The World's End (2013)

"Five friends who reunite in an attempt to top their epic pub crawl from 20 years earlier unwittingly become humankind's only hope for survival."

Since I've been discovering far too many good movies recently, rather than tempt fate to throw a load of bad ones my way, I decided to redress the balance with a day of more torture than one person should ever have to endure. There may be no power on Earth which could ever get me to rewatch "Shaun of the Dead" (2004), but I finally watched "Hot Fuzz" (2007) and followed it up with "The World's End". Such a heroic act has to keep karma quiet for a while, doesn't it?

Although I can freely admit that I enjoyed "Hot Fuzz" almost until the end, I only did so as it was a kind of half-way house between the greatness of "Men Behaving Badly" (the British version) and the smarmy creepiness of Mitchell and Webb's "Peep Show" to prepare me for worse to come. Laddish comedy is so '90s and over now that movies such as "The Cornetto Trilogy" (or whatever the Hell these are called) are little more than throwbacks. I liked Olivia Colman's character, was amazed at how realistic Simon Pegg was as a far too politically correct cop, but the running gag with the swan stole the show. Let's face it, "Hot Fuzz" is only a comedic homage to "The Wicker Man" with a couple of lovely gore scenes anyway. Adam Buxton wearing a piece of church as a head is memorable, but nothing else.

I don't know what it is about the combination of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (with Edgar Wright as the director) which irritates me so much. It's not as if any of them owe me money or something; I just have a completely irrational loathing of them based on their movies. Thus, as you can imagine, I really wasn't looking forward to "The World's End"—even the title gave away that it was going to be yet another pub-centric fiasco which isn't funny—but surprisingly, I wasn't dead set against it either. If anything, my pre-movie mood could be described as hesitantly curious.

The thing you have to remember is that I have absolutely no sense of humour. It just doesn't exist for me in any kind of "laughing out loud" way, so I tend to watch comedies as dramas and note the wit, stunts, or happy endings which would place the subject matter in the correct category. When it comes to comedy, I'm 100% objective because I have no physical way of being subjective about it. For that reason, I can say everything that I need to say about "The World's End" in a few quick paragraphs.

Stop reading now if you don't want spoilers!

"This is a pub! We are in a pub! What are we going to do now?"

"The World's End" is very good indeed for the first 40 minutes. It's nicely filmed, the backstory is well told as an introduction, the characterisation is decent, the location is perfectly British, and several recognisable TV faces make everything comfortable. The witty banter reveals that the former bad boy hero is now a bit of a dick, his friends are easily led, and they're all uncommonly stupid, but it's aimiable enough. Sadly, everything goes horribly wrong when the first robots (or "blanks") appear. The whole mood of the film is killed in one fell swoop and never recovers afterwards.

What would have been better as a straightforward comedy about the reunion of old schoolfriends who reveal their secrets and discover a few more during a pub crawl then turns into a stupid parody of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"! WTF? WTF indeed! It's a pity that "Shaun of the Dead" already covered zombies because aliens are too far-fetched and ridiculous to be entertaining for me. I don't believe in aliens, I'm not even sure that there's intelligent life left on this planet, let alone anywhere else in the universe, and if there's one thing which will make me switch the channel on the TV instantly, it's anything about aliens. Unfortunately, you can't do the same thing in a movie theatre, and walking out wastes $12.

After a few text-speak jokes, the second-half of "The World's End" is a bunch of repetitive fight scenes which become extremely tedious by the third or fourth time they happen. There are, after all, only so many robot arms and legs you can pull off or eggshell heads you can crush before the action scenes fall into the same trap as the running-joke about "Starbucking" and identical-looking pubs. Needless to say, the carefully crafted characters are lost among the spectacle of effects and explosions, some of them physically. What a shame.

As I'm not down with the kids, I don't know if Pierce Brosnan's cameo is meant to be a special secret or a selling point, but either way, you know about it now. His former "Die Another Day" Bond-girl Rosamund Pike is on the alternative posters, so you already know that she's in this and is just as easy on the eye 11 years later. She doesn't have a very big role either, but ironically, she's on screen more than Pierce Brosnan in this movie.

Maybe if I had been as drunk as the characters were supposed to be, "The World's End" might been more entertaining, but I didn't completely hate it. Despite easily being the second weakest of the three Pegg-Frost-Wright movies and ending with a half-arsed swipe at our de-humanising reliance on modern technology, I'm sure comedy fans would get something out of it. It's simply a film of two halves—and twelve pints—which, just like this review, isn't very well written. That shitty ending which I'm sure everyone thought would be so clever is still too rushed, disappointing and unsatisfying for everyone except the characters themselves though. Stupidly, I expected more.

Placing the three movies in order of merit, I can now rate "Shaun of the Dead" as the weakest with 1 out of 10, "The World's End" gets 3 out of 10, and "Hot Fuzz" is the best of a bad lot with 4 out of 10. Thank God, I will never have to watch any of them again.

"I know all about you - sex for dinner, death for breakfast"

VIDEOCLUB Official Trailer (English Subs)

An apocalyptic movie from Pablo Illanes - the director of "Baby Shower" (2011).

