Evil Zombies Inherit the Earth! “Zombieworld” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on May 29, 2015

A deadly virus turns the world’s living population into a hoard of fleshing-eating, brain-devouring, gut-munching zombies and KRPS anchor Marvin Gloat bravely remains on the airwaves reporting the walking dead incidents from all over the globe until his very last breath. “Zombieworld” delivers an undead collection, glorified in gore, vicious in violence, and surely necessary for the human survival in a zombie inhabited world. From Canada to Australia and from the United States to Spain, the tales of the risen dead relentlessly show no mercy with no holds barred on the bloodletting.

From RLJ Entertainment and Image Entertainment comes “Zombieworld” onto home DVD video from the United Kingdom and for all you zombie apocalypse nuts out there, “Zombieworld” will be your handbook guide through the trying times. “Zombieworld” is the epic storytelling of various zombie-related accounts from several countries directed by young and fresh talent who bring a blood bathed new take on a seriously soaked genre. The 11 narratives are unique in their own rite, but share a common horror-comedy element with the exception of a couple of segments. While internet researching on “Zombieworld,” my curiosity got the better of me and I wander onto other review sites to see what my peers’ opinions are about the collection of shorts and to my surprise, the reviews and opinions are fairly negative as the reviewers take in the collection as a whole that’s being glued together by an outer story segment. This style relates similarly to the V/H/S or HI-8: Horror Independent Eight’s way of conveying multiple short films with the outer-storying being their commonality.

In fairness, yes, the outer-story does come off a bit cheesy especially with the animated zombies that resembles the Dire Strait music video “Money for Nothing,” but my main man Bill Oberst Jr. doesn’t disappoint as anchor man Marvin Gloat and his slow transition into one of the undead masses as he continues to report world incidences. However, my interests lie mainly with the girth of “Zombieworld” and what better way to start off the tale-telling by going head first right into an intense first-person take of “Dark Times” where a nuclear plant meltdown causes panic, extreme chaos, a heartless military response, and, of course, rampaging zombies! Bits of comedy come about with a zombie Santa, a golf-club wielding family, and ends with a stellar, monstrous finale that leaves you hanging for your own interpretation!

One of my favorite shorts is the sacrilegious short “Fist of Jesus” directed by David Muñoz and Adrián Cardona. Jesus fights off undead acolytes, Romans, and, uh, cowboys in a gory old Peter Jackson type way and then some. The non-stop comedy and blood translates over to Muñoz’s and Cardona’s other short “Brutal Relax” along with a third co-director Rafa Dengrá. “Brutal Relax” awards itself as the grand finale of “Zombieworld” and rightfully so by being just as bloody as “Fist of Jesus” yet bringing in tons more comedy especially from lead actor José María Angorrilla who portrays a large and uptight, angry-issued ridden man needing of a vacation which becomes interrupted by sea-dwelling zombie-like creatures that rip apart the beach goers.

There are segments that pay respects to other zombie-related medias such as Resident Evil. The Vedran Marjanovic Wekster directed “How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse” are informative shorts that refer to a welcome to sign for Raccoon City and any self-respecting horror fan knows, Raccoon City is a big part of the Resident Evil series where all the Umbrella Corporation hijinks go down. “Teleportal,” helmed by Paul Shrimpton, also pays homage to another video game series that is first person shooter entitled House of the Dead. Forget Uwe Boll’s mess of a film and go for the throat of this short that sucks in a gun-toting controlling player through his television set and right into the zombie attack that contains an ironic and spectacular game-over ending.

Though many of the segments are inspirational, “Zombieworld” does contain some originality. The Aussie-born Cameron McCulloch directed “Home” starring a lovely Jamie McDowell contains no dialogue, but conveys the rough time McDowell’s character goes through with the loss of her fiance who she has chained up. Her loss is so tremendous that she is unsure on how to use her last remaining bullet – will she kill her fiance’s corpse or will she kill herself? The Irish horror-comedy “I Am Lonely,” directed by Phil Haine, follows an naive and annoying young man named Chris living in a zombie overrun town who comes home to his apartment and finds his friend Steve has been fatally injured. As Chris dim wittingly spills out all the absurdities he’s done to Steve, Steve’s injury isn’t solely zombie-related and that’s where things get interesting. Also, an American film entitled “Certified” is not necessarily a zombie short, but only implies to the undead. Luke Guidici directs Rebecca Spicher as young Alice who tells the grim tale of her uncle and cousin’s mind shaft demise to a gullible new mailman that nearly scares him right out of his USPS uniform.

