Here Alone (2016) 1h 38m

About 10 years ago I was working for a city library system.  One of my co-workers had just finished reading Cormac McCarthy's The Road and suggested it to me on the grounds that he thought I would like it and he wanted someone to discuss it with.  He was wrong on the first part and my biggest complaint was that the book had a repeating pattern of "nothing but us/oh shit! danger/nothing but us/etc."  I bring this up because today's film was like a shittier version of me reading that book.

Here Alone is a post-zombie-apocalypse film where our female protagonist is the surviving member of her family.  We get flashbacks of her learning outdoorsman (outdoorswoman?) techniques from her husband and brief moments of what happened (viral outbreak) but mostly this is just the lady of the woods eating worms and pissing in buckets.  Eventually a man and his step-daughter end up in the film in an attempt to break up the fact that now it's just three people in the woods, but whatever.  There's a brief heel turn which I think is because the step-daughter has a lady boner for her not-dad but I might be writing my on narrative into this film out of boredom.

There's not much here.  I think we see a total of three zombies and one just looks like he's a metal head swinging his hair around to some thrash.  I wish the only person in this entire film was the woman to really push that feeling of self-survival.  Otherwise there is nothing to write about, or watch, or care about here.  Just the lady of the woods covering herself in dookie and dumping buckets of piss on herself.  So if you have filth fetishes, then this film is for you.

I give Here Alone 0 copies of The Bad Movie Bible out of 5:

Viral (2016) 1h 25m

While I was watching this film there was a part of me that really wished this would've come out in the 80's and been one of those films that used a metaphor to demonstrate the AIDS epidemic.  I know, that's an absurd way to start this review or even think while watching a movie but all the signs were there.  My point doesn't really get backed up either when the poster is up there with an earthworm sticking out of a girl's mouth.  Let's see if you can understand where I'm coming from here.

Viral is the lil' zombie movie that isn't really a zombie movie.  There are stories of an outbreak existing outside of the U.S. where the symptoms are increased hunger, seizures, a sickly look, and a cough with a bloody discharge.  I forget our main girls' names but they're twins.  One of their friends shows signs of infection only to hurl blood into another student's face.  This leads to the town being put on an intense quarantine and eventually martial law.  Teens gonna teen and they have a party in a semi-built home. An infected individual shows up all zombied out and one of the twins contracts the "virus," only it's not a virus...

I have an irrational fear of an area I'm living in being put under martial law.  It's mainly because I don't know how I would react to it.  It's like those old Frosted Mini Wheats commercials where the adult side of me wants to stay safe in my home, but the teenage punk rock me wants to test the shit out of the boundaries.  I would especially test those if it meant being able to go get dumb shit like energy drinks or cupcakes.  Regardless, it tapped into a weird fear of mine.

I will say that I felt old when the teens were having their party and my rational adult mind lost it's shit and couldn't understand why those kids would do that in this situation.  As far as this film goes, I'm truthfully surprised that I liked it.  I think that this being a variation of a zombie movie is what made Viral great.  I don't think that's what they were going for, but it's what I got out of it and it works for me.  My only big complaint is that when the bombs fall, that's the shittiest bombing for an outbreak situation I've seen.  They drop four or five bombs to destroy the outbreak and it's like they hit three houses and a 7-11 then called it a day.

I give Viral 3 earthworms out of 5:

Mad Ron's Prevues from Hell (1987) 1h 23m

I can't really do a real review for this one.  It came up in the horror section but it's a combination of old horror film previews (apparently from some sort of cable access show?) mixed in with a plot of zombies watching the previews and some guy with a zombie ventriloquist dummy making bad dick jokes.

The previews were at least interesting.  They tended to group some together by common threads.  So you'd see Texas Chainsaw Massacre backed with Deranged.  Both films were based on the serial killer Ed Gein and actually look similar, minus a giant with a chainsaw.

A few of the other previews have crazy gimmicks added to them where you don't even see much of the film but instead something like a reporter showing up and saying that someone has gone insane while watching the movie.  You get throwbacks to the older horror warnings but instead of the times where they say things like "if you're scared to death then we'll pay for your casket" you get something like a bell cue during the movie so you can turn away from the graphic sex or violence.

Speaking of sex, holy fuck!  There are just naked people everywhere.  One film was pretty much just billed as having tits in 3D.  One of the pairs of tits shown though had some weird inverted nipple hole thing going on.  I don't want to see your weird 3D 70's hide-your-weed-in-there tits!  There was also some sort of film with necrophiliac cult where a bunch of people were naked at the end of it.

There there were a ton of Exorcist rip offs.  It was interesting overall to see just how many films wanted to cash in on something a bigger budget film did, or how many went in the other direction and made absolute randomness.  Racism is also rampant.  People of color depicted as savages and attacking white people.  There was one film named something like Africa: Blood and Gore which looked like a Faces of Death of terrible things that happened in Africa, but it comes across as just "look at how horrible and savage these black people are!!"  Fuck that film ever existing.  It's no wonder shitty racism existed then and still exists.  It's the kind of shit I'd hear about growing up in a small mountain area and people believed that shit.  Now I'm angry again.

It was good though to see some previews for some better known films; Night of the Living Dead, Wizard of Gore, Corpse Grinder, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  I actually forgot I own Wizard of Gore and have yet to watch it until I saw it pop up there.  Maybe on a day off I'll get to that.

So, as I said, I can't review a collection of previews with some shitty skits in between.  The skits would get a one just for juvenile behavior, but that's it.  I would say that overall Mad Ron's Prevues from Hell is worth watching if, for nothing else, you want to see some horror history.

[REC] 4: Apocalypse (2014) 1h 35m

I can't remember which of the [REC] series I've seen before. I'm pretty sure I haven't seen the original because it's either never on Netflix or costs way too much on DVD because it's a foreign film.  That's kind of a bummer though because it's supposed to be really good.  [REC] 4: Apocalypse though, questionable at best.

It starts with a group of military guys sweeping building and planting explosives.  They apparently are poorly trained as their sweeps don't show that there are fuck tons of zombies they missed which end up wrecking their lives.  One ends up finding our main reporter girl and they escape only to wake up on a ship with a bunch of caged monkeys, a small crew, military, and scientists?  I don't know what the hell happened.  Neither do they, so I guess we're all in the same... you know what... never mind.

The rest of the film is outbreak city followed by one of those "this person must have the cure! Get them!" shit for a good half of the movie.  This was actually pretty boring.  Also, that outboard motor she's posing with in that poster... it's a weapon.  Pretty much the dumbest weapon I've seen in a zombie movie because those things are heavy as fuck and don't have huge blades.  A boat full of guys with a ton of guns, and you mother fuckers find a dumb ass motor.

I think this is one of those points where a franchise has just gone on too long.  The fucking zombies Naruto run at them sometimes which instantly made me hate them.  Then the subtitles were not always correct.  I may not know much Spanish, but I know when someone says "you don't have the balls," as opposed to "I would like to see you try it."

This movie also started with some things I might have been reading into waaaaaayyyy too much.  For example, the ship's name is the Zarathustra which I assume was in reference to the Neitzsche book.  The radio/IT person was wearing a Nosferatu shirt and they're all on a boat with this "monster" plague.  I'm probably just trying too hard to save this film by wanting it to be smarter than zombies on a ship in Spanish.

I give [REC] 4: Apocalypse 2 "judges you in Spanish" memes out of 5:

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Day 11: What We Become (2015) 1h 25m

When I think of the general Norway/Sweden/Denmark area of Europe I tend to think about black metal, and ABBA, but mostly black metal.  So when I rolled the Danish film What We Become and saw this poster image I was hoping it was going to be bloody with satan and cool shit.  What I got was a 28 Days Later knock off.  So what I became was bored.

What We Become starts with a viral outbreak in a small city area.  It quickly becomes a militarized zone where those that turn are pulled out and taken somewhere to be killed and the survivors have to live just on small rations.  Shit goes down hard thanks to our "teenage" jagbag, Gustav, sneaking out and basically leading to things getting out of control way faster than normal time would allow.

These characters were lame.  The teens are oversexed and the parents appear absurdly laid back at times.  Gustav sucked so hard as a person that the greatest monster in this film is his sheer existence.  The course this film takes is just a slow crawl of what 28 Days... did much better.

Apparently this is the first "post-apocalyptic zombie" film to come from Denmark.  While I'd say this were more early-apocalypse than post-apocalyptic, I wish it would have been more inventive.  There were some good visual elements but at one point the windows to the outside world get blacked out and I assume that this was put in as a plot point only because they couldn't keep filming with the background showing people doing their normal life things and breaking the immersion.  I could be wrong, but it felt like that was the reason.

I give What We Become 1 copy of 28 Days Later out of 5:

Turkey Day Special!! Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (2006) 1h 43m

Happy Turkey Day!!  Nothing celebrates that more than a horror film about a fast food chicken restaurant!  In truth, my internal dialog of deciding what film I should review for Thanksgiving lasted all of five seconds.  It was pretty much me thinking of Poultrygeist, deciding to do Poultrygeist, and then five minutes later realizing I could do Thankskilling instead but I had already committed my body to Poultrygeist.

I've brought up Troma films at least 20 times on this blog.  If you're not familiar, or you're just joining us here at 30 Days of Plight, Troma is an independent film company mostly known for having made the Toxic Avenger films.  They also put out some non-Troma Studio films such as Cannibal the Musical (a college film done by Matt Stone and Trey Parker).  At its core, Troma carries a brand of low budget and offensive toilet humor that only a B-movie addict can love.

Truthfully, I forgot about how offensive this film really is at times.

The plot of Poultrygeist revolves around a fast food restaurant that is built upon what used to be a native burial ground and thus becomes cursed.  Our main character, Arby (it's all fast food chain names and puns) gets a job there after he runs into his girlfriend protesting the chain.  She had just left for college and suddenly become an overly political lesbian.  That's kind of par for a teenage male.  Do something dumb as an act of revenge in order to win love...

As the film rolls on, staff keep getting killed, patrons become chicken zombies, there are a lot of tits and gore, a gay character (Paco Bell) gets pulled into a meat grinder after jerking off into the meat and comparing it to an act of Che Guevara-esq rebellion, and we find out the protest and lead lesbian was doing it all as a ruse to promote the restaurant.  That's a fucking long sentence of random shit.

Oh, did I mention this is also a musical?  Because it is.  The songs are actually well written even though the lyrics are middle school boy humor.  In fact, as far as Troma films go, it seems like Lloyd Kaufman must've pulled some decent scratch together for this one.  The costumes, effects, even the title sequence showed some backing and thus a greater sense of effort.  This is not a slam on Troma's other films, it's just a big step up.

All in all, while I'm sure some of the things I brought up in this review have probably turned you off from ever watching it, Troma was my first and my continual personal motivation toward the idea that I could make a horror film.  It's not about big budget, big effects, big names, big bullshit... it's about making something fun and having fun.  I know from Lloyd's book that making a movie isn't easy, but these films make it seem attainable.

So I give Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead a solid 3 drumsticks out of 5:

Day 28: V/H/S/2 (2013) 1h 36m

I think I've seen all of the V/H/S series.  It's tough to remember because there are a lot of these horror compilation style films out there now.  Looking back at Creepshow and moving all the way up to more modern ones like Southbound, they all begin to melt together.  I do remember seeing V/H/S/2 though.