"January, 1992. Miguel Jimenez (Pedro Campos) is an 18 years old movie geek. Sexually inexperienced, he works at his neighborhood's video store. During the hottest summer in history, Miguel falls in love with Daniela (Luciana Echeverría), a mysterious girl searching for Andrei Tarkovski's "Stalker" VHS. After a outbreak of violence and mayhem than explodes in his neighborhood, Miguel has to look for help in the only shelter he knows, safe from the violent breed that scream along the streets: the video store World Sensations."

[REC] 4 Apocalypse posters revealed!

Los Últimos Días (2013)

"2013. A mysterious epidemic spreads across the planet. Humanity develops an irrational fear of open spaces that causes instant death. Soon, the world population is trapped inside buildings."

It's taken me almost a week to get through this Spanish sci-fi adventure, but don't let that put you off because it's not a bad one! For a number of reasons in real life including the heat and babysitting someone else's three cats, I just couldn't get into this movie as much as I wanted to.

Having finished it only a few minutes ago, I don't think we have a classic here, but "Los Últimos Días" (which you don't need to be an Einstein to translate as "The Last Days") is another competent apocalyptic fantasy from David and Àlex Pastor. As a similarly themed but totally unrelated follow-up to "Carriers" (2009), the generic plot is, once again, more concerned with separations and reunions than anything too cerebral, although if you like this subgenre as much as I do, you'll be pleased with it overall.

Starring Quim Gutiérrez (yes, that really is his name!) as Marc Delgado, and José Coronado from "The Body" (2012) as Enrique his companion, "Los Últimos Días" is nicely acted but very reminiscent of "The Happening" (2008) at times. With no reason given (but some ecological ones suggested along the way) for why the world's human population has started to drop dead from agoraphobia, our heroes' quest isn't for answers or a cure however, but mainly to reunite Marc with his girlfriend Julia.

Rather than being sci-fi per se, the story is set in the present and plays out as a kind of one-sided ancient Greek novel with various problems for the protagonists to overcome. Despite frequent flashbacks, the focus is on the male-bonding between Marc and Enrique in ways which shamelessly homage "The Edge" (1997) while being completely different in intention. I'm not going to spoil it for you, but one scene and its aftermath is a very recognisable borrowing.

To offset the clichéd sausagefest, female eyecandy is mostly provided by gorgeous Marta Etura from "Sleep Tight" (2011) as Julia. Unfortunately, she has very little screen time compared to the importance of her character. To compensate, the two or three fans of "[REC]³ Génesis" (2012) will be pleased to see Leticia Dolera as Julia's friend Andrea, especially as she briefly gets to kick ass again!

Beards are very popular in Spain.

The rest of the cast is comprised of Spanish TV actors (mostly from soaps and miniseries) which is de rigueur with these Barcelona-based productions. Spain is now as guilty of overusing their limited supply of actors and actresses as much as Australia, but I'm willing to let that slide. I've recently become very biased in favour of Spanish movies due to their consistently beautiful cinematography and solid characterisation which makes everything in modern American movies look cheap, soulless and amateur.

As most of the claustrophic action takes place in tunnels, sewers, and stairwells, the balance between unrealistic sources of light and being too dark to see what's going on is handled perfectly. There's none of the Zippo lighter being able to illuminate a whole room nonsense here, and bless them, our heroes even mention that trope and find an inventive way around it! There's not a great deal of humour, but there's a lot of such wittiness in the dialogue if you're open to it.

The make-up/wardrobe crew are also to be congratulated for making Marc and Enrique look progressively and realistically filthier. That's the thing here though; there's so much realism that the ridiculousness of their situation can almost be forgotten. Further attention to detail in the set dressing certainly helps to make everything more epic, and it's only a couple of CGI-enhanced views of the city outside which ever give away the modest, non-Hollywood budget.

Inevitably, for all of its good points, "Los Últimos Días" is still not without a few lapses in logic and some blatant contrivances, but it's very easy to willingly suspend your disbelief and just enjoy the ride. Thus, I have no problem with recommending "Los Últimos Días" as a rental or even a purchase once it gets an official US release. At the moment, the only version available is an overpriced Blu-ray import, so you may want to wait for a while.

The Colony (2013)

"Forced underground by the next ice age, a struggling outpost of survivors must fight to preserve humanity against a threat even more savage than nature."

If you're Canadian, I'm sure you saw "The Colony" (and hated it!) when it was released theatrically back in April. It's not due to be released in the US for another four weeks, and it'll be October before it's available on DVD and Blu-ray. As usual, the pirates have already leaked it online, and it doesn't take much to find it on any of the major video streaming sites. Shame on you, pirates, but thank you too.

One thing which really aggravates movie reviewers is how some areas get to see movies before others. Even more irritating is the privileged clique of usually sycophantic movie reviewers who get access to new movies and can write their spoiler-laden critiques before anyone has even heard of the movie that they've written about. Such is the case with "The Colony" as it already has over 30 external reviews on its IMDb page, and it isn't even officially out yet!

Even some online Canadian friends of mine hadn't heard of "The Colony" before I mentioned it, yet it has a ton of negative reviews surrounding it for no apparent reason other than it was partially funded by Telefilm (or the Canadian equivalent to the BBC) and people feel that their taxes were wasted on it. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about the name of the company and their level of involvement because I only skimmed those reviews for obvious reasons.