Lastly, some shorts follow a more heart-pounding scenario. For example, “Dead Stop” by director Tommy Woodard is a CCTV shot short that has a police officer pulling up on a frantic woman who is trying to save her bitten husband. The scene grows more intense when the husband turns on his wife. Realistically surreal with well acting completes this short and fits right in with the “Zombieworld” collective. Another intense short with a synonym-like title is the first person view of “Dead Rush” directed by Zachary Ramelan. The viewers embody a man waking up in a bathroom with dead bodies and blood everywhere and we follow his, and two others’, journey as he wields an axe through a mass of the undead. Things get serious when our hero becomes part of the dead ranks from being gut-ripped opened and devoured!

In all, I’m pleasantly pleased with how the Ruthless Pictures and Dread Central produced “Zombieworld” brought in little-to-unknown talent and showcased their short features that awesomely fit into the highly entertaining category and bites ferociously into being one of the best zombie DVD releases of the year! The RLJ Entertainment and Image DVD release cover is colorfully detailed with the best intention on not taking itself too seriously, but feels eerily similar to other notable covers such as “Faces of Death” or Steven Spielberg’s “War of the Worlds.” The specs include a widescreen 16:9 transfer with Dolby Digital 2.0 mix. Since this is a mixed bag of films, the clarity of presentations vary, but I can tell you that most shorts are sharp and clean looking with with no distortions in image or audio. Some of the night scenes in “Home” or “Marathon Apocalypse” have some digital interference that won’t ruin your viewing pleasure. The overall recommendation is to pick this undead puppy up and dive into a whole new world of talented horror directors and I’m positive that your blood lust won’t go unquenched!

Cross-Dressing, Katana Wielding Evil! “Der Samurai” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on May 23, 2015

In a small German village, Jakob, a police officer, encounters a blonde cross-dresser wielding a samurai sword who reeks havoc throughout the village. Before Jakob can make an arrest, the decapitating murderer quickly vanishes and reappears during random points of the night. Jakob soon realizes that this cross-dresser killer has more in store for Jakob who, before the strange encounter, struggled to remain above the water living in a town that doesn’t seem to want him there. Does this dangerous individual hold to key to the answers of Jakob’s questions or is he just a mental head case wielding a katana for the fun of it?

“Der Samurai” is certainly an interesting piece of German cinema that’s difficult to follow, but if you dig deep and look closely into the bones of the film, a glimpse into the personal life of our hero Jakob and his conquering of personal struggles is clear to the mind’s eye through the interpretation of writer and director Till Kleinert in his sophomore film. Jakob, portrayed by Michel Diercks, doesn’t quite fit in in his small hometown village; he has no outside life as he spends his every waking moment taking care of his grandmother when not on official police duty, his boss is constantly degrading him, and the town doesn’t respect his job given authority. While he struggles through these life issues, his work obsession becomes with a wolf that has been sited in the village. Since nothing ever happens his his small village, the wolf is the most interesting thing ever to happen as far as crime goes.

The wolf is hardly seen throughout the movie except for a few brief sightings and up until near the end and the reason for that is the katana wielding, cross-dressing maniac Jakob happens upon. The cross-dressing psychopath, played by Pit Bukowski, is a representation of the wolf and the wolf represents the epic struggle in Jakob’s pitiful life. If he can overcome the epic struggle, then he’ll be free of all the insecurities that have burdened to him and dished out by his insincere village folk. However, the quest to best the manic isn’t going to be easy and will be bloody.

