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G.O.R.E. Score: Invasion

Posted by Tony Schaab on October 18, 2010 in G.O.R.E. Score Reviews
Invasion (2007)
Invasion (2007)

 

Original Release Date: Septbmer 5, 2007
Run Time: 81 minutes (65 actual mins.; see below)

Ever have a book, movie, etc., that you learned or heard a little bit about in advance? You still don’t know much about the piece of work, but the little anticipation bug has been planted in your head, and you start to hype yourself up in advance – you are so confident you are going to enjoy this thing, even though you’re not quite sure why.

Well, that was me with “Invasion.” I had seen the preview for this movie a while back on the DVD of “Undead” (an enjoyable little film I reviewed a while back, the results of which you can take a peek at here), and those few minutes of film highlights made this movie seem really cool – some text that informs you that the movie is going to be a “pseudo-documentary,” a la “The Blair Witch Project,” except this film will be showing you footage caught on the dashboard camera of a police cruiser.

The idea certainly intrigued me – a “verite”-style zombie movie, using the unique approach of showing the entire film from the third-person yet “realistic” perspective of a recording from a cop car…count me in! I kept my eye out for an opportunity to pick up the movie on DVD, but never really actively went searching after it.

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G.O.R.E. Score: Battlestar Galactica: Cylon Apocalypse

Posted by Tony Schaab on October 12, 2010 in G.O.R.E. Score Reviews
BSG Cylon Apocalypse (2007)
BSG Cylon Apocalypse (2007)

Original Release Date: February 1, 2007
Number of Issues: 4 (mini-series; collected graphic novel)
Publisher: Dynamite Entertainment

Zombie crossovers: they’re all the rage these days. Differing slightly from the zombie mash-up, where the undead are inserted in a known story as the story itself is re-imagined, the zombie crossover is a much more flexible event: put our favorite reanimated creatures into the realm of an existing fictional universe, and let the mayhem begin.

We’ve seen the zombie crossover with quite a few properties recently, most notably those in the sci-fi realm: to name just a few, Star Wars has the novel “Death Troopers” (reviewed by The G.O.R.E. Score not too long ago), Star Trek has the recently-released book “Night of the Living Trekkies” (to be reviewed by The G.O.R.E. Score soon!), and IDW Entertainment just announced a massive intra-company crossover where zombies will feature in their “licensed” comic book properties of G.I. Joe, Star Trek, Transformers, and Ghostbusters.

The result of zombie crossovers, much like mash-ups, meet with mixed success: if done correctly, with the appropriate amount of intelligence and respect for the “home” property, these stories can be very entertaining and a great “what if” to let fans see how characters they know and love in one environment might react to an undead menace. The boundary between doing a crossover or mash-up because someone wants to create an amazing story versus the desire to cash in and “make a quick buck” off of the current popularity of zombies is a fine line, and usually the savvy zombie fan can tell which is which pretty quickly.

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G.O.R.E. Score: Slither

Posted by Tony Schaab on October 5, 2010 in G.O.R.E. Score Reviews
Slither (2006)

Slither (2006)

Original Release Date: March 31, 2006
Run Time: 95 minutes

There’s a fairly standard sci-fi/horror trope that a lot of stories use: semi-sentient alien organism visits Earth and takes over individual humans by entering our bodies through our mouths/ears/noses/butts/any other orifices they can wriggle into. Many times, the aliens “kill” the humans or incapacitate their brains when taking over the bodies, turning the infected folks into a creature most would call a zombie. It’s definitely not a new plot device, showing up as early as the 1930s in sci-fi serials, but if done correctly it can easily make for a story that is entertaining, suspenseful, and thought-provoking.

By plot line alone, “Slither” doesn’t break any molds or cover any new ground: it’s your fairly standard “alien slugs turn people into zombies and try to take over the world” scenario. In fact, it’s one of three different zombie flicks being reviewed during “Zombies from Beyond!” Month that use conceit. However, it’s the nuanced performances by the cast, the attention to detail on the part of its creators, and the broad humor mixed with tongue-in-cheek homages to former stories of this type that make “Slither,” in my humble opinion, a must-see film for any fun-loving zombie enthusiast.

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G.O.R.E. Score: Night of the Comet

Posted by Tony Schaab on October 1, 2010 in G.O.R.E. Score Reviews
Night of the Comet (1984)

Night of the Comet (1984)

Original Release Date: November 16, 1984
Run Time: 95 minutes

“Night of the Comet” is a very unique movie. To the average viewer, it probably appears to be just another kitschy ‘80s horror film. But for those select viewers “in the know” about this movie’s director, Thom Eberhardt, and what his true intentions were in making this film, the experience of watching “Night of the Comet” is completely different and – in my humble opinion – infinitely more rewarding.

The plot is simple enough, in its obliviously-cheesy way: a comet is passing closely to Earth, so almost everyone on the planet decides to throw a party to stand outside and watch it pass by. The opening credits are shown while a newscast talks about how this comet “hasn’t been seen in our solar system since the time the dinosaurs mysteriously vanished,” which raises the awareness of the viewer but apparently not a single person in the actual movie. Comet passes by, bad things happen to the people who were staring directly at it, and the few people on the planet who weren’t directly affected by the comet (including a surprisingly young-looking and heroic-acting Robert Beltran, better known to some as Chakotay from “Star Trek: Voyager”) are left to deal with the consequences.

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G.O.R.E. Score: Resident Evil: Afterlife

Posted by Tony Schaab on September 27, 2010 in G.O.R.E. Score Reviews
Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010)

Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010)

Original Release Date: September 10, 2010
Run Time: 97 minutes

A new “Resident Evil” movie has been released, you say?

The fourth installment of the now-inaccurately named “Alice Trilogy” starring Milla Jovovich, you say?

Shot in amazingly-amazing 3D, you say?

Stop writing this review using inane semi-rhetorical questions, you say?

If you’re reading this review, the odds are good that you are familiar with “Resident Evil” on some level, whether it be the big-budget Hollywood flicks that have been coming to your local cineplexes for the last eight years or the enthralling video games that have been produced on a variety of platforms dating all the way back to the first “RE” game for the PlayStation in 1996. No matter what your opinions are about the believability of the stories, the depth (or lack thereof) of the characters, or the level of visual effects and editing, one thing you have to concede to this franchise: damn, they know how to entertain, and “RE:A” is no exception to this rule.

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G.O.R.E. Score: Eerie, Indiana: “Just Say No Fun” / “Zombies in P.J.s”

Posted by Tony Schaab on September 20, 2010 in G.O.R.E. Score Reviews
Eerie, Indiana (1991)

Eerie, Indiana (1991)

Original Air Dates: October 27, 1991 and April 12, 1992
Run Time: 24 mins apiece

The short-lived TV series “Eerie, Indiana” will always have a special place in my heart. A mix of sci-fi/ supernatural/ mystery genres aimed at young adults, “Eerie” was definitely ahead of its time when it premiered on NBC in 1991, a full two years before the “adult” show its most compared to, “The X-Files.” Since it was not only released in the prime of my adolescence (I was a young, bright-eyed lad of 13 when the show first aired) but also took place in and made reference to my home state right in the title, I was easily hooked. Like so many fond remembrances from our youth, however, a reconnection with this series as an adult has sadly shown me that my memories of the show were viewed through rose-colored glasses.

“Eerie” follows a young boy named Marshall Teller, who moves with his family to Eerie (population 16,661, whether this was before or after his family joined the community is unclear, natch), a small town in Indiana with some seriously strange goings-on. While my understanding is that Eerie was not specifically based on the template of any one town, its name was obviously a play on the real-life town of Erie, Indiana, although I haven’t found any information or documentation that the real-life town embraced its fictitious counterpart in any way.

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G.O.R.E. Score: The Blooming

Posted by Tony Schaab on September 10, 2010 in G.O.R.E. Score Reviews
The Blooming (2010)

The Blooming (2010)

Release Date: March 22, 2010
Publisher: Sonar4 Publications

There are certain words in the English language that just don’t seem to lend themselves to rational pairing. Here are some examples: underwater polo. Chocolate-covered bacon. Tornado Football. Exploding automobile. Deep-fried Coke. Zombie erotica.

For the record, all the stuff I mentioned above really does exist. As much as you may be intrigued to hear about the rest of them, today we’re here only to talk about the one phrase in the above list that I personally haven’t experienced live: zombie erotica! But I have come close to a live experience, specifically through having recently read the novel “The Blooming” by Tonia Brown.

Released in early 2010, “The Blooming” is a little tale of adventure, deception, sex, and of course, the walking dead. The story follows a documentary team that accompanies a professor to a small, unexplored island in the South Pacific. The professor is looking for a mythical blooming flower whose existence has never been proven, and as is usually the case with situations like these, the characters get stranded on the island and get more than they bargained for when things go awry. Including the aforementioned sex and the walking dead.

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