31 Days of Fright, Day 21: Night of the Comet

Welcome to day 21 of 31 Days of Fright here at Road To The Movies! In today's episode, Gabe finds himself in the fight of his life as he struggles to describe the...

NIGHT OF THE COMET
1984
Rated PG-13

If you've stuck with me this far, you know I'm a man who seldom finds himself at a loss for words. I have something to say about damn near everything, and can usually carry on at length about even the most trivial of subjects, but as I sit here at my keyboard and consider how to articulate my feelings about the 1984 valley-girl apocalypse film Night of the Comet, I'm drawing a blank.

While I tread water and wait for my brain to throw me a lifeline, here's the setup: A comet that hasn't passed near Earth for nearly sixty-five million years (you know, back around the time the dinosaurs went extinct) is about to make an appearance, and the whole world is excited. In a plot twist only a psychic detective could predict, the comet ends up wiping out nearly everybody on Earth, leaving behind only piles of dust dressed in the latest (1984) styles. The few people smart or lucky enough to have stayed inside got a lower dose of whatever the comet was handing out, and only turn into uber-violent zombie types instead of drying into powder. The fewer still who were shielded by steel at the time (this bit comes out later) were spared entirely, and are left to deal with the psychotic freaks who didn't have the good sense to sleep inside a suit of armor. Among these lucky, lucky handful are a pair of teenage sisters who - among other things - happen to be trained from childhood in hand-to-hand combat and the use of firearms. They team up with a hispanic trucker and... But I don't want to ruin the plot for you. Let it suffice to say that an group of less-than-trustworthy scientists, a small clan of murderous stock clerks, and a disembodied disc-jockey all factor into the story at one point or another.

All right, enough stalling. I'm still not quite sure how to describe what I feel about this movie. There are some really great moments - the brief repartee between the sisters while test-firing their newly acquired submachine guns leaps to mind - and there are some really crap moments - the utterly suspenseless scene where Hector searches his mother's house, for instance - but overall, my feelings are very confused. I honestly don't know whether I love this movie, hate it, or don't care. It pulls in so many directions at the same time that I can't tell which direction I'm moving in. Maybe none at all.

This is an '80s movie, so right there I don't really know how to take it. It seems like every movie made between 1982 and 1992 was a roughly equal mix of crap and fun. I'm generalizing unfairly, of course, but I mean aside from the really big films of that era that everyone already knows about. When it comes to small, independent or low-budget movies, the '80s were a very strange time. It's obvious that everyone involved in cinema back in those days was doing a LOT of blow.

It's also an apocalypse movie, and - with very few exceptions - I love apocalypse movies. But it doesn't feel like an apocalypse movie. It feels like the apocalypse happened, but nobody in this movie noticed or cared. I think this is probably due to a lack of acting skill, but it really feels like these characters are not taking any of what's going on seriously. But is it bad acting, or is it great acting? Are the characters just that vapid? I don't know. I just don't know.

The strange shots of the red sky aftermath of the comet is a rather confusing element as well. We are treated to shot after shot of the empty city, drenched in red from whatever the comet did to the atmosphere. The problem is, the effect - while a good idea - is so damn inconsistent. All of the shots that don't show the sky are in regular light, but when we see the sky, everything is red. It's very obvious how the effect was created, but my question is, why didn't they light this movie consistently? If the sky is red and the sunlight filtering through it is red, why isn't everything red? I guess it's sort of symptomatic of how I feel about this movie as a whole. I just can't wrap my mind around it.

In the end, I feel that I liked the movie while I was watching it - I certainly never felt the desire to turn it off - but in looking back at it, I just don't know what to think. I'd like to say, If you like This Movie or That Movie then you'd love/hate Night of the Comet, but I have no freaking clue what to compare it to. A Boy and His Dog maybe? Even that feels wrong.