With a title like “Der Samurai,” there will be blood, but the production crew had to use cheap tricks to make the realistic violence work and work well. These cheap tricks were very well done and certainly didn’t look phony or cheesy on screen. The effects are also very experimental and up for interpretation. At one point when a character is decapitated, a spectacular display of blood and fireworks skyrocket out of the neck as a sort of spirtual release for the poor headless character. Experimental and up for interpretation, just like the androgynous character that Pit Bukowski portrays. What kind of sexual desires are being explored here between Jakob and the maniac? At first, I thought maybe Jakob was the maniac due to his boss questioning Jakob on the phone that he might be dressed up and wielding a katana and when his grandmother, in a frightened state, claims that the person tending to her was not her grandson when clearly it was Jakob tending to her. This all changes when other police officers and town folk also see the cross-dresser, putting to defunct the speculation that Jakob was this cross-dresser.

Artsploitation Films brings to Blu-ray home video “Der Samurai” and we’re lucking to have a film like this to be available now in America. However, the 1080p widescreen 1.85:1 transfer isn’t up to the Blu-ray quality one would think. There lies a lot of grainy noise interference, perhaps to the low lighting provided for the film as much of duration is shot in the dark. Didn’t look like to me that there was any digital noise reduction used to smooth out the specks. The Dolby Digital 5.1 German dialogue with English subtitles is flawless and all the subtitles sync up well with the characters’ dialogue. Bonus features include a commentary with director Till Kleinert and Producer Linus de Paoli, a theatrical trailer, and a behind the scene featurette that is actually worth looking into as much of the background and backstory is explained. I’d recommend this German horror to all to experience and, to put the cherry on top, you’ll get to see an erect penis! Enjoy!

Craving an Evil Appetite! “Frankenstein’s Hungry Dead” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on May 23, 2015

A group of mischievous and detention bound high-schoolers are handed two choices: either spend the day in a classroom after school or take an educational trip to a wax museum in Salem. Instead of spending the entire day in a classroom, a trip to a wax museum seemed to be the lesser of two evils. Little do the hooligans know that the museum’s curator Charles Frank is the relative of the infamous Dr. Victor Frankenstein and Charles Frank, a pseudo name for Frankenstein, has continued the ghoulish work his elder kin started long ago. Trapped inside Frankenstein’s wax museum of horrors, the high-schoolers are pitted against Frankenstein’s flesh eating creations with no way out. What was suppose to be a fun and devious night of intercourse and dancing turns into a bloody-blood bath of unspeakable horror.

This isn’t my first rodeo with director Richard Griffin’s work. The last It’s Bloggin’ Evil Griffin review, “Sins of Dracula,” didn’t strike the right key notes and became only a shell of a honoring horror film. “Frankenstein’s Hungry Dead,” also known as Dr. Frankenstein’s Wax Museum of the Hungry Dead,” was made a year earlier than “Sins of Dracula” and reminds me more of a true Griffin film. At first, I was afraid “Frankenstein’s Hungry Dead” would dull the mood as rebellious youth have yet again landed themselves into a death trap and this scenario just seems to be regurgitated over and over again in horror cinema. Eventually, and to my surprise, Griffin digs and builds out of that redundant hole and still manages to display his ever long homage to horror and horror icons comically. The thing about Griffin is is that he relies on mashing many genres together. For example, “Frankenstein’s Hungry Dead” is a mesh of Frankenstein, the Romero zombie genre, and a little bit of naziploitation to give the film some flavor. Second and third act strengthen the film’s roots and the comedy really pops during these acts making the film comical and gross at the same time.

“Oh my God! It’s Hitler!”

Another conventional Griffin film schtick is the long-winded dialogue. I tend to get breathless just listening to the dump truck loads of exposition that seamlessly spew out of the actors’ mouths. The dialogue to death ratio just doesn’t add up and this film does get a bit talkative with a script that doesn’t quite measure up to Shakespearian work. The dialogue tends to be juvenile and obvious in a sense that every scene is laid out by description. Unless you’re Michael Thurber playing Dr. Frankenstein, there lies no reason behind other characters to have more scripted lines than there are end credits.