Technically there are five films in one here.  The first involves a man seeing more than he bargained for when he gets his new experimental eye implant.  Number two, which is my favorite of the group, is a zombie with a GoPro.  Our third film involves a strange Indonesian cult and a documentary crew.  The fourth pushes the focus more into a sci-fi/horror realm with a group of hormonal teens and tweens.  The final one is the very shoddy glue of V/H/S/2 which focuses on some private investigators trying to track down a college student, breaking into his home, and piecing things together by the VHS tapes and a laptop video.

I call the final one shoddy because I feel like they really had no clue how to fit together each of those shorts and they just created this component to make it work.  It's more like duct tape, or bubble gum and tooth picks.

Out of the remaining four, V/H/S/2 has two strong shorts, one decent short, and one that is forgettable. It's not bad, just forgettable.  The great thing about these short film collections is that if one isn't that great you know something else is coming soon.  For that, I say V/H/S/2 is pretty strong.

I give V/H/S/2 3 Betamax tapes 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 30: Contracted: Phase II (2015) 1h 18m

It's really challenging to find any kind of zombie film these days that isn't beating a dead plot horse.  In fact, even if you've never seen a zombie film, odds are that the increase in the phenomena surrounding zombie films means you could list off the primary identifiers.  While most people spend their time arguing over Dawn of the Dead fast or Night of the Living Dead shambling, I just want something different.  Contracted: Phase II delivered.

The sequel to 2013's Contracted, Phase II follows our main character Riley.  After the zombification and death (re-death?) of his friend Alice he begins to see signs of the zombie virus in himself.  The big difference with the virus in this case as compared to most other zombie films is that it is transmitted via intimate contact.  This can be anything from a kiss up to and including sexual intercourse.  In fact, we get one of the grossest scenes I've ever seen where Riley is having a flashback to having sex with Alice (still human) and I guess he pulls out and a ton of maggots just fall onto the floor.  The process doesn't kick in after death, here it is a slow build up of the body breaking down and decomposing while the person is still alive.  This leads to some amazing make-up.

I could really gush all over this review about the make-up.  Huge worms coming out of infected wounds, a nose bleed that is literally a deluge of blood, the grossest puss color and consistency I've ever seen, infected pustules that shift their fluid and tension as Riley moves, and an arm scratching moment that made me want to hide my eyes.  I'm not squeamish when it comes to horror.  Most of the time I can watch blood and dismemberment without issue.  But if you make it just real enough that I can actually imagine it happening to me, then you fucking win the prize.

The bulk of Contracted: Phase II is Riley attempting to deal with what is happening to him, but then him trying to track down the man that is the cause of it.  A mixture of Patient Zero and Typhoid Mary, this man passed on the virus when he sexually assaulted Alice, but never becomes a zombie himself.

I need to watch the first film to get the back story.  That's not to say that I didn't gather an understanding by watching this film by itself.  Either way, give these films a shot.  This one was rather short compared to most movies and it was paced well.  If nothing else, watch it for the great make-up effects.

I give Contracted: Phase II 3 condom bananas out of 5:

Day 1: Zombie Hunter (2013) 1h 33min

Sometimes people take two ideas, mash them together, and create magic.  Peanut butter cups are that kind of magic.  Zombie Hunter is not that kind of magic.  It's more like cereal and milk that have been sitting for a long time.  Two things could be great together, but you went and fucked it up!

One part Road Warrior, one part Planet Terror, and a dash of Machete.  A combo that would be awesome except it seems that director and editor seemed to had no real background with grindhouse style films.  Add the fact that your characters are tropes like horny teenage 20-something, burly redneck guy, girl next door, older father/grandpa type, and a girl named "Fast Lane" Debbie... well... you know where this is going.

Zombies exist because of a drug called "natas" (Satan backwards if you didn't notice that).  We find this out because of the polite stripper-looking news anchor on channel 44.    After a very long vomit scene with her co-anchor, which the news camera films all of in close-up, we're given this filler-ish backstory about things revolving around some drug users.  The only redeeming part of this scene is that they made a fake Blek Le Rat graffiti piece in the background.

From there we get introduced to our Australian actor, driving a souped up black sports car, and wearing a leather jacket.  Known only as "Hunter," this is our main character.  Not Danny Trejo, who is on the fucking poster, but this guy.  For the remainder of this post Mr. Trejo will be referred to as Dubstep Trejo in regards to his action scenes having absurd dubstep playing over them.  He has maybe three scenes at most in this film before he gets his head ripped off.  Two of those scenes have Dubstep Trejo shirtless and swinging a full sized wood axe to kill zombies.  That man is fucking rad and money well spent.  For real, I love Mr. Trejo in films.

There isn't much plot to describe from here on out: Hunter meets our tropes; Hunter and the tropes attempt to escape; people get picked off by either zombies, super zombies that look like a mix of the Tyrant from the Resident Evil 1 game and Nemesis from the Resident Evil 3 game, or the crazy giant guy with clown paint and a chainsaw (whoop whoop); nice girl and her 20-teen brother are the sole survivors.

The only one of my notes I haven't touched on here are just the words "stripper magic!"  I don't remember what this was referring to, but strippers are indeed magical...  Actually, I shouldn't say stripper.  As an acquaintance once referred to his occupation, they are "fantasy technicians."

On that educational note, I give Zombie Hunter two Danny Trejo tattoos out of five.

tattoo by Marco Lunez of Koi Tattoo, Brazil

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:

Day 23: All Cheerleaders Die (2013) 1h 29min

Coming into this I was either going to love or hate this film.  I knew there would be no in between.  Luckily I was pleasantly surprised.

All Cheerleaders Die is actually a remake of a film with the same name from 2001.  I'm glad someone raided the vaults for this and brought back the ancient papyrus scrolls that made up this script to redo it.  I know I'm talking shit for something I just stated I liked, but the fact it was 12 years between the original and remake just seems too short.

The plot of ACD is the initial death of a cheerleader in a freak cheerleading accident leads to one girl wanting to get revenge on her now ex-boyfiend/absolute scum bag.  In the process of this guy being a shit he punches a girl, threatens tons of people, attempts to get with underage ladies, has a history of sexual assault, and eventually murders people.  Fuck this guy.  He really needs to explode but doesn't.

Our revenge girl joins the cheer squad to enact her plan and things go smoothly until her and three other cheerleaders die in a car crash.  Luckily her on/off lesbian lover is "wiccan" and brings them all back from the dead with crystals and blood.

I use Wiccan in quotes there because this was definitely someone that thought "wiccan" is just an updated and buzzword version of "witch."  It's not.  Not all witches fall under or identify as Wiccan.  In fact, most of what she does would be found questionable in the ethics of a Wiccan... especially what is basically considered necromancy here by reanimating her dead love, those cheerleaders, and a dead cat.  I care about the cat, not so much anyone else.

So this leads to the reanimated girls being some sort of blood requiring zombie/vampires/something where they suck people dry for sustenance.  Two of the girls have also switched bodies which also doesn't need to exist as a plot point.  Eventually douche strap kills one of the girls, takes out the crystal, and ingests it.  This gives him some sort of powers so he begins trying to get the rest.

Things spiral into a bunch of whatever as I just want this guy to be dead already.

This film was definitely remade for middle school/high school males.  Surprisingly though, after the initial 10 minutes the movie really does pick up and being fun to watch.  The cheerleading accident is horrifying when you first see it, and that was what made me start to pay attention.  My only complaints aside form the use of the word "wicca" inappropriately would be the fact that there are probably 3-4 of what my fiancé referred to as "mean girl movie" shots.  You know, where the girl(s) walk down a hallway in slow motion and everyone watches them.  This bugged me because at one point a guy wearing normal glasses responds to watching them go down the hall by lowering his glasses and looking without them.  You have glasses!  You need those to see!

Overall I give All Cheerleaders Die 3 pom poms out of 5: