Tuesday, April 25, 2006

All Soul’s Day: Dia de los Muertos – 2005

     No need to ask why I rented this puppy! It’s got Jeffery Combs in it. And everybody who knows me knows how much I like him. So I rented this, only to discover that this was done by the guy who did The Attic Expedition (which I saw before I started this blog, but was pretty good). I see from IMDB that he is remaking one of my favorite HGL movies, The Wizard of Gore. If he messes that up, I may have to hunt him down and kill him.

This is a pretty interesting zombie flick, as it has its own rules, and a completely new mythos. Taking place in Mexico, with Mexican holidays and Aztec gods, it’s definitely not a Romero movie. In fact, the director says that it’s more Polanski than Romero. I’m always up for a new angle on a zombie movie.  And I like the way that they play on our knowledge of zombie movies, and then turn it on its head. That’s pretty slick on the part of the writer. This makes up for House of the Dead. Many people will say that Free Enterprise is this guy’s best work, however.

This movie has several great actors besides the great Combs (who does a super job, but still isn’t in the movie enough). David Keith (the Dad in Firestarter), who’s been in 58 movies. Also, there’s Danny Trejo (Rondo from Devil’s Rejects & Razor Charlie in From Dusk Til Dawn), who’s been in 88 movies.

There are no subtitles, but there’s a good Commentary with the Director and the Writer/Producer. Here we learn that this movie was made in 17 days for a little less than a million dollars. There are also three Making of Featurettes.  But the best part is that there aren’t a lot of jump cuts and shaky cam.

Four beers out of five.