The thing is, I enjoyed "The Colony" and have no reason to hate it whatsoever.

"I say we grease this rat-fuck son-of-a-bitch right now."

Okay, so "The Colony" is only "The Day After Tomorrow" (2004) with feral human cannibals in it, and superficially, it has a bit of a "28 Days Later" (2002) and "30 Days of Night" (2007) vibe to it as well, but there has never been an original Canadian movie in the entire history of movies, so it's nothing to get too upset about. In every case of a Canadian horror movie that I've ever seen in my life, all they've done is take three or four existing movies and mix them together with a big stick and some maple syrup.

Owing to the fact that I did read some of the review headlines accidentally, I will agree with the majority opinion that Bill Paxton is mostly wasted in his role as a power-hungry asshole, but he's still Bill Paxton, and he's awesome anyway. Laurence Fishburne also doesn't get to do a lot except for one very important action—an overused trope which is one of my biggest pet peeves in any American action movie ever—but again, Laurence Fishburne is still cool and always will be (apart from "Predators" which is best forgotten about). These two stars add some class to a movie otherwise filled with "no-name" TV actors, although to be fair, a few of us have heard of Kevin Zegers because of "Wrong Turn" (2003) and "Frozen" (2010).

I've never heard of Charlotte Sullivan before, but now that I've seen her—noting that she looks like a hybrid of Melissa George and Avril Lavigne—I wouldn't mind seeing a lot more of her. Yes, a pretty girl can save almost any movie that I watch, and I really am that shallow. She's a very good actress, and her chameleon-like ability to resemble so many other known actresses will surely help her career enormously. She doesn't have the biggest part in "The Colony", but her performance is nothing to be ashamed of.

Not Melissa George or Avril Lavigne when you get up close.

Cinematography-wise, "The Colony" looks fantastic. It was all filmed around an abandoned NORAD base in North Bay, Ontario, Canada, so the location is everything. It certainly looks the part, unlike some of the jarring CGI-effects and Dru Viergever who plays the feral leader as a pointy-teethed escapee from one of the "Mad Max" films.

Yes, I had to go there, and having gone there, I am now forced to mention the ever multiplying ferals who create all the lapses in logic possible. Breeding in bizarre numbers according to how many are needed in each scene is the least of their problems. How and why adults would turn en masse into cannibalistic maniacs who've lost the power of speech over presumably only ten years is a plot hole which doesn't even bear thinking about. Sometimes you just have to take things for what they are and ignore the lack of realism if you want to enjoy an action movie. At least it doesn't suffer from the magically reloading guns nonsense.

There's definitely plenty of action and a surprising amount of gore in "The Colony" which pleased me no end and is sure to please you. Having watched the movie cold (no pun intended but still acknowledged), I thought it was just going to be a predictable sci-fi movie about survivors in a frozen apocalyptic future such as a short story I read many years ago in one of the "Mammoth Books of New Horror" (sorry, I've forgotten the name of it, but it's not the Tim Lebbon one!), so I was extremely happy when the ferals appeared. Some of the scenes are rushed, but not enough to matter. You can forget about suspense or scares though because it's not really that kind of horror movie.

I'm going to rate "The Colony" as average, although it becomes a lot less than average once you factor in the $16,000,000 budget and wonder what it was spent on. There's been no big marketing campaign or buzz about this movie, so I really can't see how it cost that much to make a Canadian sci-fi/action adventure in the first place. I thought filming was supposed to be cheaper over the border even if you have some famous names attached.

I'll probably buy "The Colony" when it comes out on DVD, but I suggest seeing it theatrically (if you can), or as a VOD or Redbox rental, before going for a blind buy. If you like "The Day After Tomorrow" and "30 Days of Night", this is almost a sequel to the former and a half-way house to the latter. It's not very original, but it's not as bad as some people want you to believe.

World War Z (2013)

"United Nations employee Gerry Lane traverses the world in a race against time to stop the Zombie pandemic that is toppling armies and governments, and threatening to destroy humanity itself."

It's not often that a Summer movie is so boring that I can barely bring myself to write a review of it, but "World War Z" has easily earned that dubious honour for this year. I'm not so secretly still hoping that someone will announce how the movie is meant to be a high-brow meta-parody of the zombie subgenre just so that I can stop feeling disgusted with myself for wasting two hours on this utter shite. Given its lack of tension or scares, the unintentional laughs which certain scenes are likely to provoke suggest that has to be some multi-million dollar trolling, right?

Very loosely based on a novel by Max Brooks which I've never heard of and have no intention of reading, "World War Z" is little more than several CGI-fuelled action set pieces (which are given away in the trailer) padded out with a whole lot of nothing else. Fundamentally, it's a big-budget attempt to cash-in on the success of "The Walking Dead" and all the other apocalyptic-virus/zombie movies which sheep-like teenagers have ironically bought into.

The running zombies from "28 Days Later" (which I also loathe) are back again, but this time they have a hive-mind like ants or the numpties who waste all day posting on Reddit. That, in itself, should give "World War Z" a minor claim to originality except not really. If you ever watched a certain episode of "The Burning Zone" TV series back in the day, the concept of a sentient virus has been done before but better. It's not exactly a new idea. Philosophers have been speculating about this very thing, vis-à-vis mankind's relationship to the planet, for centuries.

The other big difference between "World War Z" and the thousands of zombie clones already in existence is that this movie is appropriately named as a cure for insomnia. I assume once again that the "Z" is meant to be some kind of in-joke about sending the audience to sleep rather than standing for "zombies" or Z-grade which it most certainly is.

Glasgow has become so Americanised!

Contrivances abound such as using the liability of an asthmatic kid to bring Brad Pitt's character into a direct, street level confrontation with the world gone mad, but the worst part of the "adventure" (for that is what it is) is the wild goose chase all over the world to find the answer to how the outbreak started. It serves no purpose other than to show zombies running amok in more countries.

As with every Summer movie, there's lots of gunfire, vertigo-inducing aerial shots, huge explosions (including the obligatory exploding helicopter and a plane crash), and it's all very loud. Unfortunately, even with the mid-range turned up to deafen everyone, Brad Pitt is still a mumbler, the African actor who plays his United Nations boss has an accent that's almost impenetrable, and the lack of characterisation means that nobody cares what anyone is saying anyway. Apparently, the actors were told to improvise their own dialogue, and it shows badly. Just a minor quibble, but isn't this why movies have writers?

With its predominantly blue, green and beige palette, and no bright red blood or gore to get excited about, "World War Z" is particularly bland visually. The camerawork is awful, some scenes are way too dark, and the quick cuts in the action scenes mean that its impossible to tell who is doing what to who. The fact that so little time is spent on characters who randomly appear only to disappear again just as quickly render the whole movie emotionally inert so why would you even care in the first place?

Characterisation is actually so flat that if you aren't looking out for it, you're unlikely to catch the name of Brad Pitt's character let alone anyone else's. It's Gerry, by the way, but I couldn't tell you the names of his wife or children despite the story pointlessly cutting back and forth to them onboard an aircraft carrier. Whoever his ginger-haired wife is, she doesn't do anything except look mopey and hug her greasy-haired brats so what's the point of her? Gingers have no souls anyway and neither does whoever made this horrible movie. Ah yes, it's Marc Forster, the same guy who made the equally unwatchable "Quantum of Solace". Case proven.

I could bitch about "World War Z" all day, but I'm not going to. Nine paragraphs is more than enough to critique a boring, PG-13 rated zombie movie which wouldn't even be worthy of the SyFy channel if Brad Pitt wasn't involved in it. Forget the 3D gimmick too, it's a waste of the extra $3 which you could use to buy a DVD of a real horror movie meant for adults instead.

Although I could have summed-up "World War Z" in one four-letter word with an optional seven-letter expletive preceding it, I'll leave it with an even better three-letter word:

Meh.

The Darkest Hour (2011)

"In Moscow, five young people lead the charge against an alien race who have attacked Earth."

This movie was recommended to me last year by some of my Russian friends on Twitter presumably because it was filmed in Moscow. Having seen it taunting me on Wal-mart's shelves for at least the last four months, I finally decided to watch it.

I'm going to make this very quick since "The Darkest Hour" wasn't a horror movie and, even worse than that, it was a PG-13 rated piece of sci-fi instead.

I didn't completely hate it but, since the director. Chris Gorak, was also responsible for the very overrated "Right at Your Door" (2006) which my local pawn shop has acquired about 20 copies of, I didn't expect much of it to begin with. I didn't know that Timur Bekamambetov was a producer, but, if I had known, it would have lowered my expectations even further after suffering through that crappy "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" earlier this year.

As a rather kiddie-friendly, CGI aliens-filled, action-adventure, "The Darkest Hour" was a bit of a change from the usual gory stuff I watch. I had nothing better to watch this Saturday either so it was time to crack open another Monster and just let my brain rot for a while. The Monster wasn't to keep me alert, but it was necessary to prevent me from nodding off completely during this rather safe and predictable story.

From left to right in the picture above: Joel Kinnaman played Skylar, Rachael Taylor was Anne, Emile Hirsch was Sean, Max Minghella was Ben, and Olivia Thirlby (who is in the new "Dredd" movie) was Natalie. Do you recognise any of them? No? I'm not surprised.

The only member of the cast who I recognised was Rachael Taylor. She played Jane in the remake of "Shutter" (2008). If you've read my review of "Shutter" then you'll know that I liked her a lot in it. Unfortunately, I found her true Australian accent to be horribly jarring and discordant in "The Darkest Hour". She's great to look at, but I never want to hear her speak again.

As for the rest of the actors, they were all underused but very good in their roles. I've got a feeling that they all have quite successful TV careers because they had that look about them, but I swear to you that I'd never heard of any of them before. Even looking through their credits on the IMDb didn't help because I don't remember watching anything they've ever been in. One of the Russian soldier-type guys looked familiar, but I couldn't place him. I'm only joking. He was, of course, Ignat in Timur Bekmambetov's "Night Watch" and "Day Watch" movies. He was quite unrecognisable though, and it was bizarre to hear him speak English.

The actress who stood out the most was a fifteen-year-old Russian called Veronika Vernadskaya who played Vika. For some reason, Emile Hirsch kept calling her Viga (with a "g" instead of a "k") which threw me almost as much as hearing Moscow being repeatedly mispronounced as Mos-cow (mooo!). Veronika Vernadskaya didn't have a lot to do, but she did it well and will undoubtedly be a big star one day if she stays away from any more of these PG-13 sci-fi movies.

Another Russian with a small but important role was Dato Bakhtadze as the slightly eccentric electrician who devised a way to defeat the aliens using a homemade microwave gun. Allegedly, he was previously in "Wanted" (2008) and "Chernaya Molniya" (2009), but I don't remember him from either. I also only mention the plot point about the microwave gun because, basically, it was as stupid as something out of "Doctor Who" and I loathe "Doctor Who".

I'm not going to spoil it for you by telling you what it was, but the motivation of the alien invaders was pretty lame. "The Darkest Hour" would have been a brilliant horror movie if the aliens had come to eat people in some kind of intergalactic harvest instead. I know that story has been done to death too, but, given the great production values in this film, it was a shame to waste any of them on such childish drivel.

I like a lot of real Russian movies so it was nice to see Moscow in a movie again, and it was a very welcome change to see another part of the world being destroyed by aliens rather than New York or Los Angeles. It would have been even nicer if "The Darkest Hour" had used a completely Russian cast and hadn't relied on some stereotypical Yanks who nobody has ever heard of to play the main protagonists, but at least the Russians in the movie were the ones who really saved the day.

For a PG-13 sci-fi movie which I watched on a rainy, Saturday afternoon, "The Darkest Hour" held my interest, was fairly exciting in a couple of places, and I grudgingly recommend it to anyone who can look past the overused "apocalyptic alien invasion" scenario or "Buffy"-style CGI death scenes.

Mulberry Street (2006)

"A deadly infection breaks out in Manhattan, causing humans to devolve into blood-thirsty rat creatures. Six recently evicted tenants must survive the night and protect their downtown apartment building as the city quickly spirals out of control."

I'd actually watched this before when it came out but wrote it off as being just another slightly below average apocalyptic virus film and didn't make it to the end.

The rat-creatures were just ridiculous and could have been zombies for all that they really contributed to originality of the story. They didn't look all that good but then none of "Mulberry Street" was all that aesthetically pleasing anyway.

If you like this grainy, low-budget style of filmmaking then I'm sure you'll get more out of "Mulberry Street" than I did. It was just too much like "YouTube" with far too many moles, freckles, scars and wrinkles on display which made me feel more nauseated than entertained especially after seeing how much Bo Corre had aged since she was once the uber hot Swede in "Eldorado" back in the day.

The biggest problem though was that the last half-hour was a chaotic mess which I'm sure was intentional but didn't help much with any attachment I was feeling for the characters. It was a shame really as the characterisation started really well and then sort of just gave up in favour of poor special effects and hard to follow action sequences.

With only a few days to go before Netflix remove this from their "Watch Instantly" section, you should watch it again now (as I did) before it's too late. "Mulberry Street" is probably not something that you'd ever buy unless it was part of some kind of multi-pack.

28 Days Later (2002)

"Four weeks after a mysterious, incurable virus spreads throughout the UK, a handful of survivors try to find sanctuary."

Okay, I've often said that I'd write a review of "28 Days Later" before now but never got round to it owing to the fact that it's one of my least favourite movies in the horror genre. Having rewatched it, let me tell you why I dislike the film so much.

Back in the 1970's, Terry Nation created the ultimate post-apocalyptic TV series for the BBC called "Survivors". I used to watch this show religiously as a child along with "Blake's 7". I can't say that I was ever really into Sci-Fi but Terry Nation was "the man" back in the day and everything he had a hand in became a hit.

"Survivors" was about the aftermath of a virus being accidentally unleashed which killed most of the world's population. It focused on a small group of British survivors (obviously) who were trying to rebuild civilisation against all the odds. It ran for four seasons.

In 1981, the BBC realised that people needed another post-apocalyptic survivors story and decided to make their own six part adaptation of John Wyndham's "The Day of the Triffids". Again, this was appointment television for me and I loved every minute of it.

As a teenager, my viewing habits turned from television to movies, and I filled-up on everything from "Night of the Living Dead" to "Night of the Comet". I think, by the end of the '80s, I was pretty much done with post-apocalyptic movies even though there was still something very appealing about wishing that something would wipe out most of the idiots on the planet but spare me so that I could play with all the toys they left behind. I'm sure that I'm not the only one who thought like that otherwise none of these films would ever have been made.

I think you'll guess where I'm going with this.

When "28 Days Later" was released in 2002 (in Britain), I had already seen so many films and TV series dealing with the same subject matter that I wasn't overly impressed.

The start of "28 Days Later" reminded me far too much of "The Day of the Triffids" although little did I know that there was an American comic book being released at the same time which did exactly the same thing called "The Walking Dead" (which is now a TV series itself). Who copied who or if it was purely a coincidence, doesn't matter matter to me. As far as I'm concerned they both borrowed heavily from existing stories. The bottom line is that there was nothing original here.

Another reason why I didn't like "28 Days Later" was how it was filmed. Although I loved "This Life", the constantly moving camera technique was annoying and made the film feel cheap to me. Quick cuts during the action scenes almost threw me completely out of the story and I also could quite happily have done without ever seeing Cillian Murphy's little willy or bare backside. Even with the NHS being as bad as it is, I still don't believe that a coma patient would be left naked.

Basically, whenever I think of "28 Day Later" all I can think of is Cillian Murphy's bizarrely inconsistent character, Jim, and that, in spite of cleverly making Britain look as if a plague had completely destroyed civilisation, I can't get past how much it looks like a straight-to-video movie rather than a theatrical release.

Now, I'll give credit where it's due. Danny Boyle actually did a really good job with "28 Days Later" especially as he limited the special effects and focused more on the characters. For some people that might be boring and, to be honest, there are a couple of moments where you can feel the story lagging which is only to be expected considering the length of the film. Jump scares abound though so it's never entirely possible to relax even during the quieter scenes.

"28 Days Later" succeeds where so many other movies of its type fail because you are never allowed to forget that a fast-running Rage victim might suddenly pop-up out of nowhere and bite one of the people you are starting to care about.

One quite original touch was that it's not the whole world that has been destroyed by the Rage virus but just Britain. Yes, this is a spoiler but the twist, if you can describe it as such, is that Britain has been quarantined. The whole section with the soldiers at the end thus takes on a much more sinister aspect. I knew that that they weren't to be trusted right from the beginning but when the revelation came, I was quietly pleased by its cleverness.

But, even though the good points such as the acting, the familiar faces who have all been in or gone on to greater things since, and the setting itself make up considerably for the story's unoriginality, there's still one thing which bugs me about "28 Days Later". It isn't horrific enough.

I think by now you all know that I'm quite a sick puppy and I love to see as much splatter, torture and screaming for mercy as possible in the movies that I watch. This is where the subjective element comes in. For me, "28 Days Later" is very much a comic book adventure rather than real survival horror. Although there are undoubtedly some nicely visceral kills, I need to see more people getting ripped to shreds and crying for their mamas. It's all rather sparse.

There aren't any obvious displays of grief anywhere in this film either, even from the little girl whose father is shot to pieces in front of her, and I found that very unrealistic. Even if you argue that all the characters are in a state of shock and stay that way throughout their ordeal, I don't buy that for a second. It was simply bad writing. Cillian Murphy's character is so consistently inconsistent that he is an even weaker link than Christopher Ecclestone poshing up his accent and trying to portray a madman. Dialogue, character motivation, and basically any attempt at realistic responses are sadly lacking throughout the film.

I also have to say something about the "zombies". The Rage victims are, as stated in the film itself, just people. I know many people refer to them as zombies but, technically, they aren't. They are still alive until they starve to death which is something that George Romero's "ghouls" never seem to do. Their appearance is gruesome for sure and you wouldn't want to encounter one in real life but they aren't scary to me. There are no bits hanging out of them like the zombies you are used to and their red-eyes and spastic movements are almost comical if you look at it the wrong way. It's like a load of rioting football hooligans got unleashed on the world and there's nothing scary about that as long as you've got a baseball bat to beat them to death with.

I'm still torn over whether or not to include "28 Days Later" in the Vault as it just seems rather average to me. I know that the film has its fans (though there are less of them for the sequel) but I'm not one of them.

Objectively, judged on its own merits, "28 Days Later" is a very good film with enough to hold your attention all the way to the end but it still has major flaws. Also objectively, when compared to the other films that it borrows from, "28 Days Later" actually improves on their stories too without actually being all that different.

Stake Land (2010)

"Martin was a normal teenage boy before the country collapsed in an empty pit of economic and political disaster. A vampire epidemic has swept across what is left of the nation's abandoned towns and cities, and it's up to Mister, a death dealing, rogue vampire hunter, to get Martin safely north to Canada, the continent's New Eden."

With only two days left until "Stake Land" is released on DVD and Blu-ray, I thought I'd better write a review of it so that you can all rush out and get yourself a copy, or not, as the case may be.

"Stake Land" is yet another in a long line of post-apocalyptic road movies. Usually they come brimming with zombies or crazy people but this time we're really lucky and get both. There's a slight variation in that the zombies in "Stake Land" are called vampires but, even though they have fangs, they still look very much like zombies to me.

I'll be completely blunt about this, "Stake Land" is no more a vampire movie than "The Last Man on Earth". If you are expecting transformations into bats, immortals moaning about their longevity, or even glitter, this is not the film for you. These guys are more like a fusion of the feral Klingon-speakers from "30 Days of Night" and the running Rage-zombies from "28 Days Later". There's no humanity left to them at all except, of course, when there are "mutations". Yeah, the backstory tries to be far too complicated for its own good.

Added to this there are a bunch of religious zealots running around who believe that the vampires were sent by God. The social commentary, if that's what it is, has a good swipe at these "Christian" fanatics who are trying to control everybody. I see no Christianity in this "Brotherhood" though because I'm not stupid enough to buy into the film's prejudices. I'm sure less discerning viewers will be more in on the "joke" even if it's yet another clichéd stereotype among so many others in this movie.

Battling against these so-called vampires and nutjobs are a bunch of people you've never heard of plus Kelly McGillis as a nun and Danielle Harris with her eyebrow. Well, to be fair, Danielle Harris couldn't really be in the film without it. She's made more unattractive with a load of padding because her character is supposed to be pregnant. Yuck. No sexy stuff in this film then.

The hero, if I can even call him that, is some teenage kid called Martin (played by Connor Paolo) who is beyond irritating. I have no idea whether it's because of the lack of acting ability or if the character is just intentional awkward but his uselessness will get on your nerves. Having him be the narrator of the film was a poor choice too as it's sometimes hard to tell what the mumbler is saying. It took me until a signpost with graffiti on it appeared later in the film to realise that his older (and more traditionally heroic) vampire-slaying partner was actually named "Mister" and not "Lister" (like Craig Charles' character from "Red Dwarf") as I thought the kid had called him.

Nick Damici plays the aforementioned vampire slayer which is no surprise since the role is not much more than an even surlier version of his character from "Mulberry Street" (2006) which was, of course, another apocalyptic-style movie. The similarities are obvious and intentional as both movies were directed by Jim Mickle.

I'm not sure what to make of Jim Mickle as a director yet. He seems to do a hell-of-a-lot on a small budget but suffers from "Stephen King syndrome" by killing off characters you like and not being able to do endings. The stupid ending of "Stake Land", which I'm not going to spoil for you, was very disappointing. For me, it was such an anticlimax.

Gorehounds (how I hate that term) will undoubtedly love "Stake Land" for all the practical effects and gruesome make-up. There's enough blood and guts to satisfy anyone even if they aren't the mythical slobbering dogs of horror fandom. I'm sure we need a new expression for the kind of people who enjoy gruesome squishiness in horror movies other than the overused "gorehound" as I've yet to encounter anyone with an IQ that low but I'll save that rant for another time. I'm sure there really are some people who will buy this film just for the effects or the kills and couldn't care less about the story.

That's the problem with films of this type. Usually nobody cares about the characters except for the writers as it's all melodrama. I honestly believe that a lot more effort was put into the characterisation in "Stake Land" than in most horror movies but it wasn't enough. There are still a few moments later on involving the return of the bad guy which jump the shark and ruin it all. There's even a disposable black character trope which was just laziness and completely unnecessary.

"Stake Land" is as derivative and formulaic as can be but it's still an enjoyable film because it's played straight. There's no comic relief at all which I think is to be applauded. Although some people might argue that "Stake Land" takes itself too seriously, I disagree. Horror shouldn't ever be comedy. The two elements need a lot of skill to mix well and, nearly every time somebody tries to do it, horror-comedies end up being neither one thing or the other. It's a refreshing change to actually have a real, albeit very generic, horror movie again.

I'm rating "Stake Land" as just average even though I enjoyed all the action in it, it looked good and I almost cared about the characters. It's a very worthy effort but there was nothing here that I haven't seen done before too many times. If you haven't seen a lot of horror films, you could do a lot worse than watch this one.

It's not the end of the world

Ok, so presumably we are all still here for now and nothing happened. Did you really believe that anybody would vanish yesterday or zombies would rise from their graves? Disappointing, wasn't it?

Since I'm still in the mood, here's a list of my "Top Five Post-Apocalypse Movies".


1) Dawn of the Dead (2004)



"A nurse, a policeman, a young married couple, a salesman, and other survivors of a worldwide plague that is producing aggressive, flesh-eating zombies, take refuge in a mega Midwestern shopping mall."

I actually prefer Zack Snyder's remake of "Dawn of the Dead" over the original.


2) 28 Days Later (2002)



"Four weeks after a mysterious, incurable virus spreads throughout the UK, a handful of survivors try to find sanctuary."

Although I can't stand Cillian Murphy, this was one of the best post-apocalyptic movies until "The Walking Dead" hit our TV screens last year.


3) Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)



"Survivors of the Raccoon City catastrophe travel across the Nevada desert, hoping to make it to Alaska. Alice joins the caravan and their fight against the evil Umbrella Corp."

It may be based on a computer game but you can't fault all the action or Milla Jovovich in this one.


4) Night of the Comet (1984)



"A comet wipes out most of life on Earth, leaving two Valley Girls to fight the evil types who survive."

Partly a guilty pleasure but still one of the best sci-fi horror movies from the '80s.


5) The Book of Eli (2010)



"A post-apocalyptic tale, in which a lone man fights his way across America in order to protect a sacred book that holds the secrets to saving humankind."

No zombies anywhere but still a damn fine movie with a clever twist even though it's derivative of just about everything from "Mad Max 2" onwards.


What are your favourites?

Since it may well be the end of the world tomorrow

This may be my final post.

According to Harold Camping,
"It's going to be a horror story of tremendous proportion."

Oh well, at least it won't be a remake.

Devil's Playground (2010)

"As the world succumbs to a zombie apocalypse, Cole a hardened mercenary, is chasing the one person who can provide a cure. Not only to the plague but to Cole's own incumbent destiny. DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND is a cutting edge British horror film that features zombies portrayed by free runners for a terrifyingly authentic representation of the undead."

Call me shallow but the only reason I wanted to watch "Devil's Playground" was because I saw a picture of Jaime Murray on the IMDb and wanted to see more of her. She's been in quite a few horror genre films including "Botched" (2007) and "The Deaths of Ian Stone" (2007), but I think most people would know her from the "Warehouse 13" TV series. Unfortunately, she was very underused in this, and I still didn't get to see her naked.

Anyway, "Devil's Playground" is yet another apocalyptic virus/zombie movie with a huge amount of similarities to everything in the same subgenre from "28 Days Later" onwards. It's British and set in London with lots of fast running not-really-zombies who jump up walls and through open windows every chance they get.

The zombies are the only things that are fast about "Devil's Playground" as the pacing is ridiculously slow. Everything feels like an episode of "Torchwood" but with no comedic aspects whatsoever apart from the cast of Mockneys all being unable to pronounce any words with "th" or "ing" in them. The usual suspects are all here including Danny Dyer, Craig Fairbrass and Sean Pertwee all posturing, dropping their aitches and saying, "Nuffin'" and "Summink" every couple of lines just to show how "London" they all are. Apart from all the gratuitous swearing, gore and violence, it could have been a Hallowe'en special of "The Bill".

I didn't hate it any of it particularly except that it was the same old stuff that I've seen hundreds of times before but with different people. As a longtime consumer of Monster energy drinks, it did amuse me slightly that the virus that mutates people into zombies was, in this case, caused by an energy supplement injection.

As you can expect, the plot consists of a group of survivors trying to keep out of the way of the zombies but with some of them getting infected along the way. Of course, they go through lots of bouts of fighting among themselves too and there are the obligatory, and clichéd, suicides/self-sacrifices just to give them even more to woodenly act their way through.

MyAnna Buring from "Lesbian Vampire Killers" plays the lead female role of Angela who just happens to be immune to the virus and carries the antidote in her bloodstream. You may also remember her from "The Descent" (2005), but maybe not as she has no screen presence whatsoever. Bearing that in mind, it's no wonder that she is rumoured to be playing the part of Tanya in the the next installment of the Twilight Saga. I suppose she's pretty enough if you like blondes, but I prefer brunettes, so I didn't care about her character in "Devil's Playground" at all.

Mockney staple Danny Dyer has a backstory as a policeman who just got out of prison for shooting a kid and has all the guilt associated it, but who cares? I used to like Danny Dyer as an actor and he's still good, but honestly, he's not action hero material, and I wish he'd do better films than this. Maybe he'll be good in the remake of "The Asphyx" coming next year, but I doubt it.

The biggest role goes to the biggest (at least the tallest) actor in this, Craig Fairbrass, who always looks the part but hasn't really developed much as an actor since he was in "Eastenders". He seems to always be typecast as either a hard man or a soldier (or both) and it isn't doing him any favours even if it does pay his bills. His action scenes range from unintentionally comical to downright brutal but, without giving too much away, the chainsaw-wielding ending which I was hoping for didn't happen. He used to be a lot more charismatic but he's still no leading man material either. I just didn't warm to his character at all and the motivation behind his actions was questionable to say the least.

It's not that any of the actors should have lacked chemistry because they all seem to live in each other's pockets with all the projects they are involved in together, but they just did such horribly routine performances here that I really don't want to see any of them in anything ever again. Some people might argue that horror films don't need strong characterisation, but I disagree with that entirely, especially when it comes to groups of zombie survivors who you are supposed to feel something for.

I'm not sure if it was the low-budget ($3,000,000!!!) or just inept filmmaking, but "Devil's Playground" really dragged for me. At just over an hour and a half long it felt more like three hours in spite of some quite good action scenes. Like I said, I didn't totally hate it, but there was just nothing new or inventive here, and I got a bit bored waiting for the formulas to work themselves out.

Somebody left me a comment recently telling me that if I'm that bored with zombie movies then maybe I shouldn't watch any more of them. The trouble is that if there's nothing else available in the horror genre to watch then I still have to watch them, don't I? I don't regret seeing "Devil's Playground", but it could have been a lot better. Fans of "28 Days Later" and "28 Weeks Later" will undoubtedly love it.

Right at Your Door (2006)

"In the wake of the detonation of a 'dirty bomb' in LA and under the instruction of a public service announcement, Brad barricades himself within his home. With his wife Lexi on her way to work, he desperately tries to call her in an attempt to find out if she is safe and well. As time elapses and his worse fear looks set to manifest, Lexi appears outside the family home. If he allows his wife inside, he risks contaminating the house with deadly germs but leaving Lexi outside leaves her vulnerable to infection. Brad's dilemma is a harsh one and hinges on a decision that cannot be made lightly. What would you do?"

Another complete waste of space from Lionsgate. In this one, a dirty bomb goes off in Los Angeles releasing a dust cloud of deadly bacteria and the rest of the film focuses on a husband trapped inside the house he has sealed up while his wife makes her way back home and has to stay outside.

So, as you can imagine, it tries to have lots of tension and suspense but they achieved this so well that I fell asleep half a dozen times waiting for something to happen. Anything!

Yes, there's a twist which the hard of understanding won't notice coming until the end but everyone else in the world who has ever seen a Twilight Zone episode (or who has stayed awake for the first ten minutes of the film!) will get straight away.

It's just another load of talky political nonsense with no action and nothing that you will care about one way or another. It's about a three out of ten on the entertainment scale and is the kind of thing that would end up on some kind of "True Movies" channel if only it was true and not a load of made up cock and bull.