Everything about GUN TOWN points to a “been there, seen that” reaction.  We get a similar plot, very recognizable characters, and a common plot progression.  Why, then, did I find myself enjoying this one as much as I did?  I mean seriously; five recent graduates decide to go on a road trip and end up getting stranded in the titular Old West tourist trap.  There they get stalked and killed one by one by a masked killer.  So why, I’ll ask again, is GUN TOWN so much damn fun?

Gun Town is, as mentioned above, an Old West-themed tourist trap that in 1979 experienced a traumatic event in which the owner gunned down several tourists.  The man was sent to a prison for the criminally insane and it just so happens that he was released a few weeks ago.  Now it seems he (Frank Bailey Sr.), his equally bat-shit crazy wife Victoria (Morgan Graham) and their wheelchair-bound son Frank Jr. (Andy Grace) live in the rundown town and kill anyone who stops by.  GUN TOWN is written, directed, and produced by Lee Vervoort (who’s also the stunt coordinator and stars in the film in a dual role; as a victim’s dad and as the patriarch of the crazy clan, Frank Sr.).  Lee Vervoort is, essentially, the male J.A. Steel (and I say that with the utmost respect … I LOVE J.A. Steel).

I’m gonna ask this a third time (and finally answer my question):  How does Vervoort make GUN TOWN so much fun considering it’s such a standard film with familiar characters and a very recognizable plot?  The answer is the editing.  Editor Andy Firkus, with Vervoort’s guidance I’m sure, really creates a tight, fast-paced film that never drags and doesn’t contain any filler.  Vervoort has a story to tell and he does so with an efficiency not often found in this genre.  We don’t get any lingering shots that don’t go anywhere; we don’t get any silly sub-plots that simply waste our time; and we definitely don’t get any wasteful shots of cars driving around or people endlessly running through the woods.  What we get is familiar story that, due to nice tight editing, is fun and very enjoyable.

We also get a pretty scary looking killer, Frank Bailey Sr. (played by Vervoort), who wears a mask that would scare the stuffing out of Michael Myers himself.  That faceless, emotionless, expressionless mask is very effective and makes Vervoort’s killer all that much more threatening.  But besides the fun spirit and fast pace of GUN TOWN, there are a few problems with it.  Some of the dialogue is rather silly and inane.  When the group of grads first run into Frank Bailey Jr., Kevin (Weston Brann) was playing the piano and Frank Jr. yells at them:

Frank Jr.:  Hey! What the hell are you doing playin’ my damn piano?

Kevin:  Who are you?

Frank Jr.:  The damn piano player, dumbass!

And on two separate occasions the Girl Shelly (Christianna Aronstam) has the opportunity to really fuck up Frank Sr. and possibly kill him, but both times she announces herself before dealing out her “killing blows”.  The first time she was behind the wheel of a car and as Frank Sr. is standing in front of the car she turns the car on, guns the engine, and screams, “Die you sonuvabitch!” and THEN hits the gas.  Frank Sr. easily jumps out of the way.  The other opportunity Shelly had was towards the end when she finds a shotgun, steps out from behind a tree and aims the gun at good old Frank Sr.  This time instead of just pulling the trigger she yells, “Hey asshole; it’s your turn to die,” and then shoots him.  It was pretty annoying.

The cast overall does a pretty good job.  Along with Kevin, Matt (Joshua Harrison) and Jerry (Andrew Thornhill) do good jobs.  Even Tracy (Lauren Hoffman) holds her own.  The weakest actress was, ironically, the top-billed actress, Christianna Aronstam.  I’ll be blunt here; she just wasn’t a good actress at all.  All her lines were overacted and she pandered to the camera every time she was in a scene.  She made it very obvious that we were watching a movie.  I also wish that the second character Vervoort plays, Jake, was on screen more.  Vervoort seemed very natural and comfortable in front of the camera.

Unfortunately the gore was very light in GUN TOWN.  Most of the killings were done by gun shots or by wrapping saran wrap around the faces of bound up girls.  There was one pretty good gruesome killing (I’ll let you find that out for yourself), but for the most part this film was pretty blood- and goreless.

But look; by now you know me to be a straight-shooter with my reviews and I always tell it like it is.  GUN TOWN offers nothing new to the “lost teens being chased by a killer in a remote area” canon.  If you’re looking for something original and new then you’ll be disappointed with this one.  But if you’re looking for a fun, fast-paced film that will keep you entertained for its 78 minute runtime then GUN TOWN is for you.  Check it out.

My Summary:

Director:  Lee Vervoort (& a whole bunch of other duties)

Plot:  3 out of 5 stars

Gore:  1 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem:  0 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer

We all watch movies for different reasons whether it is for mindless enjoyment, emotional enlightenment or artistic expression and we are also all afraid of different things. While someone may be frightened solely by the concepts of the supernatural or the unknown, others might be unnerved by that of maniacal violence or death. Horror films particularly combine all of these interests, visualizing for us the very things that we may be afraid of, confined to a medium that is only intrusive to our psyche.

The picture of said genre that frightens a friend of mine is Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond while a film like Paranormal Activity unsettles another fellow colleague. I find The Beyond to be more entertaining and imaginative than scary while I find the latter to be conceptually uninteresting. Perhaps it is because Violence against humanity frightens me more than the dealings with forces we cannot see. Physical violence to yourself and others is highly relatable and common for we all know how pain feels and at one point or another, we’ve all contemplated the reality of death and the vulnerability of our very own mortality. Not a day goes by when you pick up the newspaper or hear on the television of how a local’s clock has been punched by the hands of another. Considering Horror pictures are not afraid to expose such themes that is why I find William Lustig’s 1980 slasher film Maniac to be the scariest film I have ever seen.

Maniac is conceptually unoriginal and its title fundamentally speaks for itself, though, it is the way the material is executed that makes it particularly unsettling. Unlike other efforts of the genre where the majority of the screen time is consumed with dimwitted characters who stumble into the traps lead by a faceless stalker, this film is a portrait of its title character. The film allows us to study a tortured man in his every day life. We follow him as he prepares for his kills, interacts with his soon to be victims and witness the aftermath that ensues.

After awaking, screaming from the memory of a murderous act we immediately realize how troubled he is from both his expression and his surroundings. His murders are often shown in slow and graphic detail and with each act he articulates severe inner torment, often crying or rambling about his agonizing insecurities. Vengefully exacting the oppression of his abusive childhood on the beautiful women he slaughters, he acquires souvenirs from their bodies, mocking up mannequins to resemble his victims as company in his small dilapidated and unkempt apartment. The fourth wall is often broken when the Maniac, Frank Zito (portrayed by Joe Spinell) subjects his viewer to his incoherent monologues fueled by emotional instability. To expose the killer in such a vulnerable manner while performing cruel acts of murder is highly disturbing for this makes him human. Unlike the division between the audience and the victims of Jason’s mask we are staring back at the face of a multidimensional man that is as common as you, me and the people you see at the supermarket.

The Victims are often established through small talk among acquaintances and because their short comings are extensively prolonged, we wonder if any of them will ever have the chance to escape only to soon be reminded otherwise. Violence is often trivialized in film for the purposes of entertainment and the emphases on such aftermaths in this film, though stylized and excessive, continually reinforces how ugly death can be when we are reduced to nothing more than a hollow shell of blood and guts.

After meeting a girl and shortly pursuing a lighthearted relationship with her, his perceptions of reality continue to deteriorate. His urges come out when he attacks and though she escapes, the climax of the film leaves us with a very graphic and horrifying hallucination of all the mannequins coming to life as his bloody victims, happily slaughtering and tearing him to pieces. The film then leaves us with the final shot of a close up on his eyes staring back at us.

The Maniac is still out there… and you could be next…

Some of the picture’s themes can be compared to that of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and while other movies of a similar subject (most significantly Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer) may express the same purpose, it is William Lustig’s unrelenting style that makes it so significant. His use of music, colors and cinematography, though often reminiscent of Italian horror, only enhances the grim palate of claustrophobia, psychosis and death.

William Friedkin and gorehounds alike celebrate the film for it justifies the purpose of horror’s agenda. I am both fascinated and appalled by it. Even though it may not be as extreme as let’s say Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust, with the advent of actual on screen animal deaths, I feel that this particular film serves as a reminder that you are never truly safe.

-Travman

In running this website I get to watch and read a lot of projects … both good and bad.  Take for example ZOMBIE CHRONICLES: THE INFECTED, written, directed, produced, and edited by Marvin Suarez (who also did the casting, production design, operated the camera, served as the key grip, and played the role of a cameraman).  I first got in touch with Marvin in early Spring of 2010 through Twitter (@InfectedZombies).  At that point he was in the early-to-mid stages of putting together ZOMBIE CHRONICLES and I could feel his excitement through our email correspondences.  Well this is one of those times where a filmmakers passion comes through in aces!!  Suarez made a tight, fast-paced 26 minute zombie short that delivers in it’s story telling, characters, and zombie mayhem.

Let me take a second and get something off my chest — for the record.  I get a lot of screeners from indie horror filmmakers.  A lot.  When I originally make contact with a filmmaker who’s looking to get their project reviewed and subsequently promoted I always let them know that just because they’re sending me a free copy of their film in no way guarantees they will get a favorable review.  Sometimes I never hear back from them.  But for the most part I’ve been lucky; most of the films I get from indie filmmakers have been really fun and enjoyable.  There are times though when I have gotten some absolute pretentious suck-fests (see my review of BURNING INSIDE; blech!!).  But the bottom line is that I approach every film I watch, regardless of whether I get it through Netflix or directly from the filmmakers, the same way — every film gets an unbiased and honest review.

Ok; thanks for sticking with me while I got that off my chest!!  With that being said I was really hoping that Suarez’s ZOMBIE CHRONICLES: THE INFECTED wasn’t gonna disappoint, and thankfully it doesn’t.  The short begins with the zombie apocalypse having already begun.  We don’t really know what caused it, but its obviously being caused by some kind of virus.  There’s rioting in the streets as the survivors run for their lives from the infected as they are trying to comprehend what’s going on.  At the center of it all are two paramedics, Sarah (Celeste Santoya) and Josh (Lavrenti Lopes), who quickly realize that the dead are coming back to “life” and attacking the living.  Once they realize that things are out of control and that they’re doing nothing but endangering themselves by being on the streets, Sarah decides to go back home to check on her daughter.  Once back at her apartment things go from really bad to fucked.

Suarez isn’t trying to re-invent the zombie genre with his ZOMBIE CHRONICLES: THE INFECTED.  You aren’t going to see anything really original, BUT you are going to see things done right.  The zombies, while not covered in elaborate make-up, are scary as they slowly take over the city and infect anyone who is “normal.”  But whereas the story may not be groundbreaking, the zombies Suarez gives us are refreshing.  They’re the “fast” kind of zombies, and they also seem to retain some level of intelligence and consciousness about what they are and what they’re doing.  In a particular creepy scene a zombie explains to Sarah what he’s planning on doing to her.  It’s a nice creepy, effective scene.

Suarez also doesn’t rely solely on excessive gore to make his film scary.  There is some well done (albeit tame) gore, but the real scares comes from Suarez’a use of shadows, the way scenes are filmed, and the good old fashioned “fear of the unknown.”  Every corner Josh and Sarah turn and every doorway they walk through you can feel the tension the characters feel and the danger they are in.  He accomplishes this by using the Brian De Palma technique of splitting the screen into two to four screens whereby the viewer gets to see the same scene unfold from up to four different perspectives.  Suarez doesn’t use this as a gimmick; it’s an essential tool he uses to tell his story.  It’s a really well-filmed short that fully develops the tension in every scene.

Like all films, whether they’re big budget epics or small indie’s, this film isn’t perfect.  At times lead actress Santoya over acts a bit and takes the viewer out of “the moment,” but overall she does a good job (as does the entire cast).  There are also times where the sound and dialogue are hard to hear, but these are minor complaints.  Overall this is a solid and very fun horror short made by a talented young filmmaker.  ZOMBIE CHRONICLES: THE INFECTED ends with the on-screen words:

Infected Case # 1938

Closed

This implies there will be more to come, right?  Absolutely.  Suarez envisions his ZOMBIE CHRONICLES as a three part series.  The next part, titled ZOMBIE CHRONICLES: INFECTED SURVIVORS, which is already shot and being edited as I type this review and will (hopefully) be out later in 2011.  Suarez is also writing part three and is planning on going into production sometime in July of 2011.  I’m really looking forward to seeing what Suarez does with and where he takes his “intelligent zombies.”  My other main complaint, and this is directed right at you Suarez, is to stop teasing me with 25 minute shorts and give me a full length feature!!  I was really engrossed in the story and characters (especially Sarah’s character) and wanted to see more (Suarez is actually planning on a feature length film down the road).

There’s one last thing I wanted to mention:  I don’t know what Suarez’s budget was on this short, but I can tell you that he put every single penny of his (I assume) modest budget up on the screen.  There are 45 people listed in the cast!!  This is good for the viewer because he doesn’t skimp on the attacking zombies at all.  Most scenes are full of rampaging zombies looking for uninfected humans.  Over half the cast is listed as a “zombie” in the credits; there’s more zombies in this short than I’ve seen in some full length feature zombie flicks!!

