I know, I know; pretty crappy title.  But what’s in a name, anyway?  DEAD HOOKER IN A TRUNK has a great name and it was … oh yeah; it was great.  Well what about WISCONSIN PROJECT X?  That’s a pretty bad title and the film was … damn; I’m not making a good case here!!  What I’m trying to get across is that the title of a film doesn’t always reflect how good or bad a movie will be.  Take POP PUNK ZOMBIES, for example (being released on December 6, 2011 by Brain Damage Films).  It’s an unfortunately terrible name but the film itself is rather fun.

The film begins with a big time record producer Dameon David (get it … it’s a rip on “Diamond Dave”), played by actor Adam Hatfield, out in the cemetery with some others resurrecting the members of a deceased band.  It seems the members of the punk group The Vicious Vegans met an untimely demise, and Dameon David still thinks there’s money to be made on them … a lot of money.  The now-undead’s first gig is in a shitty little bar.  Eddy (Ian Kane), who’s still pining over his ex-girlfriend Lisa (Laura Savage), is dragged to the concert my his buddy Ciez (Nick Marinnuci).  Outside the bar they encounter a group protesting the use of the undead as “labour” and want to stop the concert before it snowballs into other jobs being filled by zombies.  Soon after the concert starts a member of the protestors group runs to the stage with an ax and sets all the zombies free.  Now the concert goers are trapped inside with the zombies.

The first thing you’ll notice is that this is a low budget film, with an estimated price tag of $5,000.  The production values aren’t all that tight, but writer-director Steve Dayton does manage to get the most out of his budget.  Some of the night shots are a little dark and washed out, but overall can can see that Dayton squeezed the life out of every penny in that $5,000.  The main cast he put together also does a pretty good job.  Our three to four main characters carry the film and it’s only the supporting cast that stumbles a bit in their roles.

The f/x work is a little inconsistent, which is expected with such a modest budget.  Some zombies look great and others look like they got a little pancake makeup and fake blood thrown on them.  And the zombies themselves are an interesting lot.  I thought it was an interesting twist that everyone knew and accepted The Vicious Vegans were zombies.  Dameon David used this fact to garner interest and buzz for the band’s ‘big comeback’.  The protest group was a nice touch and I got the feeling that Dayton was trying to create some metaphor between the zombies and corporate greed and/or corrupt big business and maybe even the current unemployment problems, but nothing really solidified there.  And as mentioned above, the zombies are a little inconsistent.  When the zombie Vicious Vegans were walking up to the stage they were shambling very slowly and looked frail to the point of falling apart.  But as soon as they hit the stage they grabbed their instruments and microphones and started dancing around and singing.  I thought that was way too hokey and silly.  Don’t get me wrong; this film doesn’t take itself seriously at all, but even so, this was a little corny.

After the zombies are released by the protestor they behave very inconsistently.  Sometimes they were shambling things with zero intelligence.  Other times they were running around attacking people and even setting traps.  One character even mentioned that these zombies were stronger and more intelligent that the standard ‘movie zombie’ and they were getting stronger and smarter every minute.  But this idea was never fully explored.  Once the zombies were loose in the bar attacking everyone, it pretty much settles into your standard zombie flick …

… yet this film has a really fun energy to it and I found myself having a good time with it.  There are parts in the middle where the film dragged on a bit, but overall the film moves along at a nice pace.

POP PUNK ZOMBIES is by no means a perfect film.  More gore and a bigger budget would have made this one way more enjoyable, but for what writer-director Dayton had to work with, I think he put together a fun little zombie film.  The zombie completist will definitely want to see this one, and people gathered together on a lazy Saturday night will also have fun with this one (as long as there’s some beer).  Recommended.

My Summary:

Director:  Steve Dayton (& writer)

Plot:  2.5 out of 5 stars

Gore:  5 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem:  4 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer

Just when you think the weather has been tapped out as a destructive force in TV movies, along comes STORM WAR, the lastest SyFy Saturday Original airing on November 26, 2011.  We’ve had ice twisters, tornados, brutal hurricanes, and killer waves.  But what would happen, someone over at SyFy dared to ask, if one crazy bastard were able to control all the various killer weather conditions and be able to use them as a weapon?  If this thought also crossed your mind, then you’ve come to the right place!!

Stacy Keach plays Marcus Grange, a brilliant scientist (“you name it, he’s got a degree in it”) who is more than a little off his rocker.  When an eager young politician, Senator Aldrich (Lance E. Nichols) cuts Marcus’ funding, well the guy goes completely off his nut.  Marcus was promising that he could manipulate the weather and use it as a weapon against the country’s enemies.  Aldrich thought it was a waste to pump millions of dollars into the research and cut him off.  Marcus vowed revenge and now he’s back to make good on his promise (apparently Marcus didn’t really need all those millions of dollars.  He seemed to create his weather devise with an iPod and a few transistors!!).  So who can stop such a madman?

Enter Marcus’ two estranged sons David (Jason London) and Jacob (Wes Brown).  David is a D.C. cop despite his brilliant, scientific mind, and Jacob seems to be an underachiever despite having just as brilliant a mind.  Jacob visits David with the news that daddy dearest is back in town controlling the weather and killing those who’ve wronged him in the past.  At first David doesn’t believe him (of course), but after Samantha (Erin Cahill), Marcus’ ex-research assistant, joins up with them, the gang Scooby-Doo’s their way into the heart of the mystery.

The first thing you’ll note is that the typical SyFy formula isn’t being utilized 100% here.  There’s no ex-special forces guy who’s ex-wife is the lead scientist.  We get the same categories of characters, but writer Paul A. Birkett (writer of HELLHOUNDS, ICE TWISTER, and the truly crappy ALTITUDE) makes just enough changes to make it feel different (well different for a SyFy Original, anyway).  And director Todor Chapkanov keeps things moving along nicely, although you’ll be left wanting to see more weather-based destruction … a lot more destruction.  But Chapkanov has more than a little experience with SyFy Originals.  He’s also directed 2009’s HAMMER OF THE GODS and GHOST TOWN; 2010’s MONSTERWOLF, and the upcoming MIAMI MAGMA.  He truly is the Orson Welles of our times!!  But the crew that got the most work was the Second Unit crew.  The movie was filmed in Louisiana, but there’s more shots in and around Washington, DC that the Second Unit got just as much footage on screen as Chapkanov did!!

But besides seeing Stacy Keach doing his best Gary Busey impression, there’s not much else going on here to grab you.  The acting is competent enough, but there’s not nearly enough scenes of weather-related destruction and images of Washington, DC landmarks getting destroyed.  Some of the dialogue is also pretty damn funny.  After the Pentagon gets hit with a series of lightening strikes, a reporter calls the lightening, “One of the most devastating catastrophes this country’s ever seen.”  Really?  What about 9/11?  And near the end when the brothers are counter-striking their father’s most recent weather attack, Aldrich asks out loud what they’re doing, and Colonet Neilson (Gary Grubbs) responds, “We just declared a weather war.”  Shoot me.

This isn’t the worst SyFy Original I’ve seen (far from it), and there were times the film grabbed me, but overall you’ll feel a little let down after it’s all over.  Check it out if you’re staying in after a long Saturday of shopping or if you’re a SyFy Original completist like myself.

My Summary:

Director:  Todor Chapkanov

Plot:  2.5 out of 5 stars

Gore:  0 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem:  0 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer

[The other day I did a little blurb on Ryan Lightbourn and his teaser trailer titled DOG SOLDIERS: RED (see here). This made me realize that I never reviewed Neil Marshall’s DOG SOLDIERS for WreckhouseMagazine.com.  I know; shame on me!!  Well here it is!!  Enjoy.]

In case you haven’t heard me say this before, Neil Marshall kicks ass.  Serious ass.  The first of Marshall’s films that I caught was THE DESCENT (review here).  I was, of course, blown away by it and immediately went online to check out what else he had directed.  Now I’ve never been one for werewolves.  Of course I love AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, GINGER SNAPS, and the occasional werewolf novel (Robert McCammon’s THE WOLF’S HOUR comes to mind), but overall I’m not a huge werewolf fan.  But watching DOG SOLDIERS made me realize just how amazing this sub-genre could be.  Marshall puts so much energy, gore, and action in this film that ya wanna run right out into a foggy marsh on a full moon and tempt fate!!

The plot of DOG SOLDIERS is pretty basic.  Sgt. Wells (Sean Pertwee) and his squad are placed in the Scotland wilderness to play war games against an elite special forces unit, led by Capt. Ryan (Liam Cunningham).  Wells et at think they found a weakness in the special forces’ plan, but when they move in they find the unit horribly slaughtered.  But in a great, “This was no boating accident” moment, they realize the squad wasn’t torn apart by bullets; they were torn apart by what looks like some kind of animal.  Marshall, never one to hold back for long, then has Wells’ squad attacked by a werewolf.  They narrowly escape certain death when local Megan (Emma Cleasby) hears the gunfire and stops to pick them up and bring them to her isolated Highland home.  DOG SOLDIERS then becomes an “under siege” film (no, not the Seagal film) as the werewolves stage attack after attack on the house and the remaining soldiers inside stage a ‘last stand.’

This is a simple one, people:  If you haven’t seen DOG SOLDIERS yet, you need to stop what you’re doing and check this one out.  But if you’re expecting ripped, 6-pack abs and emotionless and shirtless werewolves then you’re definitely coming to the wrong party.   Marshall does here what he does best:  He takes a familiar sub-genre and amps up those elements which makes it so amazing.  He did it with the “lost climbers coming across creatures” sub-genre (THE DESCENT) and he did it with the “Mad Max” sub-genre (DOOMSDAY).  But by keeping the location simple, 90% of DOG SOLDIERS takes place in Megan’s home, Marshall is able to create another claustrophobic film.  When the werewolves enter the house they are so tall they can barely stand up straight.  This makes the soldiers seem smaller and more helpless and makes the werewolves that much more menacing.

Marshall also puts together a great cast.  Pertwee has been in some fantastic genre films including. EVENT HORIZON, SOLDIER, SEVEN DAYS TO LIVE, WILDERNESS, BOTCHED, DOOMSDAY, and is starring in the upcoming Nazi occult film (along side Doug Bradley), THE 4TH REICH.  Overall the entire cast does a great job and I really bought into the camaraderie of the squad and the pain they go through as the werewolves slaughter the unit soldier by soldier.  Marshall also throws in a twist of sorts at the end that may not be all that shocking, but it works and ties up a few loose ends.

But what would a werewolf movie be if it had shitty looking werewolves?  Well I guess it’d be WILD COUNTRY (my review here), where the monster looks like a left over Alf doll with some fake teeth and hair glued to it!!  But no need to worry; the werewolves in DOG SOLDIERS are amazing looking.  Marshall didn’t really attempt to re-define what a werewolf looks like, but he and sf/x designer Richard Darwin really put together a great hybrid of what a supernatural wolf/man creature would look like.  And no, we don’t get a transformation scene.  Remember that DOG SOLDIERS is Marshall’s first feature length film (before this he wrote and directed the eight minute short film, COMBAT), so you know he didn’t have a huge budget to work with.  So why would he blow about half of his budget to put together a badass looking transformation scene?  But rest assured that you’ll love the werewolf design; it’s completely effective!!

And do I even need to mention the gore?  Come on; this is a Marshall film!!  We get lots of werewolf-related gore with some nice surprises in the mix.  Marshall even takes some chances, like in the scene where one of the soldiers find himself face to face with a werewolf and he’s out of ammo and has no other weapon.  So the soldier relies on his training and starts beating the shit out of the werewolf with his fists.  The scene totally works and ends with the werewolf getting the upper hand, cornering the soldier, and going in for the kill.  The soldier’s last words:  “I hope I give you the shits you fucking wimp.”

Marshall is onto a pretty cool thing.  He takes his favorite sub-genres and puts his (often violent) twisted spin on them.  The results so far have always been amazing.  Marshall is essentially paying homage to all his favorite types of films and this is exactly what DOG SOLDIERS is:  An homage not only to the werewolf genre, but to creature features in general.  Marshall has been kinda quiet since his 2010 film CENTURION, and according to IMDb.com he’s not working on any feature length films.  Currently he’s working on two shorts.  He’s producing and editing THE LAST POST and HOOK (both written and directed by Axelle Carolyn).  I’m pretty confident we haven’t seen the last of Marshall.  Don’t miss DOG SOLDIERS!!

My Summary:

Director:  Neil Marshall (& writer & editor)

Plot:  4 out of 5 stars

Gore:  6 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem:  0 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer

SPLICE is a perfect example of why I never rely on either a film’s trailer (how it’s marketed) or on what the critics have to say about the film.  When this was released back in June 2010 it was met with mixed reviews.  I can remember reading reviews accusing SPLICE of being a blatant ripoff of SPECIES; of being too talky and full of pseudo-science; and of having an identity crisis and never deciding if it wanted to be a horror, sci-fi, horror-scifi, or thriller flick.  And the trailers didn’t help much:  I can remember the trailer making SPLICE look exactly like a SPECIES ripoff.  But then I watched SPLICE and realized this is a pretty smart film with a distinct personality.  So what’s up with SPLICE?

Boyfriend/girlfriend scientists Clive Nicoli and Elsa Kast (Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley) have been conducting groundbreaking research in genetics.  From splicing together the DNA of multiple organisms they’re making huge strives in medical advancements.  But after a meeting with the CEO of the company funding their work, Clive and Elsa are told to stop their research immediately in order to be put on some other less ambitious research.  The CEO never explicitly says so, but there’s enough said during the meeting to suggest the CEO doesn’t want them to succeed in their research because it would eliminate such diseases like cancer and AIDS.  Pissed off, Clive and Elsa decide to secretly further their research and introduce human DNA into the genetic cocktail.  The result is Dren (“nerd” spelled backwards).

Dren has a distinctly feminine form and ages/grows at an accelerated rate.  Her cellular development is so quick that Clive and Elsa decide to let Dren live out her life cycle, which they expect to last only a few months.  But as Dren grows so does her intelligence, strength, and instincts.  Yeah, this movie gets pretty damn fun.

There’s no doubt that this is a sci-fi thriller that wants the viewer to think about some of the issues SPLICE touches on.  But this film is far from being all talk.  The movie wastes no time in getting started and it keeps a really fast pace the entire 104 minute runtime.  Brody and Polley do a pretty damn nice job with the material, keeping it dramatic without falling into melodrama (which this so easily could have ended up being).  Now I admit that I’m no fan of Adrien Brody; I never really understood why he’s considered an A-list celebrity.  And I won’t mention that he’s in what is perhaps my most hated “genre” film of all time; THE VILLAGE (oh well; it looks like I mentioned it).  Yeah I know it’s not a horror film, so why the fuck was it advertised as one?  Anyway.  I was quite surprised with the performance Brody puts in here.  He pays his trademarked nerdy, heroic guy as he constantly battles the ethical dilemma of the research he’s doing.

But Polley steals the show and puts in a truly fantastic performance.  Polley’s character has a complex and detailed background that slowly seeps it’s way into her current situation and complicates everything.  Elsa’s mommy issues and fear of abandonment turns her into a true monster by the end of the film (just wait until the operation scene).

What I also really appreciated about this flick is that the creature effects were all practical and not CG.  Yes a few scenes of Dren doing amazing things were CG, but the scenes where Dren interacts with her creators are all practical.  Abigail Chu plays Dren as a little girl (and I must say that the prosthetics they had her in looked really uncomfortable) and French actress Delphine Chaneac plays Dren as an “adult.”  Chaneac does a really great job in giving Dren a unique personality through only body language and motion (she has no lines of dialogue until the end).  She also manages to make Dren sexy (yeah I said it).  As Dren ages, her instincts and sexuality become more dominant and pronounced and director/co-writer Vincenzo Natali really captures this element.  Chaneac does a tremendous job conveying her character’s developing maturity and confusing sexuality.  We’re never told what percentage of Dren is human and what is “other” but watching her we can take a pretty good guess.  There’s a disturbingly great scene between Dren and Brody where Brody realizes that Dren is essentially coming onto him (for all intents and purposes Dren is his “daughter”) and that she has animal instincts and strong biological urges (this is the only similarity to SPECIES).  And not to give anything away, but there’s a sex scene here that should have made me cringe but instead I found extremely erotic.

The problems I had with this one were all in the small details.  The cutting edge, high-clearance security lab Clive and Elsa work in is run by about 3-4 people; there’s a whole lot of pseudo-science explanations getting thrown at us and this makes us really suspend our disbelief; Polley’s Elsa character at times behaves inconsistent to her development in the plot; and the entire film was marketed all wrong.  SPLICE really isn’t a “creature feature” and definitely isn’t a horror film per se.  But it is a really well-written and well-acted, fast paced scifi-thriller that you’ll find yourself enjoying.  And if you’re like me you’ll find yourself being increasingly turned on by Dren (yeah, I said it).  Check this one out.

My Summary:

Director:  Vincenzo Natali (and co-writer)

Plot:  3.5 out of 5 stars

Gore:  4.5 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem:  0 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer