Welcome To the Dead Parade #5: Undead After Dark
In preparation for a yard sale I'm having this summer, I've been watching some of the horror movies I purchased at the Movie Gallery closing sale back in 2010, a lot of which were part of the After Dark Horrorfest collection.
Each year, starting in 2007, After Dark Films releases what they call "8 Films to Die For," usually involving slashers, ghosts, zombies, or cannibals, coming from a variety of countries, and ranging from psychological to gory to SyFy Channel stupid. Today of course, we're covering zombies via two After Dark productions; one intelligent, the other...not so much.
Getting the bad news out of the way first and ripping the band-aid off the flesh wound, we look at Mulberry St. from Horrorfest II. Mulberry brings to mind ridiculous pot-fueled horror movie concepts like this one which result from asking (like Jeff Goldblum said in Jurassic Park) whether it has been done or can be done, but not whether it should be done.
Don't get me wrong, the concept is unique. In New York City, people suffering from rat bites turn into were-rats (which I'm pretty sure is an old Scooby-Doo villain). But where the concept goes in the course of the movie leaves everything to be desired. The group of survivors that inevitably get picked off and turned one by one are so clueless that by the time they realize something is wrong, they are too ridiculously outnumbered to do anything about it (not to mention that they're about as well armed as the Venus de Milo). In other words, typical New Yorkers. They basically sit in their apartments, talking about how Jimmy and Joey didn't show up for work this morning until they die, rat-bitten and screaming.
No intelligence, no entertainment value, and no reason for me to keep it around.
F
"Years have gone by...Not heard from nor seen. Destined to KILL...It's...Perkins' 14!"
No, it's not a Burma Shave ad. It's Horrorfest III selection Perkins' 14, a brilliant take on the zombie genre that follows small-town cop Dwayne Hopper (Patrick O'Kane) and his family as they try to survive a killing spree that has been unleashed on the citizens of Stone Cove, Maine.
Ten years ago, Ronald Perkins (played briefly and fiendishly by Richard Brake), AKA the Stone Cove Killer, kidnapped children from fourteen families in an act of revenge, including Hopper's son, now setting them loose as fearless, intelligent turbo-zombies to kill the entire town.
Brake and Hopper play their parts well, having character in both appearance and stage presence, and the plot device of using PCP as the zombies' origin was sheer genius. Perkins' 14 gets away from the traditional infectious zombie in this way, leaving a hopelessly dead global landscape to focus more on an inner turmoil that allows room for a staple of Romero's saga: they may be zombies now, but they used to be people you know, and as such are not easily dispatched with a clean conscience, nor are they likely to completely abandon what they are to fulfill another's idea of who they were.
Remember what I said in Dead Parade #3 about looking in the lion's mouth for an ounce of humanity?
A-
I think now is the perfect time for the return of If the Lyric Fits:
More Dead Parade to come in the future, but stay tuned next week for reviews of Contraband and Dark Tide.
Each year, starting in 2007, After Dark Films releases what they call "8 Films to Die For," usually involving slashers, ghosts, zombies, or cannibals, coming from a variety of countries, and ranging from psychological to gory to SyFy Channel stupid. Today of course, we're covering zombies via two After Dark productions; one intelligent, the other...not so much.
Don't get me wrong, the concept is unique. In New York City, people suffering from rat bites turn into were-rats (which I'm pretty sure is an old Scooby-Doo villain). But where the concept goes in the course of the movie leaves everything to be desired. The group of survivors that inevitably get picked off and turned one by one are so clueless that by the time they realize something is wrong, they are too ridiculously outnumbered to do anything about it (not to mention that they're about as well armed as the Venus de Milo). In other words, typical New Yorkers. They basically sit in their apartments, talking about how Jimmy and Joey didn't show up for work this morning until they die, rat-bitten and screaming.
No intelligence, no entertainment value, and no reason for me to keep it around.
F
No, it's not a Burma Shave ad. It's Horrorfest III selection Perkins' 14, a brilliant take on the zombie genre that follows small-town cop Dwayne Hopper (Patrick O'Kane) and his family as they try to survive a killing spree that has been unleashed on the citizens of Stone Cove, Maine.
Ten years ago, Ronald Perkins (played briefly and fiendishly by Richard Brake), AKA the Stone Cove Killer, kidnapped children from fourteen families in an act of revenge, including Hopper's son, now setting them loose as fearless, intelligent turbo-zombies to kill the entire town.
Brake and Hopper play their parts well, having character in both appearance and stage presence, and the plot device of using PCP as the zombies' origin was sheer genius. Perkins' 14 gets away from the traditional infectious zombie in this way, leaving a hopelessly dead global landscape to focus more on an inner turmoil that allows room for a staple of Romero's saga: they may be zombies now, but they used to be people you know, and as such are not easily dispatched with a clean conscience, nor are they likely to completely abandon what they are to fulfill another's idea of who they were.
Remember what I said in Dead Parade #3 about looking in the lion's mouth for an ounce of humanity?
A-
I think now is the perfect time for the return of If the Lyric Fits:
"It's a pound of flesh, but it's really a ton.Hit me!
99 Problems and a bitch ain't one."
-Hugo, "99 Problems"
More Dead Parade to come in the future, but stay tuned next week for reviews of Contraband and Dark Tide.
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