This short isn’t gonna re-invent the zombie genre, and it’s not trying too.  But if you’re looking for a kick ass zombie flick that has all the best ingredients of the zombie genre and does them right, then you’re gonna have a really fun time.  I encourage you to contact Suarez at infectedpictures@yahoo.com to find out how you can see ZOMBIE CHRONICLES: THE INFECTED.  It’s worth your time!!  Suarez has recently released a ZOMBIE CHRONICLES: THE INFECTED SPECIAL EDITION with deleted scenes, interviews with the cast and crew, and it has a sneak peak of part two (this is just a few of the extras; in all there’s over three hours of extra material in the Special Edition).  Now’s a great time to pick up THE INFECTED and support a talented filmmaker.  Suarez has made it really easy.  Just head over to http://www.whataretheinfected.com and order a copy … you’ll thank me after you see it (you can also keep up with his progress on parts 2 and 3 at his new blog site http://www.marvinsuarez.com).

My Summary:

Director:  Marvin Suarez (and writer)

Plot:  3.5 out of 5 stars

Gore:  3 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem:  4 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer

First off: this movie totally kicks ass! I am a big fan of the grindhouse inspired 70′s road movies like Vanishing Point, Dirty Mary, and Crazy Larry. Gimme some babes, fast cars, cool fights and sunglasses, and I am sold. I only have really one complaint. I’ll get to that later.

Drive Angry is a straight up revenge movie. Milton (Nicolas Cage) is a man who out to find the people that are responsible for the death of his daughter and the kidnapping of his granddaughter. He finds a hot sidekick, Piper (Amber Heard), that has been beaten and two-timed by her sleazy fiancee. Milton and Piper then to proceed to track the “unholy” group of crusaders leaving a trail of blood, broken limbs, and burnt rubber. The cars of choice are all badass: one after another. In the midst of all the chaos, Milton is being pursued by a man (William Fichtner) who calls himself the Accountant. As the back story unfolds, you soon realize that we are not dealing with ordinary people here but rather some hellacious beings.

Nic Cage gives a solid performance. Rumor has it that due to tax problems, his choices of roles are usually taken and he will do anything. I am happy that he decided to do this film because he actually was pretty good. Amber Heard is hot but does turn on the psycho pretty easy and does not get outacted by her shared screen time with Cage. William Finchtner is the movie’s standout role. He plays it cool and looks like a Wall Street-ish Patrick Bateman doing it. A great cameo by horror icon Tom Atkins gives you a chuckle or two. Not trying to give too much away, there is a great scene were Cage is having sex but realizes he doesn’t have time to disrobe. He does it with just an undone zipper and proceeds to have a gunfight with both pistols to satisfy the woman and the villains. Real cool and memorable scene.

Now as I did mention before a complaint. My complaint is there was no need for this film to be in 3D. Yeah, the effects were ok but seriously it was not needed. They should’ve layered the screen like they did for Planet Terror and Death Proof, gave it the 70′s vibe and called it a day. Either way it still is a solid film from Patrick Lussier (My Bloody Valentine 3D/Dracula 2000). Up next for Lussier, he tackles two horror series for some revamping: Hellraiser and Halloween. Good luck and Godspeed.

3 Stars

Review by NzaSixx

I don’t know what it is about the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY films but for some reason I’m really entertained by them.  More than “entertained” actually; I really enjoy them.  PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 takes what made the first film so damn entertaining and evolves it slightly.  But the real success of this franchise is with the casting.

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 centers around the Rey family.  There’s the father Daniel (Brian Boland), mom Kristi (Sprague Grayden), daughter Ali (Molly Ephraim), and the new baby brother Hunter (played by both William Juan & Jackson Xenia Prieto).  As the film starts we’re watching home movies as Hunter is first brought home from the hospital.  We see a very happy family and even though this is Daniel’s second marriage (Ali is his daughter from the first marriage) they all love each other and love the life they’re building in their brand new big house.  We watch the home movies from the time Hunter is an infant until he’s a toddler.  Then one day the Reys’ home is broken into.  The house was completely trashed but it didn’t seem as though anything was stolen.  TVs, electronic equipment, and even jewelry was left behind.  There seemed to be only one thing missing … a necklace that Kristi’s sister gave her.  Suddenly PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 gets into familiar territory.  Kristi’s sister is none other than Katie (Katie Featherston) from the first PARANORMAL ACTIVITY; you know, the one who got possessed and killed her boyfriend Micah (Micah Sloat), who’s also in part two.

After the break in the Rey’s decide to set up security cameras all around the house to see if indeed anyone is breaking into their home.  So from this point on we see a mix of home movies and security camera footage edited together.  This is the setup and now we just get to sit back and watch the demonic presence grow more and more threatening.  Yes folks this is pretty much exactly like the first movie.  Creepier and creepier things start happening in growing intensity as the family tries to figure out what exactly is going on.  Katie figures into the story as the aunt visiting her nephew Hunter and we get some insight into Kristi and Katie’s youth and their brushes with the paranormal growing up that was hinted at in the original film.  In fact Katie plays a big part in the story and Hunter ends up being the focus of both films.

After watching PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 I had to stop and ask myself, “Why do I enjoy these films so much?”  Besides the directors, this time Tod Williams takes the helm, presenting a lot of creepy and spooky scenes, the real strength of these films is in the cast.  I just really enjoy watching everyone on the screen.  In the original I thought actors Featherston and Sloat were extremely natural and came across as a genuine couple scared by the events happening around them.  The same thing is accomplished here:  The cast is very natural and believable.  I accept and believe that I’m watching a real family dealing with a growing supernatural problem.  Sure Daniel remains a little too skeptical in the face of pretty hard evidence and Ali seems a little too nice for a teenage girl, but they are all very natural and convincing.

I’m not going to give away anything about the ending but I thought it was clever that they wrap up this film with a satisfying ending while at the same time explaining the ending of the first film.  Pretty creative and effective.  I will note that the ending itself doesn’t have the same impact as the original.  They were again going for a shocking and scary ending and they partially succeeded.  The problem rests more with the audience than the filmmakers.  We were expecting a shocking ending and one that will scare the shit out of us and make us jump … like in the original.  They give us such an ending but because we were expecting it it just doesn’t have the same impact.  It’s the same kind of trap M. Night Shyamalan fell into after THE SIXTH SENSE.  That film had such an effective twist ending that everyone was expecting a great twist at the end of all of his films (the only difference is that most of Shyamalan’s films sucked after THE SIXTH SENSE).

Overall PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 is an effective and fun film that succeeds in what it sets out to do.  It gives us a believable look into a family being haunted by something they don’t really understand and we get to watch as the movie just builds and builds until the story erupts into violence.  I’m a fan of the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY franchise and I’m actually looking forward to a third installment.  Check this one out.

My Summary:

Director:  Tod Williams

Plot:  4 out of 5 stars

Gore:  0 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem:  0 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer

This one was a really nice surprise.  Judging by the plot summary, a chef kidnaps a food critic who ruined his career, I was expecting a pretty run-of-the-mill genre flick that was just another one of “those flicks” that was trying to be a part of the torture-porn genre.  I was wrong.  BITTER FEAST is a very well written film with thought out “real” characters and which strives to be more than torture-porn — and succeeds.

Peter Gray (James LeGros) is a pretty intense chef.  He firmly believes in sustainable food sources and cooking locally and seasonally.  He cooks in a trendy restaurant, Feast (which is managed by Gordon, played by real life uber-chef Mario Batali) and also has a cable cooking show thats been dipping in the ratings which he co-hosts with Peg (Megan Hilty), a vapid-minded annoying Kathy Lee Gifford-Kelly Ripa hybrid who you wanna slap, who enjoys making jokes at Gray’s expense and making him look stupid.  Gray is all business and is very serious about what he does for a living.  Then a review comes out by a very popular food blogger, JT Franks (Joshua Leonard), which trashes Gray’s restaurant, his skills as a chef, and shits all over his TV cooking show.  The repercussions of the review are huge; he gets fired from Feast and his TV show is soon cancelled.  Gray, who already seemed to have a tenuous grasp on reality, snaps, kidnaps Franks, takes him up to his isolated cabin in the country, and plans on teaching Franks some empathy.  Gray’s plans get complicated when private detective William Coley (Larry Fessenden) comes nosing around looking for Franks.

The set up sounds like your standard genre flick where we get a victim tied to a chair having to endure the tortures of a psychotic as he tries to “teach” the victim a lesson.  This film does suffer at times from a slow pace, but the real strength here lies in the characters that writer-director Joe Maggio creates.  The two leads, Gray and Franks, are complex characters with very realistic motives and emotional histories that have led to their current frame of minds.  Maggio does a great job developing them while at the same time making sure they stay consistent with their psychological make-ups.  Gray, the chef, comes across as a total control freak while Franks comes across as just a total asshole, but there’s so much more going on here.

Early in the film we see that Franks and his wife have a very strained relationship.  At one point Franks tells his wife Katherine (Amy Seimetz), who’s about to leave him, that he didn’t care if she “left, came back, lived, or died.”  Nice fellow.  But just when you think you’re getting a caricature of some douche bag, Maggio pulls back the reigns and starts presenting Franks’ character in a more human light.  Franks’ very young child died of leukemia and ever since he’s never been the same.  Since his child died Franks has retreated inside himself and is very angry at the world for taking away his happiness.  It’s even implied that at one point he was a very thoughtful and respected food blogger.  But now he takes sadistic pleasure in crushing other people’s dreams; if he can’t be happy then no one will be.  His life was ruined so now he feels like he has the right to ruin other people’s lives.  There’s no denying that Franks is an asshole, but there’s a very human reason why he behaves like he does.

We get the same detailed characterization with Gray.  Gray went through a very personal trauma when younger and that event really shaped his personality and made him the controlling, perfectionist he has become.  It’s really refreshing to get such well developed characters in a genre film that stay consistent throughout the length of the film.  But the question I know you’re all wondering is, “Is this a strong horror movie?”  Besides the slow pacing that I mentioned above, there’s a lot to like here.  We do get the standard scenes of Gray tying Franks to a chair and submitting him to various tortures.  But everything Gray put him through was meaningful in Gray’s grand plan to teach him about empathy.  Gray carried around with him various “assholish” reviews that Franks wrote and uses those as part of his “training”.  For example Franks wrote a scathing review bashing one chef for not being able to cook eggs properly, which according to Franks “anyone can do”.  So Gray, who’s been starving Franks, gives him a bowl of eggs, butter, a spatula, and a hot pan and tells him that he can eat as many eggs as he wants as long as he cooks them perfectly.  It doesn’t go well for Franks.

BITTER FEAST isn’t made to be a gore-fest but we do get some juicy scenes of knives going through hands as well as prolonged beatings.  What I really liked here is that Maggio never takes this film in the standard direction.  Franks doesn’t suddenly become enlightened and realize that with his reviews, which reaches over 40,000 readers a day, he was destroying people’s lives.  Gray never breaks Franks.  In fact after one particularly tough lesson Franks then starts critiquing Gray’s meal.  As he’s choking and spitting out food Franks defiantly yells at Gray, “and now for my review … pasta, overcooked; rabbit, bland” etc.  It’s a really interesting and fantastic scene that says a lot about Franks’ character.

BITTER FEAST is definitely not your standard genre release.  The pacing could be quicker and the editing could be tighter but based solely on Maggio’s characterizations of Gray and Franks, I’m, recommending this one.  James LeGros at times over acts but overall gives a solid performance.  But by far Joshua Leonard (who’s been in a ton of genre flicks including 2006‘s HATCHET) steals the show as the critic.  He gives an intense and believable performance.  BITTER FEAST won’t be for everyone, but if you enjoy really strong and believable characters who do and feel very real things then I think you’ll enjoy BITTER FEAST.  Plus it’s an intense, well-shot film that will appeal to the horror fan.  Check this one out.

My Summary:

Director:  Joe Maggio (& writer)

Plot:  3 out of 5 stars

Gore:  3.5 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem:  0 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer

Every once in a while a small, low budget, indie project swoops in and surprises ya, and Zombie Town does just that.  Recently I watched Progeny; a film directed by Brian Yuzna, written and produced by Stuart Gordon, and special f/x done by Screaming Mad George.  It must have kicked ass, right?  Wrong!!  Progeny was slow, boring, predictable, and had no energy to it.  After that monumental disappointment I decided that since I was already beaten down by such a shitty flick that I may as well “keep the ball rolling” and get Zombie Town outta the way.  And as I mentioned above, I was more than pleasantly surprised.  Town was a fast-paced, somewhat gory, and funny zombie flick that hit all the right notes.  The filmmakers didn’t try to make the scary parts funny or the funny parts scary.  They made a pretty impressive flick with their meager budget and cast of unknowns.

This is writer-directed Damon Lemay’s first solo project.  He’s worked on a bunch of other people’s projects in the camera and electrical departments (he was a camera “loader” on Paul Blart: Mall Cop).  For a first time solo project Lemay shows an amazing amount of restraint.  He could have tried to make a balls-to-the-wall zombie opus that would have stretched his budget too thin.  Don’t get me wrong, I would guess that his budget is definitely stretched thin, but nothing here looks cheap.  Lemay sets his entire movie in one location (a small town in Vermont) and keeps his main, essential cast limited to four characters.  And most important of all it looks as though he had a really great time making this one.  I hope he did, because he’s made a really fun, energetic movie.

Admittedly the story doesn’t open so strong.  We follow three hunters as they are sitting around a cabin in the woods drinking and talking shit about their wives and families.  While they’re drinking and being idiots the remaining two guys from their party are attacked and infected by a zombie.  We never know or find out where the infection came from (although there are a few lingering shots of the local polluted swamp), and the flick moves so fast you won’t really give it a second thought.  One of the infected hunters returns to the cabin and proceeds to attack and infect the others in a pretty passable gory scene.  There’s a great rake-to-the-head scene!!  Roll opening credits.  Like I said, this prologue didn’t make me expect much from the rest of the movie; the hunters were terrible actors and it was probably the slowest-paced part of the entire flick.  But after sitting through the terrible Progeny, I figured I’d at least get some decent gore from Zombie Town.  Glad I stuck it out.

After the opening credits we meet two brothers:  Jake and Denton LaFond.  They’ve inherited the garage from their recently deceased father and are trying to make ends meet.  Denton is the brains and the go-getter while Jake is a lazy procrastinator who serves as the garages’ mechanic.  Problem is he knows nothing about engines and the way cars operate.  They get a call about an abandoned truck up in the woods, so they jump in their tow truck and speed away to the woods.  On the way there they run into Jake’s ex-girlfriend, Alex, an at-times pretty cute redhead.  Of course the abandoned truck is parked at the cabin in the woods from the opening scene, and wasting no time at all Lemay puts out hero brothers in immediate danger.

From the opening scene of the hunters you wouldn’t know this movie was going to become a pretty funny zom-com (zombie-comedy).  But with the introduction of the brothers and the way they interacted with each other I figured this was going to stray in that direction.  And I must admit that I was pretty scared about that.  There are so many zombie flicks that try to inject humor and fall flat on their faces, but this one gets it right.  Lemay doesn’t try to make the zombies funny; he keeps them scary and menacing.  The humor here comes from the way the uninfected characters react to the zombie menace.  Eventually Jake, his ex-g/f, and Jake’s rival Randy team up to try and stop the zombie plague.  And what was so refreshing is that a virus isn’t the cause of the outbreak.  When you are bitten by a zombie here they pass along a parasite that immediately attaches to your spine, injects some kind of fluid into you, and quickly reproduces more parasites in your system.  I watch A LOT of zombie movies and must say it was really refreshing to see the cause being parasites and not a virus.

The main outbreak occurs at the local church.  A bunch of old ladies are turned into zombies during bingo night and then proceed to crash a party in a warehouse where a bunch of teens are drinking, partying, and getting frisky with each other.  In a funny scene Jake and Randy run into the bingo game after the old ladies have already started attacking each other.  There’s blood and dismembered limbs everywhere prompting Randy to say, “It’s like a god damn grandma massacre in here!”  They then begin shooting the reanimated zombie grandmas making comments every time they waste one.  After Randy shoots one old lady Jake yells out, “Holy shit dude. You just shot Miss Mahoney.  Jesus! I sat next to her in church last Sunday!”  It was a great scene that was both gory and funny.

The gore f/x are well done and the zombie make up is pretty passable.  There are lots of scenes of zombies biting away large chunks of flesh from victims, and besides the flesh being a little too elastic looking, the f/x are pulled off successfully.

This is a fun, energetic little flick that makes watching endless shitty indie horror movies worth it.  I would guess Lemay was greatly influenced by writer-director Fred Dekker’s 1986 zombie/parasite flick Night of the Creeps.  It’s a fair comparison; the humor in both is pretty similar and they both work as horror films with comedic moments.  And to Lemay’s credit, if you’re gonna be influenced heavily by another genre flick, it may as well be a great one like Creeps.  Check this one out and have a good time.

My Summary:

Director: Damon Lemay

Plot: 3 out of 5 stars

Gore: 6 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem: 3.5 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer

This is one of those really easy movies to review: If you haven’t seen The Hidden then what the fuck is wrong with you?? This is a kickass movie that effortlessly blends genres and does it beautifully. It’s a scifi-horror-action flick with moments of black comedy that works on every level. Writer Jim Kouf takes inspiration from such classic movies like The Thing and Invasion of the Body Snatchers and then adds some great action sequences. What we end up with is a completely enjoyable, fast-paced flick that will have you glued to the screen. Yes, there isn’t a lot of gore in this one, but the entire project is so much fun you’ll forgive it (and I rarely forgive a movie for not having enough gore in it). But there’s a scene where the alien is transferring from one body to another that will have you gagging!!

The story has FBI agent Lloyd Gallagher, played by the great Kyle MacLachlan, on the trail of a mad, psychotic serial killer who seems to have no motive or pattern other than liking fast cars, loud music, greasy food, and generally stealing whatever he wants. Add to this the fact he kills just as randomly whenever he feels the urge (which is often). Tom Beck, played by Michael Nouri, is the local cop teamed up with MacLachlan and the two of them have really good chemistry together. They do that typical 80’s cop pairing where one cop is “the loose cannon” and the other is more “by the book.” When they catch the killer and Nouri thinks the case is closed MacLachlan tells him there’s a new killer with the same M/O (or lack of one). This is when the fun really starts and the plot gets interesting. In case you haven’t seen this before I won’t go into any more plot details. But you MUST see this movie. I promise you won’t be disappointed. MacLachlan gives a great performance as the dedicated, if not obsessed, FBI agent who will stop at nothing to bring down the killer(s). It’s a quirky and odd performance that no doubt got him the role as Agent Dale Cooper on Twin Peaks a few years later.

Director Jack Sholder really hits his stride here. Sholder also directed the creepy Alone in the Dark (1982) and the unfortunately dreadful A Nightmare on Elm Street, Part 2 (1985), and the excellent political thriller By Dawn’s Early Light (1990). But here he really shines as he deftly directs scary horror scenes, creepy sci-fi shots, and heart pounding action sequences.

One problem with this flick is that it has a very dated feel to it. There’s no doubt this film was made in the 1980’s … it, in fact, drowns in the 80’s!! The total absence of cell phones is the first give-away, but there are so many more clues: In the police station none of the detectives have computers on their desks. They’re all using typewriters to type up their police reports. The one printer that’s actually in the police department is a dot matrix printer that is about the size of a Volkswagen Bug. In another scene we see our psycho shoplifting tape cassettes from a record store. Kids; a “record” is a large, circular piece of vinyl with music stamped into its’ grooves. Your parents use to buy them to listen to their favorite bands. It’s a little slice of the 80’s.

But the most telling scene that sets this flick firmly in the 80’s is when a guy is finishing up his paperwork for the new Ferrari he’s buying. Sitting on top of the salesman’s desk in his office is a model of a Ferrari with a trunk full of cocaine. They are signing the papers, “sealing the deal,” and doing big bumps of coke right off the guy’s desk. Aahhh the 1980’s; where excess and greed went to get repeatedly gang raped. These few scenes really make this movie a fun slice of 1980’s life. It’s almost like looking at a time capsule.

Besides the lack of gore that I mentioned above, another area this flick was lacking in was with the killer himself. We are told how ruthless and murderous and psychotic the killer is. Yet we really don’t get to witness this. In the abovementioned scene where the killer is shoplifting in the record store he ends up beating the store manager to death. Ok, that’s kinda mean; but we’ve been told this guy has butchered children. Here’s a scene where they think they’ve caught the killer:

Doctor: Detective Beck; no one deserves to die like that. I don’t care what the man’s done.

Detective: He killed twelve people, wounded twenty three more, stole six cars, most of them Ferraris. Robbed eight banks, six supermarkets, four jewelry stores and a candy shop. Six of the ones he killed he carved up with a butcher knife. Two of them were kids. He did all that in two weeks. If anyone deserves to go that way, it sure as hell was him.

I just think Sholder could have added in some scenes where we get too see just how crazy and sociopathic the killer really is. It’s just a case of what we see in the movie not living up too what we are told. It does have an “R” rating after all!!

But these small complaints aside, this is one fun movie that you’ll enjoy. If you like sexy sports cars, loud rock music, big lines of coke, and strippers with machine guns, then you definitely need to check this one out. But stay away from The Hidden 2 … that one sucks out loud.

My Summary:

Director:  Jack Sholder

Stars: 5 (out of 5)

Gore: 1.5 out of 10 skulls

Zombies:  0 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer