Tokyo Zombie (2005) 1h 43m

I picked this film up at the one, and only, horror convention that has happened here in New Orleans since we moved here almost seven years ago.  You would think that New Orleans would have more horror stuff but mostly it's just lame Anne Rice shit.  Anyway, Tokyo Zombie has been on my to-watch list even prior to owning it.  I just never had the chance to get a copy of it until then, and then it sat on my shelf since then as well.

I will never feel bad about my
comics ever again.

Based off of a manga, I can only describe Tokyo Zombie as a live-action anime if they were still trying to make it as anime as fuck.  The film itself is actually broken into two sections.  The first half focuses on Fujio and Mitsuo, two guys that spend most of their time fucking around on mattresses with Mitsuo teaching Fujio jujitsu.  Outside is a large pile of buried trash (and bodies) known as Black Fuji for it's immense size.  When zombies begin to come out of it and eat people our duo decides to take their work truck and attempt to flee to Russia.  Instead Mitsuo gets "bit" and throws himself off a bridge and into the river below.  We're given a brief animated segue where we learn that the world has become this strange Hunger Games-esq land of upper class and slums and the only way to gain a measure of respect was in a zombie fighting arena.  Fujio uses his learned jujitsu to decimate his zombie opponents until he finally has to face off against a "zombie" Mitsuo.  Also there is apparently some strange revolution or Mad Max style raiders that exist here too.

Tokyo Zombie felt like I was watching a Japanese game show.  There were a lot of moments where the humor tried to be too absurd and you're expected to laugh along but it just didn't reach me.  The only solid comparisons I could give would be if you take Kung-Fu Hustle and put the Three Stooges as the main characters.

Now that I've said that, I'm okay with Tokyo Zombie, but that's it.  Just okay.  I'm concerned that I came into this expecting something else though so rather than complain about how this wasn't what I wanted I'm just going to say that I plan to revisit this again at another point and give it a fair shot now that I know what I'm getting into.  So I'm going to do something different here and I'm going to suspend my rating of this film.  In the future I will re-watch it and give it an honest go.

Wild Zero (1999) 1h 38m

Holy shit, Wild fucking Zero!  I picked this up a few months ago at the yearly anime/J-culture convention.  There's one booth that is 90% anime sets but if you walk around to the side of the table they have a stack of movies and weird shit for you to sort through.  This has been on my list to get for a while now as I never had the chance to see it but I knew about it through the early 00's Pittsburgh punk scene.

Wild Zero has a lot going on in it so bare with me.  We start with a bunch of spaceships approaching the earth.  While that's happening a meteor crashes into a town and zombies begin to overrun it, a la Night of the Living Dead.  At the same time, we meet Ace, a Guitar Wolf fan that idolizes their rock n' roll machismo.  When Ace stumbles into a stand-off between Guitar Wolf and a club manager he stands up for rock n' roll only to get knocked out.  After Guitar Wolf shoots the fingers off the manger (while Bass Wolf and Drum Wolf comb their hair) he creates a rock n' roll blood brother pact with Ace and gives him a whistle to call Guitar Wolf if Ace ever needs them.  The next day Ace inadvertently stops a robbery where he meets his new love interest, Tobio.  Zombies attack, the club manager is attempting to track down Guitar Wolf for revenge, and the alien invasion eventually begins... and it's all turned up to 11.  ROCK N' ROLL!

Fuckin' right on, Guitar Wolf!

After watching Wild Zero, this film is definitely in my top 10 all-time favorites, maybe even top five but I'd have to spend more time than I want thinking about that right now.  For a movie that came out in 1999, it's surprisingly progressive.  It takes all the things that I personally like about punk and rock, n' roll and rather than pushing the say, Motley Crue model of excess, it pushes this acceptance of everyone in the name of rock n' roll.  It's almost like it's a polytheistic lifestyle, elevated above everyday life.  Are Guitar Wolf gods?  Is this their bible?!  I'd go to church if it were just going in and having the word "rock n' roll" shouted at me from a microphone that shot flames!

This movie is hands down amazing.  There's a drinking game on the disc as well if you're into that.  If you are, then just do so responsibly.  Drunk driving is not rock n' roll!

I give Wild Zero 5 copies of Joan Jett's I Love Rock and Roll out of 5:

Play Dead (2009) 1h 28m

Play Dead came on a DVD as an extra film with Last of the Living (which I also haven't watched).  By association I assumed that Play Dead would be a horror film, but it came across as more of a thriller comedy.  The latter of those descriptors it looses relatively quick.  In truth, this is the an awkward teenager of a movie where it wants to fit in somewhere but it really isn't sure where it does so the whole thing tries to fit into a bunch of different cliques.  I could make a "horror because of Fred Durst" joke, but I'll be up front and say that he does a decent job.

Our main character in Play Dead is Ronnie.  He's an actor best known for his work in a show that wasn't quite a Power Rangers rip off, but not quite as bad as Big Bad Beetle Borgs.  So let's say a VR Troopers knock off.  After his stint as the blue one, his promising career went nowhere.  He has a breakdown after a casting interview and drives until his car dies.  He finds himself in the middle of nowhere when he meets Ledge (Durst) and is given a ride into town.  He then finds himself on the wrong side of the local drug dealer and calls in his old hero team in an effort to save himself and the town.

Y'all cast the wrong member of Limp Bizkit.

As I mentioned above, this film doesn't know what it wants to be.  The beginning has a lot of poorly written comedy scenes in it, including that Durst's character is a small town simple creep which they try to turn around to make Ledge an exploited victim of the situation.  It's a poor transition from someone that has a dead DEA agent in their bathtub to unlikely hero/sidekick.  Jake Busey is here as well, looking like the most redneck version of Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age) I've ever seen.

As a whole, Play Dead can just be labeled as "competent."  Everything that makes this a movie it does well enough, but it just reaches that bare minimum.  There are definitely better and worse films out there.  If you're looking for something that's horror though, this isn't it.

I give Play Dead 1/2 a opossum playing dead out of 5:

The Return of Swamp Thing 2-Disc + Extras (MVD)

When I was a kid I used to watch the Swamp Thing TV show all the time.  So when I received a copy of The Return of Swamp thing from MVD, words can not describe how hyped I was to do a write-up about it!  So thank you MVD for not only putting this out but hooking me up with a copy for review.

While this is a sequel to the original Wes Craven (yes, Wes fucking Craven) film, The Return of Swamp thing moves away from its horror foundation and well into the realm of camp. It toes that line of crossing over into Troma-esq territory but luckily there are some amazing costumes and make-up for all of the un-men as well as Swamp Thing and no gratuitous boobs.  Don't get me wrong, Arcane does have a lot of one-piece bikini clad women with guns guarding his house, but I guess that's what you did in the swamps back then?  I don't know, I can't justify it.

The plot is pretty simple:  Arcane is trying to find a way to live forever and create Dr. Moreau style un-men.  Swamp Thing wants to stop him.  Heather Locklear comes to visit her step-father (Arcane) and speak mostly in terrible jokes.  Yet, when you bring all of this together it makes a fun film.  My only complaint are the scenes with the children which were actually added to the script by the director after the script was finished.  They do break up the flow of the film a bit.  Also, the weird psychic sex scene between Swamp Thing and Heather is really awkward to be privy to.

The extras on this disc are relatively standard.  You have your commentary tracks as well as interviews with the director, producer, editor, and score composer.  Unfortunately Swamp Thing's Dick Durock passed away a few years ago so he wasn't able to add anything to this disc.  The big thing in the extra are the two TV spots that I absolutely forgot existed.  These are anti-littering ads where the two boys from the film mumble through something about a cup floating in the swamp and Swamp Thing comes out, talks about how long it takes plastic to break down, and then thumbs up.  The second is a shorter version of the first (since the first is close to two minutes long) but they are both art in their own floundering way.

So that's The Return of Swamp Thing 2-Disc set from MVD.  I say thank you again to MVD for re-releasing this as I forgot about my love for the TV show this film spawned.  If you're a fan of campy Kaiju Big Battle-esq films then pick this one up!  You can get pick it up from Amazon right now for about $20 and if you click that link and order from it then you'll help out this site as well.

Yoga Hosers (2016) 1h 28m

Back when I was a teenager my mom took me to a Blockbuster to rent some movies and in the process she bought me used copies of Clerks and Mallrats on VHS (as if this story wasn't already dated).  I had never seen either, didn't know they were the same director, I just heard that they were good.  I was instantly hooked.  So much so that I have friendships that were solidified thanks in part to a mutual love of Kevin Smith films.  Anything that he's released under his View Askew productions I own and love (except Jersey Girl but I don't need to defend my negative views on that).  So going into Yoga Hosers I had high hopes... probably too high.

Yoga Hosers takes place in the future of the Tusk universe.  When they're not closing it to have band practice in the back, Colleen and Colleen (Harley Quinn Smith and Lily-Rose Depp) continue to work at their lame convenience store .  The Colleens get invited to a grade 12 party by two boys, but are forced to work that night.  In retaliation for this unscheduled shift, they close the store and invite the boys to party at the store.  This male duo actually faked the party with plans to sacrifice the Colleens to Satan.  Rather than our dark lord getting these girls souls, Bratzis (tiny Nazi bratwurst men), end up killing the would-be Satanists through anal violation.  This leads to a whole thing about a secret Canadian Nazi base under the Eh-2-Zed and a giant meat monster that gets defeated by yoga.

Mr. Smith, should you ever come across this review, plus understand I'm not trying to be mean, I'm still a fan of your work, but what in the ever lasting fuck was this film?!  The plot passes absurd and isn't even funny.  Every single one of the jokes is ham-fisted with this "See this joke?!  DO YOU SEE IT! IT'S A JOKE!" delivery behind it.  This is extra strong when it comes to anything pointing at the fact that this is in Canada, including bad accents.  There are callbacks to his previous films, including the obligatory "I'm not even supposed to be here today," but it felt dirty.  It made me have that feeling I get now when I see they're rebooting a cartoon or movie series strictly for that nostalgia grab.

The one shining light in this film, at least for me, was Justin Long's hilarious Yoga poses and terms.  Other than that, this just didn't do it for me.  It saw the shark from the start and just took a running leap over it.

I give Yoga Hosers 1 Mario Lemieux out of 5:

Young Frankenstein (1974) 1h 46m

It has been ages since I've seen this film.  I think that this was the second Mel Brooks film I was introduced to (the first being Spaceballs because I was like nine or ten and rented it after some kids talking about it in elementary school).  It's always weird to go back to something as an adult and pick up on the humor you were too young to understand  It's not like this movie has a ton of it, but I did miss out on what there was when I was 12.

Young Frankenstein is a horror-comedy where the great-nephew (I think) of Frankenstein returns to his ancestor's castle and, despite his own aversion to being connected to his family's past work, creates a new monster.  Hi-jinx ensue during the entire movie.  That's the overall plot.

I'm don't want to ruin any of this film's jokes.  If you've ever seen a Mel Brooks film then you are familiar with they type of humor this has.  It is done in black & white like the classic Universal movies and stars Gene Wilder in one of his best comedic roles.  If you haven't seen this, you're missing out.  Unless you hate comedies or fun...

I give Young Frankenstein 4 real Frankenstein Castles out of 5:

Don't forget, you can follow us on Facebook and Twitter at 30daysofplight

Cut 4 Begins! Day 1: Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2010) 1h 29 m

There are some films that don't get the attention or notoriety they really deserve.  Maybe it's the subject of two "hillbillies" being the actual heroes of the film, maybe it's the fact that this film pokes fun at a lot of the foundations of the slasher genre, or maybe it's just because it has an actor from Firefly on it and that only carries an association with the more nerdy circles of movie fans... regardless, T&DvE really doesn't seem to get the love it deserves.  That includes from the studio because they shelved it for three years before releasing it.

Tucker & Dale focuses around two groups of people.  There are our title characters (there to fix up their new "summer cabin") and the other is a group of college kids that blatantly break every horror rule ever laid to celluloid.  After one of the girls gets startled by Tucker and Dale she almost drowns but gets rescued by Dale.  Her friends see the end and misunderstand the situation and think Tucker and Dale are kidnapping their friend for some hillbilly horror scene.

That right there is the crux of this film.  Everything that really happens is because the college kids have these preconceived notions that the country folks in this West Virginia area must all be some sort of inbred rednecks.  This is only bolstered by the story that one of them tells the others about a massacre that happened in those woods in the past and was blamed on country folk.  We find this later to be untrue, but it's that mindset that leads to the actions of all of the college kids.  It does help though that it seems like the person that owned the cabin Tucker and Dale bought seems to have been Ed Gein... but that's something else entirely.

This film is a lot of fun.  The kills are gory but all believable accidents.  Tucker and Dale are both charismatic and fun leading characters and you dislike the college kids from the start... especially Chad.  Fuck Chad... Chad-ass fuckin' Chad!  There is also a great nod to Texas Chainsaw Massacre where Tucker accidentally hits a bee's nest while chainsawing and this leads to him running through the woods like Leatherface.  This makes much more sense than Leatherface just standing in the middle of the road swinging a chainsaw like an asshole.  Was it that he was getting attacked by a bee trap the girl set before jumping in the back of the truck?  Was it the dogs with the bees in their mouth that shoot bees at you when they bark?!  I'm digging deep for that Simpson's reference...

I give Tucker & Dale vs. Evil 5 'Merica trucker hats out of 5:

Day 21: Killennial (2016) NEW ORLEANS HORROR FILM FEST SPECIAL EDITION PART 1 of 2!

I'm taking a break from my traditional routine with Netflix to review two films I ended up catching at the 2016 New Orleans Horror Film Fest this year.  The first of which was the short film entitled Killennial.

A true horror-comedy, Killennial focuses around a killer that puts his cabin up for rent on AirBnB to a group of millennials.  His goal is to scare and murder each of them but they're so focused with their Instagram photos and vlogging that they don't even seem to notice the man in the mask.  If you have a chance to see this film, I definitely recommend it for some good laughs and some relatively decent gore kills.

My only complaint was the overacting of everyone that isn't the killer.  If it were toned down just a bit I feel like it actually would've helped the comedy factor a bit more.

If you'd like to check out info on this film you can go to its Facebook page at facebook.com/killennial/.
You can also check out the New Orleans Horror Film Fest page at nolahorrorfilmfest.com

Overall, I give Killennial 3 this dude in a gas mask out of 5:

Day 11: Kill Zombie! (2012) 1h 30m

Don't be distracted by the hand throwing up the Dio horns on the poster.  I feel like there should be another hand next to it making an asterisk.  I don't know how, but it is that other hand's responsibility to figure it out!  People need to know that this movie isn't as rock n' roll as they hope.

Kill Zombie! comes to us from the Netherlands.  It's mostly with subtitles except for the Russian (which might have just been Russian sounding gibberish) and the few sentences in English.  While I'm mentioning the English, words like "zombie," "bitch," and "fuck/motherfucker," haven't been translated to Dutch.  So a lot of the time when you know they're saying something else, the subtitles were something entirely different.  Also, as a native English speaker (although my writing may not always reflect that) I'm kind of disappointed that the use of "bitch" as a negative term for another person has been adopted by other languages.  'Tis a dark day for our vernacular history...

Back to the matter at hand,  Kill Zombie! is a poor man's combination of Shaun of the Dead with a bit of Scott Pilgrim.  A few survivors attempt to survive with a bunch of meh jokes.  One of them wants to go save his "girlfriend" and on the way zombie hijinks ensue.  Suddenly, vampires!  The end.

There wasn't much substance here and it's hard to be a zombie horror comedy with something like Shaun of the Dead having done it so well.

I give Kill Zombie! 2 bowling ball hands out of 5:

Day 29: Scary Movie 3 (2003) 1h 24m

I wish I could hate this.  I wish I could sit here and say that this film was absolute shit and not good as a horror comedy.  In truth, I definitely laughed at parts of this movie.  Not all of it mind you, but some parts of it.

Scary Movie 3 is the center point of the Scary Movie franchise.  If you're not familiar with it, Scary Movie takes popular horror and non-horror films and spoofs them in a single movie.  This one takes 8 Mile and The Matrix and fits them in with a combined plot of Signs and The Ring.  The only actors I even cared about were Queen Latifah and Leslie Nielson (a true Canadian treasure!) and I didn't even realize one of the people was Simon Rex (probably because he wasn't naked or introducing a video).

There's not much to talk about here.  You either like these or hate them.  It's the same humor you'd find in a middle school locker room: farts, homophobia, sex humor, misogyny, and add in gratuitous breasts.  Unfortunately, as I said, it still made me laugh.  I'm apparently a terrible person. *sad face*

I give Scary Movie 3 2 censored Simon Rex porn movie boxes out of 5:

Day 16: Burying the Ex (2014) 1h 29m

Keeping the horror/comedy train rolling is 2014's Burying the Ex.  While I can't place my finger on it, this film reminded me a lot of John Dies at the End.  I thought it could be something like they shared a director, but that's not the case.  In fact, the only thing Burying the Ex's director did that I care about is five episodes of the TV show Eerie Indiana back in the day.  I hope they have that on Netflix.  I'll binge watch the shit out of that tomorrow if they do!

Burying the Ex has a plot on par with pre-Comic Code horror comics.  Evelyn, the girlfriend of our main character Max, makes a promise to love Max forever while standing next to some Satan Genie thing which apparently has real magical powers.  Evelyn gets hit by a bus and dies but returns from the grave to be an even crazier person than she was in real life.  In the meantime, Max was going to break up with her when she got hit by the bus and has since moved on to a much cooler girl that makes ice cream with horror themed names.  She made a Fruit Brute ice cream for satan's sake!  Who wouldn't love a girl like that?!  Well, I guess gay men.  That's the obvious answer there.

You can kind of guess what's going to happen during this with an undead ex and a new cooler girlfriend.  Over all I really liked this film.  I even recommended it to my fiancé because I figured he'd like it too.  I recommend it to you too if you like horror/comedy movies.

I give Burying the Ex 3 IDKWTF this stockphoto is out of 5:

Day 15: Out of the Dark (Wui wan yeh) (1995) 1h 26m

I've stated it before, and I'll state it again: I fucking love Troma films.  And while China is a long way from New Jersey, 1995's Out of the Dark is probably the closest thing to a non-Troma Troma film I've seen.  Kudos to you China!

Our primary location is an apartment complex where an older woman died, apparently via shady means.  Her ghost begins possessing a small child and then other individuals in the building.  Enter character number two (after the ghost, not the child) in a teenage punk-ish girl.  She does the best "I'm gonna air guitar and head bang but not know what the fuck I'm doing" scene with our main character.  On that note, our main character is referred to as a "ghostbuster" throughout the film but is really just an escaped mental patient that apparently knows how to deal with the supernatural.  Throw in some bumbling cops/security and you've got yourself a film.

Much like Troma films there are a lot of sexual and borderline offensive moments mixed in with cheesy exaggerated humor.  Honestly though, I have a second tab open on my browser right now to see how much a copy is from Amazon (spoilers: the blu-ray new is $61 and the DVDs are region locked).  I'm not saying this is the best film ever, but as far as my tastes go, I thought it was fantastic for what it was.

I give Out of the Dark 4 potted plants out of 5:

Day 11: Big Ass Spider! (a.k.a. Mega Spider) (2013) 1h 20m

I don't even know where to start with this one.  I'm not just saying that as the usual vague statement someone makes when they really do know where they're starting.  I truthfully have two thoughts with this: that cover of Where Is My Mind? was really good, and Lloyd Kaufman was in this film!  That's it!  Alright, fuck it, here goes!

Let me preface this with the statement that this is a comedy/horror film.

Big Ass Spider takes place in LA when a mistake leads to a body bag with an accidental experimental spider inside of the cadaver's chest cavity being delivered to a hospital.  Coincidentally, it's the same hospital that an exterminator that specializes in spiders is being treated in for a spider bite.  The military shows up to try and recapture or kill the spider.  As the spider eats it grows larger, and its web is super strong and sticky.  Also it spits acid for some reason.  I don't know.  Fuckin' Mortal Kombat villain over here...

Eventually the spider reaches "big ass spider" size, wrecks a ton of L.A., but the exterminator eventually shoots a bazooka round up it's spinneret and the thing explodes.  The end.  I can't really say too much about this.  It wasn't a bad film, I enjoyed it, it just wasn't wowing.  It is what it is: A movie called Big Ass Spider! that was a cheezy horror comedy.

I give Big Ass Spider! 2 Spader-man figures out of 5:

Day 30: Buck Wild (2014) 1h 36min

First, let me say that since this is day 30 that this is the last film for this run.  I'm going to do one recap post and then take 30 days of nights back to myself.  So episode two of 30 Days of Plight will start in June 2016! GET HYPED!  Then stay hyped for a month!

I love zombie movies.  The problem with zombie movies though is that they suddenly blew the fuck up and now every chucklefuck makes a zombie movie.  Although at this point, I think we're out of monsters.  vampires hand their time, zombies won't die (pun actually intended), mummies are all pissed because their tomb or treasure was messed with, there can be only one Frankenstein's monster, aliens, Lovecraft, giant monsters, all being done to fucking death and not in super creative ways.

Tangent aside, Buck Wild is your typical horror-comedy redneck zombie movie, although they did jazz up some of the characters.  Mainly one that is supposed to be from New York, have a fuck ton of guns, and practices martial arts naked.  The other main characters are the deceitful best friend who has been sleeping with nice guy's girlfriend of six years, and a guy that just looks like Daniel Radcliffe's portrayal of Allen Ginsberg from Kill Your Darlings.  Although I would much rather see Daniel Radcliffe shirtless... what? Who said that?  Look over there!

The one great creative thing they did was at one point a plate of weed brownies were smashed in a zombie's face and after he ingested some he kind of became a regular stoner.  He went and watched TV, was able to have a deep and meaningful conversation with one of the guys, then sobered up and went back to just being a zombie.  There were also some good laughs in it, such as the fake hunting TV show "Fuckin Huntin" that started the local "bad ass" and his group.  Also, I think the outbreak starts when the ranch owner gets attacked by a fake animal that he says is a chupacabra but looks like a weird mange dog/beaver/opossum, but I don't recall it being clearly defined as that.

I give Buck Wild 2 chupacabras out of 5: