Movie Database

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (1977, John DeBello). At least they tried to make it funny. 🍅🍅🍅🚁🪂🗞️🎶🎶🙂 I mean, of course I’m going to watch Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, because I immediately thought that’s what Rubber was supposed to be an homage to. I also suspected that Attack of the Killer Tomatoes would be a better movie, even though it’s quite famous for being terrible, so I wanted to check my theory. It is terrible. But it’s also an unabashed comedy, with actual proper jokes and everything, beyond the main sarcastic one. The tomatoes actually aren’t in the movie much–most of the comedy is about government ineptitude. It’s got, you know, subtext. Social satire, even. Also a real helicopter crash. When I saw it, I thought, wow that was a weird stunt, I don’t think they’re supposed to do that; they wrecked a whole helicopter for this? Well, no they didn’t. It was a big oops. “This … may God help us … is a cherry tomato.” And yes, it’s better than Rubber. (Tubi.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_of_the_Killer_Tomatoes

Rubber (2010, Quentin Dupieux). Not every idea needs to be a movie. 🌵🔭🛞🐇🐦‍⬛🚗👮😑 Seen this mentioned a few times. Thought it sounded ridiculous. It is. It might have been a Monty Python sketch at one time in history. Except they would have known when to end the sketch. It reminds me of those NaNoWriMo dailies where you write down whatever fourth-wall-breaking nonsense is in your head to fill the required word count. I guess if you have enough money and/or the right connections, you can turn those pages into a film. Lucky us. It could also be what someone thinks a horror movie made by Rick & Morty might look like (not the makers of Rick & Morty, the characters Rick & Morty), and you can imagine them vehemently defending its integrity. The director is French, so maybe it’s a translation issue. Maybe these jokes are hilarious and culturally relevant to a French or European audience. It’s the kind of humor that feels like they’re directly mocking the audience, like the art piece that’s a banana taped to a wall, not the kind of humor where the audience is in on the joke. This movie had a half a million dollar budget. Can you imagine an earnest young filmmaker trying to start their career seeing that and thinking, They had a half million dollars and they did that with it?? And they still had a prosperous career afterward?? What better example of the adage, It’s not what you know, but who you know, could there be? I watched this entire thing so nobody could say I didn’t give it a chance and it’s hard not to feel angry about it. (Max.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_(2010_film)

The Fog (1980, John Carpenter). Ghosts looking for their gold. 📻👻💨⛵️🔪🏠👦🛻💨💨💨🙂 I’d heard of The Fog before but never had the vaguest clue what it was about or noticed anyone talking about it. It’s atmospheric. The late-night swing jazz radio music backdrop behind everything gives it a sinister vibe. It’s got an eclectic cast of characters. But Jamie Lee Curtis got demoted from the semi-strong female lead in Halloween to a hitchhiker sidekick. I guess this was the inspiration for The Secret World’s Kingsmouth zone. The story rules that govern the capabilities of the spooky fog don’t make much sense. The dated smoke effects undercut the tension somewhat. It’s a nice idea, and I thought it started well, but the conclusion fell a bit flat for me. (Tubi.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fog

Diary of the Dead (2007, George A. Romero). Zombie apocalypse, Internet-style. The survivors make a documentary. 🎬🎥🚌🏥🎥🧟🧟🎥🏠🧟🧟‍♀️🧟‍♂️🙂 The fifth in the George A. Romero Living Dead series. I don’t like found footage or handheld camera work in general so I was sure this was going to be terrible. What I will say, though, is that this is a found footage film created by professionals who know how to hire actors and write scripts and block scenes for long takes. So in that sense it’s automatically better than most. And, dammit, it’s actually not bad. Limited motion sickness. Good characters. Decent story. Accurately bleak view of humanity. And it’s another keen George A. Romero observation of society’s faults (this time, in the area of media obsession and media trust and the rise of Internet journalism and populism). It pains me to say I kind of liked it. As with all the ones before, it’s no masterpiece, but it’s worth watching. (Tubi.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diary_of_the_Dead

Land of the Dead (Unrated) (2005, George A. Romero). Zombie apocalypse, 2000s-style. The survivors live in Pittsburg with lots of guns. 🏙️🧟🧟‍♀️🧟‍♂️🚛🔫🧨🔫🔥🔫🙂 The next in the “Living Dead” movies, following twenty years after Day of the Dead from 1985, capitalizing on the peak zombie media years. I genuinely didn’t know George A. Romero had directed so many of these canonical Dead movies. Here we can definitely see how much the George A. Romero and The Walking Dead universes are creatively intertwined, in the sense that they both highlight life after the zombie apocalypse. DC and Marvel, so to speak. The same, but legally distinct. Wikipedia tells me the first The Walking Dead comic came out a year before this movie. Anyway on to the movie. Nice prologue. It’s a bleak vision of humanity. You can tell by the desaturation. It’s Mad Max Thunderdome with zombies. More action movie than ever before. It’s the continuing theme of humans being humans (“humans being”), this time featuring class warfare. Also smarter zombies. Somebody did a fairly impressive imitation of a Wilhelm Scream that wasn’t an actual Wilhelm Scream at 1:14:23. This installment wasn’t fantastic (none of them are, so far), but it was a decent cast of characters and a sufficiently acerbic metaphor for humanity so it was good enough. (Amazon Video.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_of_the_Dead

Deep Red (Uncensored English Version) (1975, Dario Argento). Investigating the murder of a psychic for inexplicable reasons. 👩🔪🪦🚗🕵️‍♂️🕵️‍♀️🤷🤷🧐 Searching for horror in 1975. Peak Italian giallo horror, according to Wikipedia. Seems like more of a plain old murder mystery to me. From the same director as Suspiria. The ever-popular horror POV shot from the killer. Lots of 70s red paint for blood. 70s film stock devoid of any blue. 70s blues funk band score (Goblin), with instruments slightly out of tune sometimes. I find myself wondering why this pianist is investigating the murder instead of the police. He wasn’t shown to know the victim right? Just doesn’t seem like there’s any motivation to account for characters’ behavior, or story to tie any of the scenes together. The classic “stuff happening is not necessarily a plot” syndrome. Ah well. On reflection, I suppose you could say this is a horror in the sense that it’s a killer stalking a series of victims, like the teen slasher, except that none of them are teens and they aren’t in a confined space. (PlutoTV.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Red

Dawn of the Dead (1978, George A. Romero). Zombie apocalypse, 70s style. The survivors hide out in a shopping mall. 📺🎥👮‍♂️🚨🚁⛽️🛍️🧟🧟‍♀️🧟‍♂️🚁🙂 After watching Night of the Living Dead, I found the next one in the mythos, Dawn of the Dead, on an obscure channel called ReDiscover Television after a Roku search on my television. Inexplicably, Rediscover is apparently a family-friendly channel. Anyway, the zombies look more like circus clowns with all that face makeup amirite. Funny how gas pump nozzles haven’t changed since 1978. Seems to lack much of a plot. The characters are just kind of drifting through the movie’s runtime, attempting to survive through means that don’t entirely make much logical sense. Nodded off a bit in the second half during the big tractor trailer endeavor. I didn’t understand what they were doing or why the helicopter needed to be hovering overhead wasting fuel the whole time. I previously thought that Day of the Dead was the origin of all the The Walking Dead tropes but you can see it starting here; that is, the basic throughline of humans versus zombies turning into humans versus humans, and the ultimate end directly tied to human folly. Wait what they had blood pressure monitor kiosks in 1978? (ReDiscover Television.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawn_of_the_Dead_(1978_film)

Night of the Living Dead (1968, George A. Romero). Zombie apocalypse, 60s black-and-white style. The survivors hide out in a house. 🏆 🪦🧟‍♂️🏃‍♀️🏠🔨🛻🔥🧟‍♂️🧟‍♂️🧟‍♂️🧐🙂 After seeing Shaun of the Dead, I wanted to see the other George A. Romero zombie mythos-defining movies. I was going to work backwards from Day of the Dead, which I’d seen a few weeks ago, but I couldn’t find Dawn of the Dead anywhere, so it was Night of the Living Dead then. I think I’ve seen this movie before, but I don’t remember it. I believe Max’s version of this film is the Criterion/MoMA remastered 4K version. It occurs to me that these older horror movies could be considerably improved for a modern audience if they simply remixed the sound. Leave the dialog, augment the badly-recorded, sparse foley sound effects, but most importantly rescore the music. It’s mainly the old-fashioned midrange-heavy music score blaring frantically over the long and slow action scenes that make old horror movies so cheesy. Also the foley work from before they made flesh hits sound like Hollywood rather than reality. Judith O’Dea looks a little like Kim Raver from 24. A surprisingly large portion of the runtime is hammering things on doors and windows. Wait it took him an hour to look upstairs? These two dudes just appeared from the basement? The balding father dude looks like Rob Corddry. Showing this television report must have been a technical challenge–I don’t think you could just film a television screen in 1968? (I’m not sure you can today, either, actually.) I imagine they either had to composite it and/or put some kind of cut-out facade of a television panel in front of a projection screen. Feels like this movie is about six hours long. The rifle sounds like a pellet gun. Overall, surprisingly watchable with some surprising twists. But others have done this story better. (Including George A. Romero.) I wish it didn’t feel like it takes six hours to tell a 20-minute story though. (Max.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Living_Dead

The World's End (2013, Edgar Wright). Simon Pegg and pubs again. 🍺🍺🚗💧🤖😂😀 Figured I’d finally watch the other two movies in that Simon Pegg/Edgar Wright trilogy thing. It takes a long while to get to the hook, but luckily it’s engaging until then. How do these losers know kung fu and shiz. But anyway, it’s good stuff. A return to what made Shuan of the Dead great… comedy without parody. (Amazon Video.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World%27s_End_(film)

Hot Fuzz (2007, Edgar Wright). Shaky cam, epilepsy, and some laughs. 👮‍♂️🏃🎭🪓🏃🔫🔫😂🤢🙂 Figured I’d finally watch the other two movies in that Simon Pegg/Edgar Wright trilogy thing. This one is okay but I didn’t really get into it. The amount of shaky cam is absurd at times. So much so that it’s hard to tell if it was just the standard of the time, a Bad Boys homage, or it was deliberately above-and-beyond the over-the-top to make another joke. The epilepsy-inducing transitions and flashbacks were a bit much this time. Another joke? Maybe, but it came at the expense of physically hurting my eyeballs. Unlike Shaun of the Dead, this one seemed like more of a straight parody. (Amazon Video.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Fuzz