NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEB (2015) (Blu-ray Review)

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEB (2015) 

Label: MPI Media 
Release Date: September 6th 2016 
Region Code: A
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 84 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-MA 2.0, DTS-HD MA 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.00:1) 
Director: Kyle Rankin
Cast: Maria Thayer, Michael Cassidy, Ray Wise, Syd Wilder, Chris Marquette

The indie zombie comedy Night of the Living Deb (2015) comes by way of director Kyle Rankin who brought us the bug-horror comedy Infestation back in 2009 and it all begins on the night of Fourth of July as quirky ginger Deb (Maria Thayer) and her ugly Christmas sweater wearing friend Ruby (Julie Brister) are having a few drinks at a local bar. The horny Deb spots pretty boy hipster Ryan (Michael Cassidy) across the bar and is prodded by her ironic gal pal to make her move, which she does, she makes an awkward introduction and manages to anger Ryan's high-maintenance finance Stacy (Syd Wilder) who dumps him on the spot. 

Flash forward to the next morning a somewhat discombobulated Deb awakes in Ryan's bedroom a bit unsure of what happened the night before but happy to be there just the same. She plays cute while poor Ryan kindly tries to find a way to give her the one-night regret brush-off in the nicest possible way, he's too kind. However, Deb is a bit on thick side and doesn't go away gracefully. eventually they go there separate ways, Ryan heads off to the local coffee spot while Deb jumps in her 70s gas-guzzler car named Otis. It doesn't take long for both to realize that something odd has happened in the neighborhood, they've woken up to a zombie apocalypse, with Ryan finding his favorite barista munching on a human foot and Deb cannot help but notice this year's 4th of July parade includes locals eating each other. 

Reluctantly united out of fear the two head for Ryan's father's house, dad is played by the venerable Ray Wise (Twin Peaks), his character Frank runs the city water treatment plant whose crooked dealings may have something to do with the outbreak of gut-munching. Arriving at his father's place Ryan must contend with his dad's disappointment in his lifestyle, while also trying to keep things civil with his dip shit dude-bro brother Chaz (Chris Marquette, Fanboys) and his ex whom has also holed up at his father's home when the human-hungry hordes arrived on scene. 

The movie is a smart and breezy, more along the lines of Warm Bodies than Romero's Dawn of the Dead, a charming comedy about two people finding an awkward sort of love during a zombie outbreak without lowering itself to the level of an annoying parody. In my mind the key the movie's success is the chemistry between actors Maria Thayer and Michael Cassidy who play off each other perfectly, great casting choices. Thayer is so awkward and awesome, her interactions with the somewhat prissy Ryan brought to mind the chemistry between The Kid and Apple in Turbo Kid (2015). Thayer is far and away my favorite part of the movie, playing her role with a mix of sweet ditziness and playful sarcasm. Meanwhile Ray Wise's character is initially painted as the face of corporate evil but Wise manages to give the guy some more depth and quirky charm than was probably in the script, the guy can do a lot with just a little, I love all of his line deliveries, weird and heartfelt all in the same breath 

At certain points it does seems the threat of being eaten by zombies takes a backseat the family turmoil and awkward  love story, coming back into play only to give some slight menace to the proceedings and to take a minute or two to poke fun at zombie conventions, including one of the more basic ones which we as horror fans just take for granted, which comes into play during the final few scenes to comedic effect. 

Special Features: 
- Commentary with Writer/Director Kyle Rankin, Actor/Producer Micheal Cassidy, Actor Maria Thayer, writer Andy Selsor, and editor Tony Copolillo
- Bloopers
- Behind-The-Scenes
- Trailer 

The Blu-ray disc from MPI Media Group looks and sounds great, the release includes a cast and crew audio commentary track, a behind-the-scenes making of featurette, a blooper reel and the trailer for the movie. Don't be fooled by the generic artwork on the Blu-ray, this is a fun and goofily heart-warming zom-com with loads of charm. If you have a soft-spot for quirky red heads Maria Thayer might just steal your heart, this is a high recommend to the zombie comedy lovers out there, fun stuff.  

Blu-ray Review: EXCISION (2012)

EXCISION (2012) 

Label: Anchor Bay Entertainment 

Release Date: October 16, 2012
Region Code: A

Duration: 81 minutes
Rating: Unrated

Aspect Ratio: Anamorphic Widescreen (2.40)
Audio: English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 with English, Spanish Subtitles

Cast: AnnaLynne McCord, Traci Lords, Ariel Winter, Roger Bart, Jeremy Sumpter, Matthew Gray Gubler, Ray Wise, John Waters, Malcolm McDowell, Marlee Matlin 

Director: Richard Bates, Jr.  

Synopsis: Based on writer/director Richard Bates, Jr’s short film of the same name, Excision follows a disturbed and delusional high school student, Pauline (AnnaLynne McCord). Pauline, with aspirations of a career in medicine, goes to extremes to earn the approval of her controlling mother (played by Traci Lords). While dealing with both being an outcast teenager and having an obsession over curing her sister’s cystic fibrosis, Pauline becomes increasingly deranged as her fascination with surgery and flesh and blood grows into something compulsive and demonic, if not epic.

The Film: Wowie, this was a dark-hearted film, and a funny one, too but super dark and certainly twisted - nice to see some original fuck-uppedness out there. Pauline as played by AnnaLynne McCord (TV's Nip Tuck) is an outsider at school, attractive but in a dark, demented way. She's strange and no one seems to care for her, particularly not the popular kids. She doesn't really help herself with fun question in sex ed class like "Can you get an STD from a dead guy?", that's just social suicide in high school and in life after, y'know but she's an inquisitive young lady so what can you do.

She's has dreams of becoming a surgeon and believes she has natural God-given abilities with a scalpel which she hopes to use to cure her sister of her cystic fibrosis, let's just see how that delusion pans out at the end. Speaking of dreams, let me tell you this chic is festering in dark surreal nightmares, fantasies actually, she dreams of crawling naked over masses of corpses, licking mutilated body parts, bathing in a tub of blood and enduring toe-curling orgasms while straddling cadavers on the autopsy table - really bizarre stuff. A virgin at the start of the film she offers her virginity to the boyfriend of one of the popular cheerleaders and this poor douche nozzle just has no idea what he's been invited to partake of, definitely bites off more than he's willing chew.

The film has quite a cast including Traci Lords (Cry Baby) and Roger Bart (Hostel II) as her parents. Bart who plays a sympathetic and henpecked husband to Lords over-bearing but well-meaning mother. We also have some great cameos from Ray Wise (Twin Peaks) as the school principal and Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange) as Pauline's teacher (how fucked-up a school would that be?) plus a brief cameo from trash-master John waters (Serial Mom) as a priest who futilely attempts to bring the demented Pauline closer to God whom with Pauline speaks regularly about pre-marital sex among other things, very funny. 

Hard to believe this is a first time feature for Richard Bates, Jr., it's very well directed, definitely a guy with vision and a beautiful film too with tons of grotesque and surreal beauty. Hats of to McCord for her performance, very solid and some might think casting an actress as gorgeous as her in the role as some sort of stunt-casting ala Charlize Theron in Monster (2003) but she's got the chops, not a character you will soon forget, totally unhinged and wonderful. 

The film is pretty twisted, if you're a fan of Todd Solondz' twisted coming-of-age film Welcome to the Dollhouse (1999) with some Cronenberg-esque body horror (think Dead Ringers) elements soaked with a wickedly dark wit then this is a film for you, highly recommended. (4 Outta 5) 

Blu-ray Review: CHILLERAMA (2011)

CHILLERAMA (2011)

LABEL: Image Entertainment
REGION CODE: A
RATING: Unrated
DURATION: 120 mins
AUDIO: DTS-HD MA 5.1
SUBTITLES: English, Spanish
VIDEO: 16:9 Widescreen (1.78:1)
DIRECTORS: Adam Rifkin, Joe Lynch, Tim Sullivan, Adam Green
CAST: Adam Rifkin, Sarah Mutch, Owen Benjamin, Richard Riehle, Joel David Moore, Ray Wise, Kane Hodder, Eric Roberts, Lin Shaye
TAGLINE: The Ultimate Midnight Movie!

I don't know about you but I just get pleased as punch whenever I hear about a new horror anthology coming down the pipeline. The omnibus fright format has always been a personal favorite of mine but they just don't seem as prevalent today as they were in the 70's and 80's - they've definitely fallen out favor. Perhaps it's just cause I was catching up with some of my favorites like Mario Bava's BLACK SABBATH (1963) and one of the many Amicus entries TALES FROM THE CRYPT (1972) some decades years after their initial release, either way there's not exactly a glut of 'em these days no matter how you slice it up and the format seemed to have peaked in the early 80's with the one-two punch of CREEPSHOW (1982) and TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE (1983). The nineties weren't exactly overflowing with anthologies either with the notable exceptions of FOUR ROOMS (1995) and PULP FICTION (1999) but in recent years there's been a resurgence with the Tarantino/Rodriguez feature GRINDHOUSE, TRICK R TREAT (2007) and effective, low-budget indies like THE DRIVE-IN HORRORSHOW (2009) and III SLICES OF LIFE (2010).

So, when word began to spread about this love letter to the schlocky drive-in films of the 60's and 70's from a handful of talented young directors I was pretty psyched and primed for some b-movie omnibus action. Beginning with the directors we have Adam Rifkin whose 70's stoner-comedy DETROIT ROCK CITY (1999) is a perennial favorite of mine, Joe Lynch who won me over with WRONG TURN 2 (2007), Adam Green who most recently nailed it with the winter-bound horror of FROZEN (2010) and lastly we have Tim Sullivan, director of 2001 MANIACS (2005).


The film CHILLERAMA is a series of vignettes that really sets out to celebrate the b-movie schlock cinema of yesteryear beginning with a wrap-a-round story called ZOM-B-MOVIE from director Joe Lynch that right away gets to the gritty with some distasteful necro-felatio which goes horribly awry, I would ask is there anyway necro-felatio could go well, I guess it's all a matter of perspective, right? The amorous grave robber leaves the cemetery injured to say the least with his naughty bits having been shredded by his graveyard girlfriend. Not something I would do myself but this guy actually limps his way back to his night job at the drive-in movie theatre where it's a special night, it's their last hurrah before the drive-in closes it's doors forever. To commemorate this sad occasion the aptly named drive-in proprietor Cecil Kaufman (Richard Riehle, OFFICE SPACE) is sending his beloved cinema out in style with a four film marathon of rare splatterfests projected on the big screen for a jam-packed crowd of gore-hounds and splatter-fiends.

The first feature is WADZILLA written, directed and starring Adam Rifkin (THE DARK BACKWARDS) and it's a truly tasteless send-up of the b-movie creature features of the 50's. Miles Munson (Rifkin) is a man afflicted with a low sperm count and when he seeks medical help for his condition he is prescribed an experimental drug called "spermupermine" by wacky wang-ologost Dr. Weems (Ray Wise, TWIN PEAKS). The testicular steroid has the unfortunate side effect of enlarging Mile's scrawny sperm when he is aroused - which is pretty often, there are babes galore in this film. These growing pains cause Miles great discomfort in the junk and the only way to alleviate the excruciating sensation is to beat-off and release the beast - and what a beast it is. The short is populated by gorgeous busty ladies and awful b-movie effects from none other than The Chiodo Brothers (KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE). There's appearances from Lin Shaye (INSIDIOUS) and Eric Roberts (SHARKTOPUS) as Gen. Bukaki and while Rifkin couldn't act his way outta a wet paper bag I found the flick to be a juvenile, raunchy exercise in trashiness with a sense of humor about it that brought to mind FRANKENHOOKER (1990) and ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES (1978) - fun stuff with a creamy climax that seemed to reference GHOSTBUSTERS (1984).

Up next is director Tim Sullivan's I WAS A TEENAGE WEREBEAR, a weird mash-up of BEACH BLANKET BINGO (1965) and TEEN WOLF (1985) zapped with a walloping dose of homo-eroticism and fun musical numbers. A clean-cut preppie named Ricky (gay porn star Sean Paul Lockhart) finds his life altered when he's bit on the ass during a sexually charged wrestling match with a leather daddy werebear. Not my cup o' tea but still slightly amusing. This is the first film I've seen from Tim Sullivan and while I can't say it did much for me it did have some fun musical numbers, but honestly it was just a bit too goofy and gay for me. I'm also a bit biased as I generally kinda sorta hate musicals, so that didn't help either. Lin Shay also appears in this segment as Nurse Maleva in a fun homage to THE WOLFMAN (1941) while director Tim Sullivan appears as Coach Tuffman. Some fun moments but overall this was the runt of the litter for me.

In Adam Green's demented Nazi-ploitation comedy THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANKENSTEIN actor Joel David Moore (SPIRAL) makes a turn as Adolf Hitler who sets out to create the perfect Jew-killing machine using the secrets of the family of Anne Frankenstein. Unfortunately he assembles his Arian masterpiece with the body parts of Jews and as can be expected his Golem-esque creation rises up against him with bloody results. This segment looks pretty fucking awesome, a spot on period piece shot in black and white, great production value and set design made this the best looking bit o' the bunch. Kane Hodder (FRIDAY THE 13th VII) appears as the creature Meshugannah and he really puts the "Bear Jew" from INGLORIOUS BASTERDS to shame in the Nazi killing department. The actors in the film seem to be speaking German fluently aside from Moore who wings it with some marble-mouthed nonsense. It's pretty funny stuff with Hodder delivering more than a fair share of cock n' balls destruction to some deserving Nazis, giving them a pounding that leaves them screaming "Shalom!". Pretty absurd stuff, it peters out towards the end having overstayed it's welcome just slightly but there's definitely some fun to be had here for sure.  

The not quite final segment is DEATHICATION, a short interlude of people shitting themselves to death, it's mighty pointless but quickly passes on into the true final vignette, the continuation of the wrap-a-round film ZOM-B-MOVIE. You may recall that the drive-in projectionist lost his junk following an unfortunate graveyard fellatio incident and returned to the drive-in at the start of the film but his blue neon infected wound has leaked the worst kind of cross-contamination possible into the concession stands popcorn unleashing a zombie horde upon the cinema. Luckily, the cinema's suicidal owner/horror host Cecil Kaufman, the awesome Richard Riehle, not only has great taste in bad cinema but a gigantic stash o' guns and an endless array of famous one-liners with which to combat the undead throngs.

So, does this trashy collection of bad b-movies work? Yes and no, these are bad films made to be seen as such, trashy love letters to an era of awfulness awesomeness and to that end I would say it's successful. Whether you enjoy it or not really depends on your stomach for schlock shittiness, for me it mostly hit all the wrong notes just the right way.

SPECIAL FEATURES:
- Directors' Video Commentary
- Wadzilla Deleted Scenes and Trailer (6:04)
- The Making of The Diary of Anne Frankenstein
- I Was A Teenage Werebear Behind the Scenes (21:59), Deleted Scenes (14:27), and Trailer
- Zom-B-Movie Deleted Scenes (4:02)
- Famous Monsters Directors' Interviews (5:41)
- Original Theatrical Trailer
- Trailers: CHILLERAMA (2:13), WADZILLA (2:39), I WAS A TEENAGE WEREBEAR (2:01)

VERDICT: I found it hard not to appreciate the zest with which these young directors tore into making such schlocky, awful films and in the end it really won me over despite some dud humor and flat gags throughout that are part and parcel of the films it's pays tribute to. Make no mistake, they're undoubtedly quite terrible films one and all, trashy, raunchy and distasteful on almost every level and I guess that's what I love about 'em - there's something so cool about a bad film. Now I know there's gonna be some haters who just can't stomach the schlock but count me in, it's bone-headed, offensive, dumb and pretty stupid entertainment. 3.5 outta 5