Matt Carter's Official Author Page
  • In the Mind of Matt (It's Not That Scary, I Swear)
  • About Matt Carter
  • Books
  • Online Shorts
  • Links
    • Events

The Long Halloween Diaries 2016 - Night of the Living Dead at the Maverick Theater

10/10/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
(For those new to this article series, please check out my introduction to The Long Halloween.)

(SPOILER ALERTS FOR A 50+ YEAR OLD MOVIE; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!)
 
It is impossible to overstate how important Night of the Living Dead is to the genre of modern horror. From bringing to screen a level of violence and terror that had never been seen before (let alone on such a shoestring budget), to its subtle and not-so-subtle social commentary, and the very fact that it more or less created all the rules for zombies that films abide by to this day, it’s one hell of a movie. While certain parts of it don’t quite hold up (Barbara’s portrayal is easily one of the worst characters in any classic horror film), it’s a classic for a reason.
 
And so, in hearing that a local theatre company did a stage adaptation of Night of the Living Dead every October, we knew we had to take a look.
 
The Maverick Theater in Fullerton is a tiny theatre, (though larger, and more an actual theater than where we saw Evil Dead: The Musical), but with a lounge area featuring a bar before hitting the main stage, as well as a boarded up doorway featuring some very hands-on zombie performers…

Picture
They quite liked Fi.
…the tone for the show is set quite well. Once the power goes out, the screaming starts, and we’re ushered into the main auditorium, through a stage that reasonably recreates the original’s 1968 farmhouse set, we know we’re in for a treat.
 
I can go into the plot, but if you know the 1968 original, you know this one. It’s 1968. Zombies are patrolling the Pennsylvania countryside. A group of disparate survivors gathers together and spends a whole lot of time arguing the virtues of boarding up windows vs. staying in a basement. Zombies attack. More boards vs. basement arguing. Something explodes. More boards vs. basement arguing. People die.
 
You get the picture.
 
The stage production trims the original film’s runtime from about 90 minutes to a lean hour, which, while sacrificing a surprisingly small bit of character development, actually works pretty well, since most of what’s cut is Barbara running barefoot across the countryside and long semi-montages of boarding up windows. Certain scenes are admittedly more perfunctory, and the characters of Tom and Judy, barely even characters in their original incarnations, are now just blank slates who fill time and die while occasionally providing some comic relief. While the comic relief is welcome in this play that adds a distinct tone of gallows humor to the original story, it only serves to highlight how borderline unnecessary the characters are in this incarnation (not to give a hard time to the actors, though, who did a fine job).
 
The acting in this play was uniformly great, and while there were some undeniable opening night jitters in play, they didn’t detract too much. The standouts were, hands down, Alexander Harris’ Ben and Briana Donze’s Barbara. Harris gives Ben a sense of power and calm strength, being eaten away by the horrific situation he’s found himself in, while Donze’s heavily rewritten Barbara changes her character from a shrill catatonic to a woman driven mad by the end of the world, but one who’s willing to do what it takes to survive. It doesn’t help her in the end, but it makes for a much more palatable show.
 
The production was top notch for the small space, with the farmhouse feeling both real and claustrophobic (which is a benefit in working with a play with a lot of zombie attacks). The zombies were, well, zombies, but there were a lot of them, and they clearly had a lot of fun plying their undead craft on stage. The fights against them were well choreographed for a local stage production, and they managed a few over the top gags that really make you take pause and say “WOW” for such a production.

For a taste of what I'm talking about.
Unfortunately, due to the truncated nature of the play, the original’s dark ending is both kept intact and still robbed of a lot of the impact. It is a shame, but relatively understandable given the small scale nature of what they have to pull off.
 
Regardless, any complaints I have are minor, and this is a production I highly recommend checking out if you get the time. They will be running from October 7-30, at the Maverick Theater in Fullerton.


Thank you for joining us this Halloween season, and as always, please drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter! I'm big into liking/following back! 

Facebook: http://facebook.com/mattcarterauthor  


Twitter: https://twitter.com/MCarterAuthor

-- Matt Carter

(We know there's a lot of Matt Carter's online you could spend your time with, so thanks for hanging around this one!)

0 Comments

Matt's Five Favorite "Guy Friendly" Fictional Romances # 3, True Lies & Shaun of the Dead

2/20/2014

0 Comments

 
Hello everyone, and welcome back to my month-long tribute to my favorite fictional romances that appear in traditionally "guy" oriented fiction (not that guys should feel ashamed of liking such things, please see the # 5 entry of this list for more of that rant). Already we have covered one of the longest-running dysfunctional marriages in cartoon (and television) history (# 5), and a modern sci-fi tragedy (# 4), but today I am going to cover two, yes, two of my favorite movie romances of all time. That's right, we've got a tie.
Picture
Lacking any truly exciting imagery for this, I decided to illustrate this point with a bow tie.
This list of five was a tough one to come up with, since there were actually six that I really liked, however, in realizing that two of them were remarkably similar despite coming from wildly different genres, I decided calling a rare tie was appropriate. First, we have the James Cameron-Arnold Schwarzenegger action classic, True Lies.
Picture
Arnold plays Harry Tasker, international super-spy and basically what you'd get if you made James Bond enormous, Austrian, and R-rated. However, when not overseas killing lots and lots of terrorists (for a movie this funny, True Lies has a ridiculously high, and violent, body count), he is a loving family man with a wife, Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis) and daughter. His family does not know what he does for a living, thinking him to be a mild-mannered computer salesman (who just happens to look like a bodybuilder) who works a lot of odd hours. The strain of these long hours lead to Helen seeking excitement in her life.
Picture
And since this is a James Cameron movie, that excitement comes in the form of Bill Paxton.
Seeing what he thinks is his wife having an affair with sleazy used car salesman Simon, (who pretends to be a spy to have sex with women and is incidentally played by Bill Paxton in one of his career-best roles), Harry engages in some questionable and highly illegal activities to try and give Helen some excitement by sending her on a fake spy adventure. One striptease, one kidnapping, one nuclear explosion and a whole lot of dead terrorists later, and their marriage is saved! Though maybe finally telling her the truth had a part in that too.
Picture
Saving her from a runaway car while dangling from a helicopter was just icing on the cake.
Now let's move on to one of the greatest zombie movies in recent memory: Shaun of the Dead.
Picture
The film's tagline reads, "A romantic comedy. With zombies.", and there really is no better way to describe this film. Shaun (Simon Pegg) is a lovable loser (well, less lovable than loser, at least to start) with a go nowhere job, a slob of a best friend, and a beautiful girlfriend who is probably way out of his league, Liz (Kate Ashfield). After forgetting one date too many, Liz breaks up with Shaun, and in traditional romantic comedy fashion he vows to put his life in order so he can win her back. And he might have even done it, too, if it hadn't been for that pesky zombie apocalypse.
Picture
Something always comes up.
Instead of barricading in his dingy little flat, Shaun vows to save Liz at any cost, and transforms throughout the movie from a lazy bum to a lazy bum with a new appreciation for his girlfriend and also happens to be a zombie killing machine.
Picture
Why can't more romantic comedies end like this?
So, why do I include Harry & Helen and Shaun & Liz on the same entry? Well, because both of them are, at their hearts, romantic comedies about guys who have neglected their significant others and want to do whatever it takes to make things right for them. On top of that, they happen to also be extremely competent entries in their respective genres; True Lies is a strong contender for my favorite action movie of all time (it's neck and neck with Die Hard), while Shaun of the Dead is a serious, and ultra-violent when it wants to be, zombie movie that just happens to have a light British romantic comedy happening in the middle of it. These are two great movies about two flawed, but fixable, relationships that are a blast to watch, and are great takes on not taking your significant others for granted.
Picture
Or else.
So, dear readers, are there any other True Lies and Shaun of the Dead fans out there? Are there any other unconventional fictional couples you find romantic? Sound off in the comments below!

And as always, please drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter! I'm big into liking/following back! 

Facebook: http://facebook.com/mattcarterauthor  

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MCarterAuthor

-- Matt Carter

(We know there's a lot of Matt Carter's online you could spend your time with, so thanks for hanging around this one!)
0 Comments

Matt's Fictional Christmas Wish List Part 2: Fashion

12/11/2013

0 Comments

 
Welcome back to my continuing list of fictional items I'd enjoy having on my Christmas list this year. Already we have covered Vacations & Experiences, but now it is time to move on to a category I'm probably not the best qualified to cover: Fashion (Yes, Fi and I came up with these categories together, and yes this is going to be a shorter article than most because this is totally not my category. For a longer and more fun writeup please check out her list here. )

I'm far from the most stylish person in the world; honestly speaking if I could get away with wearing jeans and t-shirts for the rest of my life, accompanied by the occasional jacket or hoodie depending on weather, I would. So, being so wildly unqualified, this list will likely contain more fashions that would amuse me, or possibly imbue me with magical abilities I lack, than anything you would see me wearing on any functional basis. As before, I'm breaking this list up into various categories for multiple purposes.
Picture
No, this is not on the list. Couldn't resist using the picture, though.
SHIRT: Nigel Tufnel's X-Ray (This Is Spinal Tap)
Picture
I'm sure I actually could find this shirt somewhere if I really tried, but it wouldn't be the same, since it's not, you know, me. And because I don't have the sweet 80's heavy metal hair to go with it.
PANTS: The Hulk's Magic Pants (Marvel Comics)
Picture
I don't care that they're purple (personally, it's always been my favorite color), who wouldn't want a pair of indestructible pants?
SHOES: Marty's Future Shoes (Back to the Future Part II)
Picture
You know, there are still two more years to go before these become anachronistic; I can still hope for them to be invented, right? Shoes that lace themselves, dry themselves off when wet, probably even talk to you and motivate you to exercise... for someone as lazy as I am, these would be heaven.
FACIAL HAIR: Seneca Crane's Beard (The Hunger Games)
Picture
I can't grow a beard, my facial hair is rather patchy and half-invisible, but if I could I would really want to give this one a try. I mean, yeah, it's kind of intended to make you look like the devil, but a devil with style.
FULL ENSEMBLE: James Bond's Tuxedo (Casino Royale)
Picture
I've only ever worn a tux once in my life for a winter formal back when I was in high school, and I looked all right in it, but I looked like a high school kid wearing a tux. If I were ever to wear formalwear again (given the fact that I'm going to be a groomsman this coming April, there's every chance this will happen quite soon), I would hope to look as smooth and cool as James Bond did in this tux. I never actually would look that smooth and cool, of course, but a guy can dream, right?
HEADGEAR/DEAR GOD, WHAT WAS I THINKING?/MISCELLANEOUS FUN: Moose Head (Dead Rising)
Picture
It's decorative and deadly against zombies. So full of win.

So, dear readers, what fictional items of clothing would you love to get for Christmas? Sound off in the comments below!

And as always, please drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter! I'm big into liking/following back! 

Facebook: 
http://facebook.com/mattcarterauthor  

Twitter: 
https://twitter.com/MCarterAuthor

-- Matt Carter

(We know there's a lot of Matt Carter's online you could spend your time with, so thanks for hanging around this one!)
0 Comments

The Long Halloween 2013 - # 7, Dawn of the Dead (1978)

10/25/2013

1 Comment

 
Picture
(For the introduction to The Long Halloween, my 31 day countdown of my favorite horror movies, please click here.)

Dawn of the Dead may very well be the most important horror movie in my life. Why? Well, because Dawn of the Dead is the movie most responsible for getting me into watching horror. How is that? Well dear reader, come sit a spell and let me spin you a story. (And yes, if you’ve read my # 5 Favorite Zombie Moment before, you’ll have heard this story. Feel free to skip it, or hang around again if you’ve got nothing better to do.)

Once upon a time, Matt Carter was not the jaded horror freak that you know, but was an innocent boy who knew nothing of the genre other than the fact that it was mostly crap. He got this from his father, who is a great man, but is not the biggest genre fan in the world. Matt was also a fearful boy, very jumpy with a great imagination. He would not sit in a room with his back to an open door and feared monsters in every shadow, even going on the ripe old age of 15. Like I said, he was a fearful boy. His father had introduced him to a few genre selections over time, mostly The Universal Monsters, and 50’s classics like Them! and It Came From Outer Space, and some more recent additions like John Carpenter’s The Thing and Cronenberg’s The Fly, but for the most part it was a genre he ignored and feared.

Then, however, he came upon a book! It was a great book called Men, Makeup & Monsters, talking about the great Hollywood special effects makeup artists. Young Matt was a huge fan of special effects makeup, and loved reading about the greats like Rick Baker and Stan Winston. However, there was another chapter that caught Matt’s eye and stole his attention: Tom Savini, The Master of Splatter. At first dubious at what the chapter might hold, Matt was fascinated by the life story of Vietnam vet Savini, who used his wartime experiences as reference for a career in makeup of carnage and mayhem. He loved reading of the improvisation and freedom for creation that he had on his early 80’s works, with none given as much loving attention in over the top detail as Dawn of the Dead. He was intrigued, and wanted to know just what this movie was like. After months of curiosity, and one videotape recording of the movie off of an Independent Film Channel horror movie marathon, Matt was hooked. Dawn of the Dead was awesome, and Matt was forever brought over to the dark side of horror.

OK, enough life story, should we get onto the movie itself now?

This sequel to Night of the Living Dead picks up a few weeks after the zombie apocalypse has swept the nation. People are in a panic, looting, fighting one another as society crumbles. News producer Fran (Gaylen Ross) and her boyfriend, traffic reporter Stephen (David Emge) steal a helicopter to try and escape the madness. Joined by SWAT officers Peter (Ken Foree) and Roger (Scott Reiniger), they hop across the Pennsylvania countryside looking for refuge. When they stumble across an abandoned shopping mall, they think they’ve found heaven, but they soon find that being trapped within may even be worse than facing the dead.