I guess the best I can say is that this is a movie for the curious. It's the kind of movie you should look into if you don't really know what you want to watch. Maybe it's exactly what you're looking for. Maybe it's not. And maybe, like me, you'll look back at it and say, What the hell do I even think about that?!?

5/10

-GABE


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31 Days of Fright, Day 15: Shaun of the Dead

Welcome to day 15 of 31 Days of Fright here at Road To The Movies! In today's episode, Jonathan shares a pint with...

SHAUN OF THE DEAD
2004
Rated R

So we’re halfway there, and I really wanted this one to be an epic review of an epic movie. So I decided to review my FAVORITE zombie movie of all time (yes, of all zombie movies) Shaun of the Dead. If you’ve never seen this movie, stop whatever you’re doing and go watch it right now. It’s that good.

There are many things that make this movie great, and hardly anything to complain about. The story is perfect, the acting is perfect, the gore is perfect…man, this movie is just plain perfect. Just for a little background, Shaun of the Dead is a British horror movie released by the crew responsible for Spaced (also one to check out). It’s about a man whose life is so drab and repetitive that when everyone in his neighborhood is turned to zombies, he doesn’t even notice! So we are immediately plunged into what looks like a straight up comedy. Not the case. There are moments of genuine peril and fright in this movie, and the makeup is phenomenal. The zombies are awesome looking (and quite convincing) and the gruesome death scenes are surprisingly believable. Most zombie comedies don’t put so much effort into makeup and such, because it adds so much to the comedic elements, but this movie stays authentic, which makes it even funnier.

Anybody who’s seen anything with Simon Pegg or Nick Frost knows that they’re phenomenal actors and comedians, but I saw this movie with no knowledge of that. I went to the theater simply because I was bored and I paid for and saw the first title on the board that looked interesting. That happened to be opening day for Shaun of the Dead. I had never seen Spaced and there was no Hot Fuzz or Paul to influence my decision, and I was blown away by the acting in this movie. The relationship between Simon Pegg and Nick Frost is so effortless, it flows the whole movie, and the comedy doesn’t ever feel out of place. It’s obvious these two have been working together for quite a while. Even the supporting cast is hilarious. A lot of care and time was definitely put into these characters, and it resonates on the screen. It’s not just the actors, though. The directing really pushes this movie forward. Edgar Wright has such an eye for chaos, even in the calmest of situations. Someone simply flushing the toilet or putting jam on their toast goes from a boring, everyday act to an intense work of art. This style only adds to the peril and severity of everything going on around the protagonists throughout the movie.

My favorite part of this movie, by far, is the story. It’s told flawlessly and it flows so unbelievably well. The story is genius to begin with, but they took it up another level (or five) with the foreshadowing. There are so many things hinted at in this movie, it’s almost impossible to catch them all the first time through. Sometimes you won’t get a joke or two until you watch it another two or three times. And that’s the beauty of it. It’s so insanely re-watchable. I’ve seen it about a hundred times, and I’ve never gotten sick of it. There’s always something small you missed, some little quip that pops up out of nowhere at the end, or a story that’s told at the beginning gets proven in the end. That’s what really makes a great movie, in my opinion, something that remains timeless because there’s so much to be explored.

If you’ve seen this movie, watch it again. If you haven’t, what the hell are you doing still reading this?! GO!!

10/10

-JONATHAN



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31 Days of Fright, Day 5: The Video Dead

Welcome to day 5 of 31 Days of Fright here at Road To The Movies! In today's episode, Gabe ponders whether or not Hollywood has the guts to take on...

THE VIDEO DEAD
1987
Rated R

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I go into every movie wanting to like it. When I step into a theater or hit PLAY on my remote, I do my level best to open my mind and approach whatever movie I happen to be watching with the attitude, This could be the best movie I’ve ever seen. Granted, it’s not always easy.

We’re told from earliest childhood, Never judge a book by its cover, but even if we have to lie to everyone else, let’s not lie to ourselves; sometimes you can just tell a movie is going to be a steaming pile. This is especially true when it comes to horror. I’ll admit, there are some great low-budget horror movies out there with covers that would make a Troma fanboy blush, but if I had a dollar for all of them that I’ve found, I probably couldn’t afford to buy one of them - not retail, anyway.

Case-in-point: The Video Dead. Look at that cover. Doesn’t it just scream, Quality? No. No, it doesn’t. It screams, 90 minutes of your life you’ll wish you could get back, or something more to that effect. At the same time, the optimist in me screams back, But remember The Dead Next-Door? Or Gamebox 1.0? You love those movies! This could be that rare gem, that diamond hidden within a lump of coal! You just never know!

And he’s right. I don’t know. I won’t know until I watch it. So I do.

Dammit!

The agonizing truth of this movie is that it’s not a total deuce. If it had been I could have turned it off after the first 30 minutes and saved myself the heartbreak, but there were some genuinely fun moments in this film, and that’s why I feel so betrayed.

Quick setup of The Video Dead: There’s a haunted TV. It gets delivered to a house by mistake. Zombies come out of the TV and kill the homeowner. Three months later, a couple living overseas buys the house, sight-unseen, and their adult-teen children move in without them. The zombies return (From where? Don’t ask.). All hell breaks loose.

Actually, that last one is a bit misleading. It would be more accurate to say that all hell thinks about breaking loose, creeps around a bit, breaks a little loose, then reigns it in, then creeps some more, then breaks a little more loose, then breaks fully loose, then reigns it in again before breaking loose, creeping, breaking, reigning, creeping, breaking, creeping, and breaking one last time. Needless to say, all hell doesn’t really seem to know what the hell it wants to do.

And that’s really the crux of my complaint here. Despite some really wonderful and original zombie elements (EXAMPLE: The zombies have a sense of humor, and think it’s the height of comedy to kill people and leave their bodies in degrading and/or mildly comic positions.) the story has absolutely no sense of structure or pacing. Once people die, they’re dead, but that’s about as much logic and structure as there is to be found. The final confrontation is sort of brilliant in concept, but is so poorly executed that it ends up falling flat, most – if not all – of the tension drained from it by bad acting and poor scene structure.

Oh, and I know it’s really just the whiniest of complaints, but if you’re going to load up a film with bad actors, is it too much to ask that they be at least mildly attractive? I mean, what motivation are you giving me to keep watching? The great writing?

I don’t want to end this review having illuminated all the flaws of this movie, but paid little attention to its virtues, so allow me to point out a few bright spots to be seen along the way.

The zombie makeup is pretty darn good. You can tell they were trying hard to create iconic zombies in the vein of Fulci’s worm-eyed zombie or Day of the Dead’s Bub, and had the movie been a little better, they would probably have succeeded. The word ick seems quite appropriate here, and for a zombie film, that’s a good thing.

There was also a lot of originality floating around in this one. Zombies that – for once – don’t give a crap about eating their victims; zombies with a weakness other than their brains; a zombie hunter who acts tough, but is arguably more inept than the teens he's trying to rescue; and (as already discussed) zombies with a warped sense of humor all beg the question, Why couldn’t a writer/director with some actual talent have taken a crack at this instead? Oh well. Maybe in a perfect world.

I’m going to end this review with a challenge. Hey, Hollywood! I’m talkin’ to you! You wanna churn out nothing but remakes? Fine. Here’s one for you. I’ve always said that there’s only 1 reason to remake a movie, and that’s when the writer/director/producer (or some variant thereof) just screwed the pooch and didn’t do justice to what could have been a really great movie. The Video Dead is that movie. The ball’s in your court, Hollywood. Thrill me!

4/10

-GABE


Thanks for riding along! Be sure to click on the banner below to check out our YouTube channel, where you can watch our videos, "like" them, subscribe to the channel, leave a comment or a question, or even suggest a movie for future review. And don't forget to check back every day in October for a new installment in our 31 Days of Fright!