Speaking of Michael Thurber, Thurber has cemented himself as part of Griffin’s entourage a long with others who are also casted in this film: Johnny Sederquist, Jesse Dufault, and Jamie Lyn Bagley. However, Thurber’s versatility seems quite amazing. My first experience with Thurber was as a hard nose cop hellbent on vengeance in “Murder University” and I think he’s the best part of Griffin’s films. Thurber’s portrayal of Charles Frank combines a “Young Frankenstein’s” Inspector Kemp with a long lost, and black sheep, cousin of Hammer Horror legend Peter Cushion. Johnny Sederquiest and Jesse Default are starting to grow on me more and more with their acting styles. Their outrageous over acting is childish but hypnotically effective in humor. Bagley has been the more serious actor of the bunch, staying away from the horribly cliched parts and sticking with simple, easy to miss characters such as her breakout role as nerd girl heroine Katherine.

Overall, “Frankenstein’s Hungry Dead” is less about Frankenstein’s creature and more about the creation of flesh eating zombies and reaping hell upon meddling teenagers. Certainly a different take on the mad scientist genre and the Frankenstein legacy, but Griffin does mix things up for not necessarily the worst and I’m sure Mary Shelley would agree, if not really mind at all. The MVD and Wild Eye DVD release distributes a fairly standard unrated package that doesn’t disappoint and would be a winner in anybody’s B-movie collection.

Restoring Creepy Evil to the Indie Movement! “The Haunting of Radcliffe House” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on April 27, 2015

Meg and Alec Hamilton and their two young children trek out to the English countryside of Yorkshire to inhabit an old mansion to restore to originality for an oversea’s buyer. Unbeknownst to the family, the previous owner has a deadly reputation that involves the occult and the murder of his wife. When Meg stumbles upon a secret room, strange events emerge that strike to tear the family apart and intend to start things over again…from the beginning.

“The Haunting of Radcliffe House,” also known as “Altar,” is nothing new, but the story compels an audience and will tack on decent chills and thrills that will sure to entertainment. However, the Nick Willing TV-directed movie screams to be heavily borrowed from more essential works such as The Shining and The Amityville Horror where the father becomes almost possessed and blood thirsty. Memphis Belle actor Matthew Modine tackles the said father who draws motivation from blank stares that turn full blown possessed. Modine has always impressed on to me as being the relaxed actor to character, but there lies some aggression that was being held back in his previous works and was a sure sign of relief to see something new from Modine.

The Sixth Sense actress Olivia Williams is the counterpart to Modine’s character. Her Meg Hamilton is a tough, independent woman whose hellbent on restoring this house no matter the oddities that pop up around her. Williams fits the role well being the calm head before the storm and with Alec, Modine’s character, almost completely out the picture from being overcome by the house’s allure, the film surrounds around mainly Meg Hamilton and becomes the Meg show.

Even though London born writer-director Nick Willing has a resume mostly compiled of made for TV credits, I’ve seen impressive gloomy and brooding shots from the director that most horror entrenched directors can’t accomplish. Some of the camera worked used and the edited instrumented create effective scares even if the scares kind of come off confusing within the story. The special effects by Ben Ashmore and his team can be put up against the best TV movies.

I mentioned before that some of story doesn’t jive with the plot. There are instances where random ghosts emerge who are not prevalent to the house’s backstory, but these scenes were creepy enough to keep one glued to the screen. The whole meat of the story surrounds a room that has a explanation to it’s use but the device, a large spike suspended above a person as some sort of occult relic, is hung, suspended above a person but we’re no privy to the purpose behind this object. The object drips, what I suspect, is blood and acts as a sort of seeping device, seeping one soul into another through the droplets of blood. Blood becomes a motif especially with Alec and his blood becomes a part of the house and in turn starts to overtake his soul but this is just speculation.

The “The Haunting of Radcliffe House” might not have a hip title, but rather has a overused title, and might not be a new flavor of horror ready to set the world on fire, but the potential for a good scare is shared. There is an appreciation for the minimalistic CGI special effects used and an another appreciation for the beautifully shot moments that stand out amongst the gapped plot. Nick Willing’s film might not be the most flawless piece of work, yet we’re seeing a glimpse from a director who doesn’t have much experience in the horror genre and he brings his melodrama, and a little bit of comedy with the unconventional “ghost whisperer,” take on his a solid ghost story.

Evil Has Fallen Far From the Father Tree. “Auteur” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on April 20, 2015

A failed filmmaker sets forth to claim is stake in fame by creating a documentary about a legendary horror director who disappeared during his latest highly anticipated masterpiece “Demonic.” The filmmaker is hellbent on finding the director and discovering the truth on why the director had a melt down during filming and stole all the film’s footage. After sitting down with various interviewees and finding the long lost director, this film has become notorious for it’s dark background of death that surrounded some of the cast and crew and their families. The notion seems to becomes evident that “Demonic” should have never been made and that some films should never be released or else more peoples’ lives would be in grave danger.

I surely wanted to believe that Cameron Romero had the same masterful skill set as his father George or also I wouldn’t have mind if Cameron went into a total opposite direction of his zombie king father and create a whole new and eloquent horror genre that puts his name on the map. “Auteur” is my first look into Cameron Romero’s work and my hopes hit the highest of ceilings and anxiousness and eagerness helped drive me to pop this disc into the player as soon as able to without interruption. Unfortunately, I found myself glancing through friends’ comment walls on Facebook and watching various PornTube videos because I was so disappointingly bored with the result of “Autuer.”

My heart knew something was amiss when Tom Sizemore headlines a movie and sure enough my heart was right and I should have been more perceptive to it’s warnings. Now, I have a soft side for Sizemore; I enjoy the man’s earlier work in Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man, The Relic, and in Saving Private Ryan – all very great material – but Sizemore has lost his knack as of late. Also, Sizemore doesn’t really have anything to do with headlining “Auteur.” His runtime is no more than maybe 15 minutes tops and I swear he’s reading off cue cards in the restaurant scenes with actor/producer BJ Hendricks playing the documentarian who’s trying to make a documentary about “Demonic” in which Tom Sizemore stars in – got that? Sizemore is just a recognizable name to try and sell home entertainment units.

What really hurts “Auteur” is that it’s too much of a talking head movie. Basically, BJ Hendricks drives around searching for Ian Hutton’s character, the great director Charlie Buckwald, and does a number of interviews with cast and crew members along with other interviews with people who met Charlie outside the studio. Not until in the middle of Act three does the film get somewhat appealing with the levitation scene of Madeline Merritt’s character Kate Rivers. There some scare appeal there that would have been nice if implemented perhaps through the rest of the movie.

What also could be construed about “Auteur” that would compare to most of his father work is that Cameron attempts to convey some social commentary about Hollywood and their stressed out, coming to a breaking point actors and directors losing their cool and jumping off the deep end into a psychotic break abyss and that there are directors and producers out in Hollywood that would jump the wagon to try and make a easy dollar by exploiting their downfall. Cameron, hypothetically, turns the table on the exploiter making this ambulance chaser pay with the story being more sinisterly deadly. In that regard and if that has any truth what Cameron was trying to accomplish, then I applaud him on successfully mocking Tinseltown.

No one should certainly take my word on whether one should watch Cameron Romero’s “Auteur” or not, that’s up to them. I only give my humble critique and my overall impression with the film had cold heartedly, but quietly, crushed my hopes in being something I would enjoy from the next generation of Romeros. But hey, Cameron’s father had to start somewhere and build upon that and that is what I suspect Cameron will do as well. It’s great to see that Cameron did give a little nod to his father in the DVD store scene – twice. You can buy “Auteur” from MVDVisual on DVD Home Entertainment on April 21st.

Nudity Report

No nudity 😦

It's Bloggin Evil!

A honest horror review blog…

Category Archives: Trailers

Evil Zombies Inherit the Earth! “Zombieworld” review!

Cross-Dressing, Katana Wielding Evil! “Der Samurai” review!

Craving an Evil Appetite! “Frankenstein’s Hungry Dead” review!

Restoring Creepy Evil to the Indie Movement! “The Haunting of Radcliffe House” review!

Evil Has Fallen Far From the Father Tree. “Auteur” review!

Nudity Report

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Nudity Report

Share this: