Welcome back to the the segment where I binge on horror and then mentally break down on my keyboard as I smash random buttons to review films for you. Today is part 2 of 3. I would've had this posted up two days ago, but SOMETHING SUDDENLY CAME UP (High-five if you read that in Marsha Brady's voice).
Better Off Undead
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Plot: Three college students are chilling on a normal day when zombie's attack! On their way to their "safe house" (AKA one of the boy's bachelor pad), they are forced to fight the zombies and their own personal egos.
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My Thoughts: Not much to say here. It's only 29 minutes long, but it packs a decent punch (Decent enough to get it screened at selected festivals). The make-up is great, the acting is so so, and the plot is... uh... what?
The truth is that the plot is the focal point of this short's failures. During it's duration, the film never truly explains why there are zombies. This leaves plenty of unanswered questions and plot holes throughout it. I understand that at just short of a half an hour, not much time can be spent on focusing on the back-story. But then why not make this longer? Money shouldn't be a problem since there is barely any to begin with so why not? Did the writers just not have a reasonable explanation for it?
The guys behind this also made DVD copies of it for sale. I was unfortunately one of the poor suckers who bought it for the outrageous price of $10. Ok so maybe that last sentence is a little misleading. The film is ok, the features are good enough, but the DVD has a major glitch. If you try to skip a chapter, the audio will go out. It's a hassle to deal with.
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The Verdict: 6.5/10
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Plot: Three college students are chilling on a normal day when zombie's attack! On their way to their "safe house" (AKA one of the boy's bachelor pad), they are forced to fight the zombies and their own personal egos.
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My Thoughts: Not much to say here. It's only 29 minutes long, but it packs a decent punch (Decent enough to get it screened at selected festivals). The make-up is great, the acting is so so, and the plot is... uh... what?
The truth is that the plot is the focal point of this short's failures. During it's duration, the film never truly explains why there are zombies. This leaves plenty of unanswered questions and plot holes throughout it. I understand that at just short of a half an hour, not much time can be spent on focusing on the back-story. But then why not make this longer? Money shouldn't be a problem since there is barely any to begin with so why not? Did the writers just not have a reasonable explanation for it?
The guys behind this also made DVD copies of it for sale. I was unfortunately one of the poor suckers who bought it for the outrageous price of $10. Ok so maybe that last sentence is a little misleading. The film is ok, the features are good enough, but the DVD has a major glitch. If you try to skip a chapter, the audio will go out. It's a hassle to deal with.
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The Verdict: 6.5/10
Isle of the Damned
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Plot: A group of people in search for Marco Polo's lost treasure. They instead find a cannibal tribe known as the Yamma Yamma in this hilarious spoof of the Italian cannibal genre. For the most part, it is similar to Cannibal Holocaust's plot (Well except for that whole treasure thing).
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My Thoughts: I'll try to keep this one straight forward and short. I love this film! It perfectly spoofs, while still praising and giving homage to, films like Cannibal Holocaust, Cannibal Ferox, and so on. Obvious references include the hilarious dub track they put over the characters' dialogue, the amazingly gory death scenes, and the underlying moral about society's opinion on the "savages" we strive to be different from.
Hell even the cover is an homage to Cannibal Holocaust. Notice the cannibal on the spike, a direct reference to a scene in Cannibal Holocaust, and the "BANNED IN 492 COUNTRIES!" disclaimer in the bottom right hand corner. This is of course in reference to CH's notoriety as a video nasty and it's banning in many places around the globe. And if you didn't realize this, it should become obvious since there aren't even 492 countries in the world. There is more like 196. All in all, it's satirical and funny as shit.
This also is notable for starring fellow Horror Yearbook alumni Larry Gamber as Jack Steele and Antonello Giallo. Glad to see that someone I know can be a part of something so great. If you need any more reassurance as to why you should pick this up, there is an amazing DVD special edition that had an awesome pop-up book styled case on the inside of it and it won a TLA Raw award for "Best New Cult Horror". Go buy it!
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The Verdict: 10/10 "Why do these savages hate us so?!"
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Plot: A group of people in search for Marco Polo's lost treasure. They instead find a cannibal tribe known as the Yamma Yamma in this hilarious spoof of the Italian cannibal genre. For the most part, it is similar to Cannibal Holocaust's plot (Well except for that whole treasure thing).
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My Thoughts: I'll try to keep this one straight forward and short. I love this film! It perfectly spoofs, while still praising and giving homage to, films like Cannibal Holocaust, Cannibal Ferox, and so on. Obvious references include the hilarious dub track they put over the characters' dialogue, the amazingly gory death scenes, and the underlying moral about society's opinion on the "savages" we strive to be different from.
Hell even the cover is an homage to Cannibal Holocaust. Notice the cannibal on the spike, a direct reference to a scene in Cannibal Holocaust, and the "BANNED IN 492 COUNTRIES!" disclaimer in the bottom right hand corner. This is of course in reference to CH's notoriety as a video nasty and it's banning in many places around the globe. And if you didn't realize this, it should become obvious since there aren't even 492 countries in the world. There is more like 196. All in all, it's satirical and funny as shit.
This also is notable for starring fellow Horror Yearbook alumni Larry Gamber as Jack Steele and Antonello Giallo. Glad to see that someone I know can be a part of something so great. If you need any more reassurance as to why you should pick this up, there is an amazing DVD special edition that had an awesome pop-up book styled case on the inside of it and it won a TLA Raw award for "Best New Cult Horror". Go buy it!
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The Verdict: 10/10 "Why do these savages hate us so?!"
Legends: A Friday the 13th Tale
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Plot: A group of men and women in their twenties go camping. Too bad Jason shows up.
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My Thoughts: This is your generic Friday the 13th fan film with a tiny twist. The Jason in this is pretty much a guy in a store bought Jason costume complete with a mask of Jason's head and the hockey mask. The kills aren't that memorable and the film is only about 40 minutes long.
Now with that said, it's well shot, pretty well acted, and is paced well. It shows good promise from the film company, Godbout Entertainment, and makes me eager to find out if they follow up on this or not. The ending leaves it up for debate, but seeing as they have made other fan films, it's possible for them to follow up on this story. Their site says that a Legends 2 is in production, but it is going to be a separate Halloween fan film. Overall, I'd say watch this if you are a Friday the 13th nut or really bored.
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The Verdict: 8/10
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Plot: A group of men and women in their twenties go camping. Too bad Jason shows up.
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My Thoughts: This is your generic Friday the 13th fan film with a tiny twist. The Jason in this is pretty much a guy in a store bought Jason costume complete with a mask of Jason's head and the hockey mask. The kills aren't that memorable and the film is only about 40 minutes long.
Now with that said, it's well shot, pretty well acted, and is paced well. It shows good promise from the film company, Godbout Entertainment, and makes me eager to find out if they follow up on this or not. The ending leaves it up for debate, but seeing as they have made other fan films, it's possible for them to follow up on this story. Their site says that a Legends 2 is in production, but it is going to be a separate Halloween fan film. Overall, I'd say watch this if you are a Friday the 13th nut or really bored.
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The Verdict: 8/10
The 8th Plague
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Plot: Launa, our attractive protagonist, is worried about her sister's strange disappearance (makes sense). Her search takes her and the group of "helpers" to an abandoned prison where they discover an occult, satanic, dark secret from the prison's past.
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My Thoughts: I'll Keep this short. This is definitely one indy flick that you should check out. It's gory, well acted, and it even had a few moments that made me blink and/or jump a bit (and it didn't have to use the pussy way of inserting sharp and loud noises into it's scenes either. Take notes Platinum Dunes).
My only problem with the film is the plot. Not the main idea of plot, but more precisely just some small things and the ending. One scene that comes to mind is one where a couple bumps uglies in a jail cell. Well that's pretty fucking romantic right? Knocking boots in an abandoned/haunted/infamous prison that is said to be a center of evil while they should be searching for their friend's lost sister. What fucking assholes! It is in my opinion a dull, and stupid scene that had obviously only one resolution to begin with. The ending, without giving it away, also contradicts the beginning of the movie. To my suprise, not many reviews I've read have even picked up on this. If you end up watching the film, then look out and see if you know what I'm talking about.
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The Verdict: 8/10
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Plot: Launa, our attractive protagonist, is worried about her sister's strange disappearance (makes sense). Her search takes her and the group of "helpers" to an abandoned prison where they discover an occult, satanic, dark secret from the prison's past.
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My Thoughts: I'll Keep this short. This is definitely one indy flick that you should check out. It's gory, well acted, and it even had a few moments that made me blink and/or jump a bit (and it didn't have to use the pussy way of inserting sharp and loud noises into it's scenes either. Take notes Platinum Dunes).
My only problem with the film is the plot. Not the main idea of plot, but more precisely just some small things and the ending. One scene that comes to mind is one where a couple bumps uglies in a jail cell. Well that's pretty fucking romantic right? Knocking boots in an abandoned/haunted/infamous prison that is said to be a center of evil while they should be searching for their friend's lost sister. What fucking assholes! It is in my opinion a dull, and stupid scene that had obviously only one resolution to begin with. The ending, without giving it away, also contradicts the beginning of the movie. To my suprise, not many reviews I've read have even picked up on this. If you end up watching the film, then look out and see if you know what I'm talking about.
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The Verdict: 8/10
That's it for now, but stay tuned for the monstrous 9 review packed Part 3.
Thanks to Celebrity Video Distribution for the 8th Plague DVD and the other 16 DVDs and 1 Blu-Ray you sent me. The rest of the DVDs I bought except for Legends which I downloaded off the company's site.
You can buy The 8th Plague here, Isle of the Damned here, and you can download Legends here and visit Better Off Undead's myspace here.
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