Warm Bodies

Romero And Juliet

Warm Bodies
USA 2013
Directed by Jonathan Levine
Playing at cinemas now.

Warning: Very light spoilers.

You know, I saw absolutely no publicity on this film at all until a couple of days before it started playing at my local cinema, courtesy of same cinema’s i-phone app, and even then it was just because I was checking to see what time another movie was going to be playing. And this is why great movies like this one here are doomed to smaller box office (and often don’t get a general theatrical release at all) while the Batmans and X-Mens of this world grab all the screen time.

Warm Bodies is a new zombie film which, like almost all modern zombie films, takes its basic plot logic from George A. Romero’s revitalisation of the genre in his 1968 film Night Of The Living Dead. With this movie though, it’s more like Nights Of The Loving Dead as this is basically a remake of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliette, but relocated to a zombie setting. I didn’t know this when I went to see the movie but if you haven’t figured it out by the time you get to the balcony scene then you might as well hear it from me.

And I have to say, it works really well.

The movie is mostly told from the viewpoint of “R”, a sluggish zombie whose inner dialogue as he shuffles about his daily routine helps set up the audience by running through all the usual Romero zombie ground rules while at the same time introducing a new sub-section of zombies, the “boneys” who are pretty much so far gone in terms of decay, that they are, for all intents and purposes, walking skeletons. Even though R complains about the slow shuffling of his daily routine, the writer/director does try to have his cake and eat it on this one, as there are also a load of really fast, running zombies, including the boneys, who kind of fly in the face of the cinematic convention we’re lead to believe this film is being informed by and, although there are good reasons for this as a biological progression as the movie runs its course, the phenomenon seems to be too bedded in even near the start of the movie for it to make much sense within the genre conventions set up in the opening sequences.

That being said, that’s about the only criticism I have of this movie. It’s a neat little love story and when R falls in love with a human “hunter/gatherer”, Julie, after eating her boyfriend, he smuggles her back to his airplane home at an airport and looks after her, gathering food for her and romancing her with his collection of vinyl records, which he prefers to downloads and CDs. There’s also a nice little gag when Julie holds up the cover of a DVD edition of Lucio Fulci’s Zombi (aka Zombi 2 and Zombie Flesh Eaters, reviewed on this blog soon, in its new blu ray edition) and compares the maggot infested features of the “iconic” zombie from that film with those of the relatively normal looking “R”. And there’s even a major plot point which takes the Dan O’ Bannon scripted spoof Return Of The Living Dead as its “rulebook source” (in fact, wasn’t one of the sequels to that, which I’ve not seen. also a version of Romeo And Juliet?). That last presumably comes from the original novel on which this film is based, which I haven't read myself, as yet.

I don’t want to spoil too much of this movie but when Julie returns back to her community of surviving humans, lead by her father (played by John Malkovich), she is unaware that the act of "R" and her "bonding" has brought a carthartic reaction among the less far gone of the zombies, including "R" himself, which has kickstarted their hearts and started a self healing process as the undead in question slowly start turning back into something like humans again. Love, it seems, really is the drug, at least when it comes to discovering a cure for the undead. Of course, all this means that the boneys are now also hunting zombies (they key off of heartbeats) and pretty soon two zombie factions, the boneys and the walking dead but getting less deader, are converging at the walls of the last surviving refuge of humans and "R" and Julie find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place.... or at least "R" finds himself stuck between a bullet in the brain from John Malkovich and being eaten by boneys.

I didn’t know this is the same writer/director who made a brilliant (against all the odds, considering the genre) slasher movie about seven years ago called All The Boys Love Mandy Lane (reviewed here) and I have to say he’s definitely one to watch out for. Again, the tragic ending of Shakespeare’s original is played out here but I’m not actually spoiling anything for you here because, even if you’ve figured out that the rules of the zombie genre can somehow change how that ending can work, there’s a bit more surprise about how the filmmakers go about doing this than I expected and, since the obvious template is never in question, I think it’s fair to say I’m really not giving much away here.

This zombie film is bright, original (well okay, maybe not original but certainly well thought through and realised), has absolutely brilliant performances from all involved and is, ultimately, quite heart warming. It even managed to jump-scare me a couple of times, which is no mean feat for a zombie movie, which is a genre more about body count fodder than genuine scares, for the most part. I can only recommend this film to anyone and it’s not just zombie fans who will take something away from this... fans of romantic movies for lovers should have no real problems with this movie and I found it an absolute joy. If you want a movie to see on Valentine’s Day this year, and you don’t mind a bit of blood and gore mixed in with your romance, then this is definitely the movie to go and see on February 14th. Definitely a DVD purchase when this gets a release.

It also makes me wonder when we’ll see a seventh George A. Romero movie hit the cinema as it’s certainly a shot in the arm for the genre and deserves no small measure of success and influence on the money holders' collective purse strings. Wherefore art thou Romero?

There Are Such Things

A History

of Horror

with Mark Gatiss Episode 3

Airdate: October 25th 2010.

UK. BBC4

Well, Gatiss’ personal journey through the history of horror continues and although entertaining as a series and really worth a watch, for me personally, this third episode didn’t quite press my buttons and, once again - and please remember that this is a very personal response due to familiarity with most of the material - my basic lack of oomph with this episode comes more from what has been left out than what has been chosen to showcase the genre.

Having said that though, Gatiss is an entertaining and assured personality to watch in this kind of documentary milieu and he instills confidence that he does know what he is talking about and isn’t, in any way, faking it. His love of horror shines through down to his little parodies of shots from movies like Psycho, The Omen and Halloween.

The episode starts well on a classic of the zombie genre, Night of the Living Dead. I won’t call it the first of the genre because it isn’t by a long shot (not even the first of the shambling wave of undead movies which it brought into popularity) but it’s certainly the most influential of its sphere. More importantly it’s one of the most successful low budget independent movies ever made, which had quite an impact on the explosion of the horror genre when it was realised that a cheap investment in this flavour of movie had a good chance of reaping a swift profit at the box office. It would have been nice, however, if Gatiss might have mentioned Herk Hervey’s phenomenal surreal ghost movie Carnival of Souls as a probable influence on Romero’s masterwork... at least in terms of what could be done with a budget made out of smoke and mirrors.

After this, the intrepid Mr. Gatiss rounded up Mr. Tobe Hooper and talked about one of only two films featured in this episode that I’ve never bothered to watch, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre... partially because I get squeamish about chainsaws but mostly because I’ve never really seen the point in watching this particular variant on what I am presuming is just another “body count” movie. Perhaps I am wrong though because both Mr. Hooper and Mr. Gatiss had some interesting things to say about it... except, like Psycho... as far as I am concerned, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is not a horror movie... it’s merely a thriller (and I’ll leave that argument there for now).

Next up was a tour into three of the more famous demon-child movies... those which involve either the devils spawn or a form of demonic possession. It goes without saying that these kinds of movies are shot through with strong religious overtones which can make them fairly unpalatable to people with either a strong religious persuasion or, equally, a strong anti-religious persuasion.

The first movie covered was Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby... which in my book is just an okay film. Mr. G then moved on to The Exorcist, which is a pretty good horror movie as it goes and is pretty much a masterpiece in sound design as it happens... probably its major feature actually as it would probably fall flat on it’s face without the contribution of the sound department. He then moved onto the first (and best) of The Omen movies, punctuated by some new interview footage with the writer, Mr. David Seltzer himself, which was nice to see. It’s here that I learned the one new thing in this episode that I hadn’t already known... that Charles Bronson was originally in the running to play the role made famous by Gregory Peck in The Omen.

A sidestep back to Romero and a small piece on his pseudo-vampire film Martin was up next. This is the other movie I’ve never bothered to watch... although people have been telling me to watch it for years. Mind you, they were saying that about Romero’s The Crazies for years and that one turned out badly for me. I think I need walking dead people to truly appreciate Romero. I suspect I’d actually prefer the remake of The Crazies to my experience with the original. I feel similarly about Romero’s segment in Argento’s Two Evil Eyes as being a “not great” piece of movie making. Anyway, that was a long way of saying that I shy away from Romero films that don’t feature shambling zombies and a small bunch of people in peril. So I’m not rushing out to see Martin anytime soon.

The next stop for this episode took us into David Cronenberg territory and took a long look at one of his early and best movies, Shivers. A film which was an early entry into a genre of horror which was, at one point in time, almost exclusively the province of horror that is what one still thinks of today when one describes a film as being Cronenbergian... the body/horror movie. Gatiss continued his interview with Barbara Steele, who I’d forgotten had a part in this movie, and her overly dramatic way of recounting events was, as usual, perhaps a little inappropriate but entirely entertaining (hmmm... I wish someone would interview Barbara Steele and Franco Nero in the same room at the same time... that would be hilarious).

Then a quick nod to consumer society and its much talked about metaphorical appearance in Romero’s Dawn of The Dead (a great, horror comfort movie to relax and unwind with on a Sunday afternoon) before arriving at Carpenter and his breakthrough movie Halloween. Now it has to be said that I’m a big admirer of Carpenter but I am not in any way an admirer of Halloween. I think it helped popularise American cinemas decline into the slasher movie but no mention was made as to where the true roots of the grubby US slasher film really lie... the Italian giallo. Argento’s huge influence on Carpenter (even to the music, listen to Halloween and then listen to Goblin and Gaslini’s score to Deep Red which came before it) was not once mentioned and nor was the real template to these kinds of movies... Mario Bava’s Bay of Blood (aka Twitch of the Death Nerve) which is a dead ringer for the carbon copy US movies which came after it.

More disturbing for me was that he had Carpenter there but no mention was made of what is, for me, Carpenter’s greatest horror movie, The Fog. Which is a shame but what can one do? As I said before, for a series which has been as remarkable for what it hasn’t included as much as for what is has, I still think that with this short series, Mark Gatiss knocks it out of the park and gives people less familiar with these movies a very interesting taste as to what is out there for them to explore.

And, fittingly, the episode ends with another Universal horror introduction parody to bring us full circle to the one which opened the show with because... after all... there are such things!

Survival of the Deadest!

Survival of the Dead 2009 US

Directed by George A. Romero

Optimum DVD Region 2

There’s something comforting about a “night in” with a Romero zombie movie. He’s a bit hit and miss as a director (I found his original version of The Crazies almost unwatchable when I checked it out a few years back) but for some reason, and this probably has a lot to do with how he reinvented the genre back in 1968, his zombie films are always a good watch.

So it didn’t worry me too much when the sixth movie in his shuffling dreadnought of a zombie series bypassed a cinema release in this country and went straight to DVD a few weeks back. Heck, a lot of people really hated the last one (his cheating riff on the first-person shooter school of movie making) but I thought it was really excellent... and frankly his third film in the series, Day of the Dead, will always be my least favourite of the series (even if it does have Bub in it). This movie is probably my next least favourite next to that, but only because the other four; Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Land of the Dead and Diary of the Dead, have been really top notch.

Having watched Survival of the Dead now, I’ve been trying to get a handle on what it was really trying to comment on. There is a returning character from the previous film (one of the “home guard” who stole all the “heroes” stuff in the last one) and he has been made a lot more sympathetic in this movie. Actually, I think you’ll find that this is the first time in the series where a character has actually come back into the next film... unless you count Tom Savini’s brief reappearance in Land of the Dead as the zombified biker leader from Dawn of the Dead. Anyway, this character and his group get caught up in a power struggle between two embittered old clan leaders on an island. There’s not much in the way of plot development and the only really new thing is when the zombies finally show an inclination to eat something other than human flesh. I don’t want to spoil it too much for anyone but the phrase “So hungry I could eat a -” comes to mind.

If Night was about racial intolerance, Dawn was about consumerism, Day was about the refutation of the term “military intelligence”, Land... a metaphor for the homeless community and Diary was a look at the way information is used virally through modern technology, then perhaps Survival is making a comment about cultures clashing and heading naturally to violence rather then changing course and making peace. Oh... and lots of shuffling dead people getting gorily shot in the head... but that’s a standard factor in all these movies.

I can kind of see why this movie didn’t get a release over here... most of the protagonists are not young and the suits that decide these things probably thought that the youthful, “beautiful people” would not sit still to watch old men blasting away at each other. And they might have had less confidence that some of the little in-jokes, like a whole mess of dialogue from Sturges’ Kurosawa remake The Magnificent Seven, would fall on uncomprehending ears.

Still, there’s a lot to like in this one.

Zombie movies are rarely very scary (except REC.... that was unbelievably scary) ... and nor, more often than not, are they trying to be. They’re really just body count movies. Even so though, there was a shot in this movie which actually succeeded in making me jump and caused my heart to beat faster. Admittedly it involved a flying bird in the foreground of the shot and no zombies, but even so... scarey bird.

I, for one, would have welcomed the opportunity to see Survival of the Dead on a larger screen. Hopefully the general public’s lack of enthusiasm for this one won’t put Romero off from making another installment. Love to see those shuffling corpses making mischief!