while I appreciate every aspect of this film from the director’s inspiration of Giallo genre to the histories of Chinese folklore, I can’t see my country men going crazy over a Chinese girl with finger blades. However, the story for Carrie Chan might speak more to horror enthusiast in that the Jade Executioner’s poison is similar to the box in Hellraiser. The box is described to show you the pleasures of pain much like the poison in “Red Nights.” Lets also not forget that Japanese porn actress Kotone Amamlya and French actress Carole Brana do a bit of nudity as well – click to see my skin page here. Come Tuesday October 21st, DVD will be readily available for purchase, but why wait? Pre-order your copy of a unique thriller with hints of gruesome horror torture!
