Monday, April 24, 2006

Return of the Living Dead IV: Necropolis – 2005

     This movie falls apart faster for me than any other I’ve seen in a long time. It’s a zombie movie, so I ought to love it. And I normally would have, except that THEY MESSED WITH THE MYTHOS! Now I ask you, when you have three movies that came before, don’t you think you ought to try and keep the details straight. I mean, many of the touches are there. The drums are here. It’s a gas that makes people into zombies. So why, of why, would you forget that HEAD SHOTS DON’T WORK! Nothing stops them. See the half dog in the first movie. Head shots don’t do the trick. In fact, the fact that they don’t is talked about in the first two movies.

But they do here. In fact, body shots work. What the hell kind of zombie movie has the zombies taken down by a body shot? Well, this piece of junk does. I know, I know, I should be able to get past that, but I can’t. And then, there’s a cheap arm gag that’s such a common special effect *I* could do it. By this point, I’m so disappointed in this movie, it couldn’t save itself.

There are absolutely no extras on this disc. The movie has a pretty good amount of gore, and some fair ideas. Too bad it just sucks. I think it means something that IMDB lists this movie as a comedy. It’s not funny, but it sure can’t be taken seriously.

One beer out of five.

Subterano – 2003

     This Australian movie once again covers territory that we’ve covered a dozen times. A video game come to life, or people put into a video game. From big budget classics like Tron, to my personal favorite, The Bishop of Battle. There have been dozens of these movies, good and bad. Guess which side of the fence this puppy comes down on.

This has some pretty decent gore. And the SF, fascist regime elements makes for a pretty clever blend. But in the end, there’s not much here we haven’t seen before. There are no subtitles or commentaries, but there is a featurette. But it’s not a making of featurette. It’s a “the actors explain the movie” featurette. I hate them. I’ve seen the movie. If it was good, I got it. If it’s crap, it’s too late to explain it to me.

Two beers out of five.