Again, this one gets a lot of credit as sequels go for going bigger and more over the top than its predecessor. While the original Night of the Living Dead took place within one farmhouse, Dawn of the Dead has an entire shopping mall for its playhouse. I’ve heard stories about how wild their nights of filming were (especially since they had to clean everything up by morning, with this being an actual, active shopping mall and all), and seeing a lot of the stunts they pulled, especially during the biker invasion scene, I’m amazed George Romero and company weren’t sued.

While Night of the Living Dead capitalized on themes of race and culture colliding during times of struggle (particularly potent as it was filmed during the height of the civil rights movement), Dawn of the Dead tackles late 70’s materialism in its shopping mall setting. While at first it comes off as a bit heavy-handed, in time it becomes quite sad to see these characters becoming obsessed with their surroundings, willing to give up their lives instead of lose their possessions to the living or the dead. It’s still heavy-handed, but as movies with hidden messages go, this one’s pretty decent. While on a cross-country road trip a few years back, my wife and I actually visited the Monroeville Mall where the majority of this film was made, and though it has been almost completely refurbished over the past 30 years, it was still awesome to see the few bits where I could say, “Hey, that’s where the zombie fell in the koi pond!” or “Hey, that’s where Blades plunged to his death!”

This film gets some of the better performances of the Living Dead series, particularly through Ken Foree as zombie-killing badass Peter, and David Emge as the weak, petty Stephen, but really the stars of this movie are the zombies and the stellar makeup effects of Tom Savini. For working on a budget, he pulls off some amazing stunts and gore effects. Heads are lopped off by helicopters, screwdrivers jammed through ears, zombies feast on the guts of downed bikers. It’s a smorgasbord of some of the most classic, over-the-top gore effects put onscreen, made almost comical by the oft-bright blue makeup of the zombies and almost neon-red blood. It’s not a very serious movie, and it’s one where they know we want to see the zombies, as they are made alternately horrifying, hilarious, pitiful, and ultimately heroic.

Dawn of the Dead is the ultimate zombie movie. It’s fun, it’s heartfelt, it’s gory as hell, it’s got a fun location… really, it’s got everything you could ask for in a zombie movie. It will always hold an important place in my life for bringing me into the horror fold, and I can never thank it enough for that.

(REMAKE NOTE: When the remake of Dawn of the Dead came out in 2004, I was writing reviews for a couple of horror movie websites, and one of the first films I had the opportunity to look at was Dawn of the Dead. I expected the worst, but it turned out to be an awesome, fun movie, that took the concepts of zombies and mall and very little else from the original, and still managed to be great. As genre fans are wont to do, they really tore into the film at the time because it was a remake. I enjoyed the hell out of it. I argued that it could very well be as good as the original. They thought I was nuts. Now you often see this movie on lists of Best New Horror Movies. Who’s crazy now?)

(P.S. Before I leave, I have to also note that as a senior in high school, I wrote my senior thesis on how horror movies were perhaps the most relevant genre of films to study, as they reflect peoples fears and neuroses at the times they were made. A good portion of it was made on the women’s lib movement and the rise of the final girl in slasher movies, and the political relevance of Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead. Since I did it at the last minute, I forgot to include a list of sources cited and got a B+ on it. My teacher told me after the fact that I’d have gotten an A if that were included. So, in short kids, if you have a cool enough teacher, you can get good grades while writing about horror movies.)
Agree? Disagree? Have your own favorites you want to talk about? Sound off in the comments!

And as always, please drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter! I'm big into liking/following back! 

Facebook: http://facebook.com/mattcarterauthor  

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MCarterAuthor

-- Matt Carter

(We know there's a lot of Matt Carter's online you could spend your time with, so thanks for hanging around this one!)
1 Comment

The Long Halloween 2013 - Recapping #31 - # 11

10/21/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
(For the introduction to The Long Halloween, my 31 day countdown of my favorite horror movies, please click here.)

Can you believe it, we're about to reach the Top 10 of The Long Halloween 2013! In celebration of this, and as a reminder of the path we've walked so far, here is a recap of #'s 31 - 11 on this list.

31. Sinister (2012)

30. The Blob (1988)

29. Quarantine (2008)

28. The Return of the Living Dead (1985)

27. Carrie (1976)

26. Child's Play (1988)

25. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)

24. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

23. Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2010)

22. Drag Me To Hell (2009)

21. Vacancy (2007)

20. Frailty (2001)

19. Cabin Fever (2002)

18. 28 Days Later... (2002)

17. Psycho (1960)

16. Friday the 13th Part 3D (1982)

15. An American Werewolf in London (1981)

14. Tremors (1990)

13. The Evil Dead (1981)

12. Shaun of the Dead (2004)

11. The Blair Witch Project (1999)

Stay tuned for my Top 10 favorite horror movies, starting tomorrow!

As always, please drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter! I'm big into liking/following back! 

Facebook: http://facebook.com/mattcarterauthor  

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MCarterAuthor

-- Matt Carter

(We know there's a lot of Matt Carter's online you could spend your time with, so thanks for hanging around this one!)
0 Comments

The Long Halloween 2013 - # 12, Shaun of the Dead (2004)

10/20/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
(For the introduction to The Long Halloween, my 31 day countdown of my favorite horror movies, please click here.)

A romantic comedy. With zombies. Need I say more?

Fine, fine, for the sake of completion I’ll actually write a review of Shaun of the Dead.

A modern classic of horror comedy, Shaun of the Dead takes the best elements of light British romantic comedy and mixes it in with George A. Romeroesque zombie ultra-violence into one of the most unique horror films to cross the pond in some time. To top it off, it introduced the brilliant talents of Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and director Edgar Wright as some of the best comedic minds working today to American audiences.

Shaun (Simon Pegg) is the loveable oaf you get in every romantic comedy. He’s heading into his 30’s, but has no direction in life. He lives with his slob of a roommate, Ed (Nick Frost), an overweight loser who refuses to grow up, and has just been dumped by his beautiful girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield). He wants to win her back, he wants to show her he can grow up and be the man she needs, but when it’s so much easier to just take in a pint down at The Winchester, this is hard to do. And on top of everything else, a zombie apocalypse that is ravaging England threatens to really mess up his day.

From top to bottom, this is a near perfect movie. The script by Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg is one of the smartest to come along in years. Knowing that much of our fear of a zombie apocalypse comes from an overarching fear of forced conformity, the film gets many of its laughs in the first act by showing how much we are already like zombies, and how difficult it is for the main characters to actually notice anything once the apocalypse has actually begun. Once things go to hell, instead of panicking, Shaun and Ed become men of action in their own, oddly incompetent way. From deciding which records would make the best anti-zombie weapons, to an oddly hilarious montage where they weigh the pros and cons of what would make the best anti-zombie fortresses (naturally they choose their favorite pub), this is a brilliantly written, infinitely quotable film.

Structurally, however, this film is also an exquisite zombie movie of the Romero variety. Dripping with references and homages to classics of the genre (don’t say the zed word!), it is the kind of movie that fans of the genre and people who have never seen a horror movie before in their lives can get into (back when my future wife was nervous about treading into the waters of horror, this was the film I used to introduce her to the concept; now she's as big a genre fan as I). Though it is a comedy through and through, the threat level of the living dead is never understated. Main characters are often bitten and killed off, and the familiarity we gain with them through the comedic acts of this movie makes most of their deaths truly heartbreaking. I say most, because as always in a zombie movie there is one asshole character we want to see die in the worst way possible, and Shaun manages this in spades with one of the most hilariously gory deaths in zombie history.

Poignant, hilarious and well-acted, Shaun of the Dead has deservedly entered the pantheon of classic zombie movies.

Agree? Disagree? Have your own favorites you want to talk about? Sound off in the comments!

And as always, please drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter! I'm big into liking/following back! 

Facebook: http://facebook.com/mattcarterauthor  

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MCarterAuthor

-- Matt Carter

(We know there's a lot of Matt Carter's online you could spend your time with, so thanks for hanging around this one!)
0 Comments

The Long Halloween 2013 - # 18, 28 Days Later... (2002)

10/14/2013

2 Comments

 
Picture
(For the introduction to The Long Halloween, my 31 day countdown of my favorite horror movies, please click here.)

I’ll be honest. When I first saw 28 Days Later… in the theatres, I kinda hated it. It seemed like a boring, pretentious, dare I say *British arthouse* horror movie, and at the time this was far from my style. I needed gratuitous, over-the-top 80’s American horror. To top it off, at the time everyone called it the next best thing in zombie cinema, and there were few voices out there louder than my own who cried, “THOSE AREN’T ZOMBIES!!! THEY’RE JUST SICK PEOPLE, IF I WANTED TO RUN FROM SICK PEOPLE, I’D VISIT-”…but I digress before I start getting stupid and offensive. Anyway, because the film seemed so full of itself, and because of everyone claiming it as the next zombie (even though they weren’t really zombies) epic, I set myself against it. I wanted to hate it, and for a while I did.

Then I grew up, found the film on sale on DVD, and figured, why not try it again. So I did, and of course, I loved it, and if I had a time machine I’d have gone back and told my younger self to try and appreciate foreign films more. Then again, if I had a time machine, I’d have probably done a little sightseeing first, maybe pull a Biff and do some betting on sports...

At any rate, onto the movie.

In 28 Days Later…, a killer virus is accidentally set loose in London by a group of animal rights protestors breaking into a government bioweapons lab, and like most government bioweapons labs this one specializes in creating zombies, this one through the aptly named “Rage Virus”, which basically works like rabies on steroids. 28 Days Later, the entirety of England has been wiped out, save for a few scattered survivors. Among them is Jim (Cillian Murphy), a bicycle messenger who just woke up from a coma after getting in a wreck (yes kids, this exact plot was done before The Walking Dead). Completely having missed out on the end of the world, he wanders the completely abandoned London, meeting other survivors and outrunning the small but persistent packs of the infected. When there comes news of hope from outside the city, this small band of survivors soon finds out that the uninfected may very well be the bigger threat.

First and foremost, what I love most about this movie is how understated it is. While I love my hordes of the living dead as much as anyone else, the small numbers of infected we see here not only make sense, but still manage to pose a tremendous threat, as just one drop of blood and you become one of them in about thirty seconds. As well, the fact that we don’t have to worry about packs of thousands of zombies roaming the countryside gives in to a different type of scare: complete and utter emptiness. Jim spends much of the first act wandering around a completely abandoned London (an amazing feat achieved with only minimal visual effects). The scenes of him ambling around the empty city, calling for help are haunting and almost beautiful and creepier than any zombie attack could ever hope to be. The fact that this film has a killer-creepy soundtrack doesn’t hurt either.

28 Days Later… is not a fast-paced film, nor is it a particularly fun one. It is grim, it takes its time, and is very British, but as slow-burn horror movies go, this is one of the best.

(SEQUEL NOTE: 28 Weeks Later… almost made it onto this list as well, because it is a balls-out over-the-top sequel in the best Aliens fashion. However, it didn’t make it into serious consideration because most of its action is thanks to one of the biggest plot-holes in film history, a plot-hole so stupid I could never justify putting it in with the rest of these movies. While I won’t go into details here, let’s just say the end of the world gets a helping hand from some egregious understaffing.)

Agree? Disagree? Have your own favorites you want to talk about? Sound off in the comments!

And as always, please drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter! I'm big into liking/following back! 

Facebook: http://facebook.com/mattcarterauthor  

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MCarterAuthor

-- Matt Carter

(We know there's a lot of Matt Carter's online you could spend your time with, so thanks for hanging around this one!)
2 Comments

The Long Halloween 2013 - # 28, The Return of the Living Dead (1985)

10/4/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
(For the introduction to The Long Halloween, my 31 day countdown of my favorite horror movies, please click here.)

Now this is a goofy as hell movie. Back in my more serious days as a zombie fan (read: humorless), the idea of talking, wisecracking zombies seemed nearly sacrilege to me, so it took me a while to give Return a chance. However, as is usual with movies like this, I found a copy of it at a used DVD store for a couple bucks and figured, “What’s the worst that could happen?” Naturally, I found a new genre favorite.

The Return of the Living Dead takes place in a universe where Night of the Living Dead exists and was based on a true story. As it turned out, the US Government created a chemical defoliant to use against hippies and their pot fields that had the unfortunate side effect of resurrecting the dead (and killing and resurrecting anyone else exposed to the gas) and turning them into brain eating zombies. Of course, a couple of screwups working at a medical research storage facility accidentally release the gas upon a nearby cemetery where a bunch of punk rock loving teens just happen to be having a party. 80’s-level hilarity ensues.

Like I said, this movie is goofy as hell. All the characters are broad, over the top and so militantly 80’s stereotypes. All the punk rock kids have bad attitudes and terrible taste in fashion (especially Trash, played by 80’s scream queen Linnea Quigley, who spends most of the movie wearing nothing but a pair of leg warmers), the government is evil and can’t be trusted, and the low-level bureaucrats in charge of the medical storage facility and the nearby mortuary are only looking out for their own asses. In fact, everything and everybody in this movie is so over the top and silly that it can’t help but be a charming as hell little movie.

And that isn’t even counting the zombies, who are some of the most distinct and memorable members of the living dead to grace the silver screen. Rather than follow the Romero route of trying to make the most believable (or at least potentially believable) walking corpses possible, Return creates impossibly cartoonish-looking corpses that look like something out of the classic EC Comics. They run, they scream, they eat brains and are effectively unstoppable, and they are among the only zombies I’ll excuse for talking, because when they do it’s among the greatest moments in splatstick history (insert link here). On top of all this, this is one of the first movies that I can recall that really took advantage of using puppets for creating more impossible, skeletal zombies (though the infamous Tar Man zombie in this movie was accomplished with one really skinny and talented mime who played the part in such a way that it appeared his bones were barely attached to each other).

The Return of the Living Dead may not be the most groundbreaking or original zombie film, but it is easily one of the most fun and charming and militantly 80’s (in a good way) that the genre has to offer.


Agree? Disagree? Have your own favorites you want to talk about? Sound off in the comments!

And as always, please drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter! I'm big into liking/following back! 

Facebook: http://facebook.com/mattcarterauthor  

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MCarterAuthor

-- Matt Carter

(We know there's a lot of Matt Carter's online you could spend your time with, so thanks for hanging around this one!)
0 Comments

The Long Halloween 2013 - # 29, Quarantine (2008)

10/3/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
(For the introduction to The Long Halloween, my 31 day countdown of my favorite horror movies, please click here.)

The found footage craze that came in the wake of The Blair Witch Project’s wild success has drawn a lot of criticism. Common complaints involve the prevalence of shaky cameras, low production values, and wondering why the hell people keep their cameras on all the time when they should really be running from the monsters they’re filming. For the most part, those complaints are valid, but every so often a found footage horror film will sneak through that proves to be pretty damn fun. Quarantine is one of those movies.

A remake (hey look, another one!) of the Spanish horror film REC, Quarantine follows a news reporter who’s stuck filming a thankless human interest piece following a team of firefighters on the night shift. Things start to get interesting for her when they’re called to a medical emergency at an apartment building in downtown LA, though when they arrive things go to hell when they find themselves at ground zero for an outbreak of a particularly vicious strain of zombifying rabies. They are soon locked in with the horror as SWAT teams barricade the building, threatening to shoot anyone attempting escape, and can only sit by as the infected begin to outnumber the living.

Quarantine is a great example of one of my favorite, very odd subgenres of horror film where the supposed bad guys are actually the good guys. While the SWAT teams keeping the people inside at gunpoint are militaristic and frightening, when you look at it they really are the only ones here saving the world. It’s callous to think of it this way, especially when you’re surrounded by a group of mostly likable survivors, but it has always been one of my favorite little subgenres because of just how conflicted it makes you feel.

As well, Quarantine is a wonderfully restrained zombie movie, aided immensely by the found footage style. There are no hordes of thousands of the living dead bursting through doors at a moment’s notice, just the couple dozen residents of this mostly abandoned apartment complex, allowing you to recognize pretty much every zombie as they come into the scene. There are no massive firefights; in fact, there are almost no guns in the whole movie. These people are trapped fighting the infected with whatever they can get their hands on (including one wonderfully gratuitous moment where a zombie is beaten to death with the camera, filming the entire time), and more often than not have to resort to running instead of fighting. These aspects, as well as the dim apartment setting and the handheld approach, give the film a feeling of extreme claustrophobia that only intensifies as the situation gets more out of hand.

Too many people complain that it doesn’t hold a candle to the original REC. Not having seen the original, I can't really speak to that. What I can say is that every time I watch this movie, usually once a year after having more or less forgotten about it, I always find myself saying, "You know what? That's a lot better than I remember. Not perfect, but better than I remember."

(SPOILER ALERT/GRIPE: While I enjoy the hell out of this movie for the most part, the ad campaign still pisses me off to no end. Why? Well, pretty much every poster, trailer and TV ad for the film was based around the FINAL FRICKIN SHOT OF THE MOVIE! Way to give away the ending of the movie, Quarantine advertising people.)

Agree? Disagree? Have your own favorites you want to talk about? Sound off in the comments!

And as always, please drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter! I'm big into liking/following back! 

Facebook: http://facebook.com/mattcarterauthor  

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MCarterAuthor

-- Matt Carter

(We know there's a lot of Matt Carter's online you could spend your time with, so thanks for hanging around this one!)
0 Comments

Matt's Five Favorite Zombie Moments # 1: The Sad Death of Frank, 28 Days Later...

6/26/2013

1 Comment

 
Picture
I'm going to end this month long tribute to zombies in pop culture on a different note than the rest of my entries. For the most part I have embraced moments that have made me laugh as much as they made me recognize the awesomeness of the zombie subgenre of horror (and, on occasion, proved pretty damn scary). I would like to end this month, however, with what I want to recognize as a moment that is both underrated and tremendously sad from one of the new classics of the genre, 28 Days Later... . (For another tremendously sad zombie movie moment, please check out my wife Fiona's blog here, as she takes on one of the all-time classic moments from Night of the Living Dead)
Picture
28 Days Later... takes place in an England ravaged by a virus called Rage that transforms people into bloodthirsty cannibals. While not strictly dead (they can be killed by pretty much any conventional means), they are fast, vicious and mindless and are among the creepiest zombies put onscreen.
Picture
The bright red eyes help a lot in this department.
Most of the attention that is paid to this movie are to the first and third acts, and deservedly so. The first act, featuring our protagonist, Jim, who has missed the apocalypse thanks to a coma and wakes up in a completely abandoned London, is one of the creepiest extended scenes in movie history. Having actually been to London and seen a lot of the places featured in this film, it is truly amazing and eerie to see them completely abandoned (without the aid of visual effects to boot!). The third act, after Jim has joined up with a small band of survivors, is perhaps the best-executed "man is the real monster" endings in zombie movies, as the military men who save our heroes show their true colors and their true desires for how they want to live in a post-apocalyptic world.
Picture
I know it comes as a huge surprise that a guy who looks like this proves untrustworthy.
Often ignored, however, is the film's second act, which despite having the odd Rage Zombie pop up here and there, is actually kind of a sweet, family road trip style diversion.
Picture
They could almost be the Griswolds, if the Griswolds offed zombies with machetes.
At this point in the movie, Jim and another survivor he's met, Selena, run into a father and daughter, Frank and Hannah, living in apartment tower in London. They're good-hearted people, but not as well-suited for the zombie apocalypse as they could be. Though they're reluctant to join forces, the fact that Frank has access to a cab and they have a working radio that has picked up a broadcast from a military unit promising safety in the countryside, Jim and Selena decide to tag along. The middle act of this movie, after a thrilling escape from the city, then becomes something of a road trip adventure, where we see this group bond and really come to like each other as they loot grocery stores and have some small side adventures. They even allow themselves to relax for a short while, breaking through the shells of most of the survivors. Jim no longer feels alone in the world, tough and stoic Selena starts cracking a smile, Hannah can start acting like a kid again, and Frank, despite his responsibilities to the group and his daughter, allows himself to see the beauty that still exists in the world.
Picture
Stopping to watch some wild horses frolicking across the moors is not something you usually see in a zombie movie.
However, the peace and beauty of this little trip isn't to last. When they reach the roadblock where the military is supposed to be waiting, they find it abandoned, save for a few dead bodies. Frustrated that this journey had been for naught, Frank yells at his daughter and storms off.  Seeing a crow on a platform above him, munching on the dead body of one of the infected, Frank yells at it and kicks the platform, causing the crow to fly off, and a single drop of blood to hit him in the eye.
Picture
Damned crows.
He knows this is a death sentence, and that he has, at best, 30 seconds before he joins the infected and tries to kill his newly formed family. Hannah comes to him, and sadly he apologizes for yelling at her a few moments before. At that he starts yelling and shrieking for her to keep away as he starts seizing and spitting, shrieking the whole way as he is transformed, while Selena pleads for Jim to kill him in front of his daughter before he completely turns and comes after them. Jim hesitates, because he likes Frank and doesn't want to scar his daughter for life, but he prepares to kill him just as Frank turns completely... and is promptly shot to death by the military who had been hiding and watching this whole scene go down.

It's a sad turn of events leading into a dark, twisted path of an ending, in one of the best zombie films in recent memory, and a completely deserving contender for my # 1 favorite zombie moment.
Picture
Goodbye, Frank, you will be missed.
So has a zombie movie ever made you cry? What is your favorite zombie movie moment? Sound off in the comments! 

As always, please take the time to like me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter! I’m big into liking/following back, so just drop me a line!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattcarterauthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MCarterAuthor
1 Comment
<<Previous

    Author

    Matt Carter is an author of Horror, Sci-Fi, and yes even a little bit of Young Adult fiction. Along with his wife, F.J.R. Titchenell, he is represented by Fran Black of Literary Counsel and lives in the usually sunny town of San Gabriel, CA.

    Find him on:

    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

    Archives

    October 2016
    September 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    May 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013

    Categories

    All
    Almost Infamous
    Announcements
    Batman
    Books
    Christmas
    Comics
    Disney
    Experiences
    First Post
    Games
    Guest Post
    Guests
    Halloween
    Harry Potter
    Horror
    Humor
    Lists
    Movies
    Scifi
    Short Fiction
    Simpsons
    Splinters
    Star Trek
    Summer
    Superheroes
    Television
    Valentines
    Villains
    Writing
    Zombies

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.