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Goshzilla.com - Now in colour!
| Monday, October 19, 2009 - Originals |
Zombi Fourest [2004] - An everyman vampire must dispose of an object of inconceivable evil and power while battling his own addictions in this forgotten classic. If you ask anyone about the DCJ Zombie Chronicles, you’ll probably only hear about Zombie Jamboree and the more recent Zombie Zinger. So what happened to the second film Zombi Fourest? The story of this forgotten classic is both long and tragic, but in a nutshell, Zombi Fourest was the unwitting victim of fallout from a Hollywood claims battle. In 2004, the Brothers Thombs drafted the script for the now defunct Cannibal Crops film studio. Their film, an epic that would put Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy to shame, followed a lesser known character from Zombie Jamboree and his quest to destroy an object of evil while battling his own temptations. Initial filming began in March of ’04, but after the notorious year-long sandstorms that ravaged America, Dann and his crew decided on a new location. For almost a decade, Dann and his team spent the better part of their years illegally filming the busy city streets and office districts of Italy. When they returned, their film saw only a limited release before it was quickly taken off the market by the Italian Director's Institute Of Television. Nonetheless, Zombi Fourest acquired a cult following and can now be viewed as it was intended thanks to the Criterion Collection.
To understand the story of Zombi Fourest requires one to understand the mind behind it. At the time, Dann was battling a Kool-Aid Powder addiction. In an interview he once stated continue reading...
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| Thursday, October 15, 2009 - Horror |
Gravedancers, The [2006] - A group of friends desecrate a cemetery during a drunken dance, but anger the angry spirits below It took a while for the After Dark Horrorfest, aka. 8 Films to Die For, to ramp up. The first season was split into ridiculously bad movies, and some way too serious yet slightly boring ones. This sort of bridges the two between the Hamiltons and one where the pigs eat an infant and a bridge time travels or something.
Kudos to the Gravedancers for at least a coherent plot. There aren't really any 'twists' as such, and while some may argue that would make the plot somewhat simplistic, in this case it's a welcome feature since I couldn't really expend the brainpower to grasp complexities of a ghost story that doesn't involve emotionally attached ghosts. They're more of the just 'angry for the sake of it' ghosts. As it's revealed, they were pretty sucky people in real life, so it's not a huge surprise that their ghosts ended up being the same. It doesn't however explain how they get supernatural powers. I mean I guess ghosts are supernatural to some degree, but they had some mummy style antics going on. The action movie: The Mummy, not just slow stumbling attributes. continue reading...
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| Wednesday, October 14, 2009 - Animation Series |
The Trap Door [1984] - The misadventures of Berk, a blue British blob, and his constant meddling with a trap door. I love Claymation films. There's something supernatural about the way things move in these programs, and each character is usually rendered with a soft and organic feel endearing them to us. I discovered The Trap Door completely by accident one day when I was searching for Danger Mouse. When I was growing up, Nickelodeon was just becoming its own network and, as a result, bought and broadcast lots of shows from other countries: Maya the Bee, The Tomorrow People, Danger Mouse, Count Duckula, etc. While I wasn't struck with the same sense of nostalgia upon my recent find, I was nonetheless intrigued by the premise and horror theme of what pretty much equated to children's programming.
In a nutshell, The Trap Door follows the everyday happenings of Berk, a blue clay man who works continue reading...
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| Friday, October 9, 2009 - Originals |
Zombie Jamboree [2001] - The Cottontail Fourest is overrun by legions of the undead. Soldiers and some friends go in to stop the threat. Who will make it out alive? I know what you're thinking: "A review of Zombie Jamboree? That's been done to death (pun intended)! Every review site and their browser-based mothers have done this." Well, I just couldn't help myself. It's Goshtober and the air is right for the review of Zombie Jamboree...yes, THE Zombie Jamboree.
In short, Zombie Jamboree is a tour de force! A ground-breaking and unprecedented addition to the zombie genre of film combining characters with sardonic wit and complex and unique agendas. "But Brian, this looks like somebody's home movie...bad home movie!" I know! it's brilliant how even I was fooled by its outer appearance, but make no mistake, dear viewer; the outer appearance belies a deep and tragic plethora of voodoo mythos and allegory. continue reading...
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| Thursday, October 8, 2009 - Games |
Hugo's House of Horrors [1990] - A neon weirdo attempts to save his girlfriend from an episode of The Munsters It's finally Goshtober! I'm pretty excited to write about some SpOoOoKy vIdeO gAmeS. Hugo's House of Horrors isn't really going to scare you unless you're particularly faint-hearted, but I figured I would start the month out with one of the more G-rated horror games. Just to get you warmed up.
Hugo's House of Horrors is a parser adventure game starring Hugo, who is trying to rescue his girlfriend Penelope from a haunted house. This game doesn't beat around the bush. You barely have time to look at the title screen before you find yourself on the front lawn of the haunted house. It won't take you long to realize that everything in the game looks not so much like the setting of a horror story as much as it looks like a random assortment of your mom's Halloween decorations. Seriously though, the very first screen shows a haunted house that looks almost exactly like one of those little ceramic haunted houses that you put a candle in. All the windows have creepy eyes peering out of them. The banister is all crooked and broken. There's a goofy pumpkin on the porch and a bat flutters in front of a full moon. You are not just about to enter a haunted house, you are about to enter THE quintessential Haunted House™! continue reading...
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| Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - Horror |
Killer Eye, The [1999] - An experiment designed to see into the 8th dimension, results in the 8th dimension seeing us. Charles Band, and Full Moon. You can look no further than this movie to pretty much define the niche he carved out. While the 50's had sci-fi monster movies, the 60-70's had gritty torture movies, and the 80's had campy slashers, I personally feel that the 90's will pretty much be defined by the various Full Moon productions. A few years have passed since the hey-day, which allows us a more proper retrospect on the whole ordeal.
At first, or at least to anyone not into 'bad movies', they would simply write most of these off as worthless. A few stuck out like the Puppet Master films and Castle Freak, since they were fairly well filmed and produced. However the rest take a certain taste to really enjoy. Charles Band formed Full Moon in order to quickly fill the direct to video market. He took the approach of trying to make a low-budget movie have a big-budget feel. This, I think, is where some say the let down occurs, but I feel it helps bring b-movies to a whole new level. The sets are not elaborate, but they are complete and complex, with attention to detail being a high priority. Sets may be few in this case those, which maybe the entire movie taking place in only a few locations. Acting is usually performe by b-movie veterans, and the cast is usually older than the stupid college-to-look crowd. continue reading...
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| Tuesday, October 6, 2009 - Games |
Penumbra: Requiem [2008] - Racked by debilitating dementia, Philip must battle inner demons as well as outer. When news that Penumbra: Black Plague was going to conclude the Penumbra Series, it came as a bit of a shock when the release of Requiem was announced. Touted as a puzzle game expansion to the previous installment, Requiem featured physics and logic-based puzzles that all revolved around Philip getting from Point A to Point B. What was believed to be a logical conclusion to the series amounted to little more than odd assortments of different rooms, each with their own environmental hazards. While a sparse narrative was present, it largely consisted of recycled audio clips from the previous games in order to somehow facilitate Philip’s descent into self-induced dementia.
Taking place mere seconds after Black Plague, Philip has gone against the wishes of his otherworldly host(s) and sent an email to a colleague with the exact location of the research facility with one instruction: “Kill them all.” continue reading...
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| Monday, October 5, 2009 - Games |
Penumbra: Black Plague [2008] - In a cold dark prison cell, Philip awakens with a bump on the head and another set of horrors. The first installment of the Penumbra Series, Overture, featured an interactive real-time mechanic for manipulating objects and a unique sanity system which favored flight over fight, despite the game’s would-be FPS trappings. You were tempted to fight, but ultimately learned that it was futile in most cases. As Philip followed Red’s voice on the radio to his presumed destiny, the twist came when Red’s final request was revealed. The story ended on a devilish cliffhanger with many mysteries left unsolved. A year later, Penumbra: Black Plague was released in February of 2008, and while many elements of the original game were present, there had been a few changes and a generous facelift to the physics and sanity systems.
From the start, the player will notice that the narrative is much more involved with an almost overabundance of expository reading material continue reading...
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| Friday, October 2, 2009 - Horror |
Cult [2007] - Students investigate an ancient asian legend, but get caught up in the modern revival. If you remove the 'L' from the title, you get Cut. Which as reviewed earlier, ended up being a generic slasher film, following the typical routes. This movie, despite being about an ancient Asian legend rather than a slasher come to life, can easily swap the plot around. One may think a plot would hinge on the theme, but hardly when every movie since nearly every movie in the past 15 years follows the same flow. Now we're spared a car ride cliché, but it's replaced with the school project cliché. continue reading...
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| Thursday, October 1, 2009 - Games |
Penumbra: Overture [2007] - Philip finds himself deep underground in the Greenland wastes and he's not alone. In recent years, the game industry has seen a sharp decline in the survival horror genre. While every so often, the world sees the release of a North American-developed Silent Hill installment, these experiences pale in comparison to what many people remember as truly horrifying. Games like Alone in the Dark, the original Silent Hill, Clock Tower, and even the first couple Resident Evil installments all managed to put the player at odds with an overwhelming opposition. At its core, Survival Horror suggests many intriguing and terrifying prospects: little to no weapons or defense, supernatural horrors hunting you, and coping with a world and atmosphere poised against you. In 2007, a small group of developers in Sweden calling themselves Frictional Games, broke onto the scene with their title, Penumbra: Overture. A welcome return to the survival horror genre, players were assaulted on all sides by environmental hazards, sinister creatures that dwelt beneath the earth, and, at times, their own inability to press on from sheer anticipation of the next horror. continue reading...
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| Wednesday, September 30, 2009 - Horror |
The Slayer [1982] - Two couples retreat to an island cabin for fishing and relaxation. But they end up dying instead. There's a reason I haven't taken a vacation in the past 9 years. Horror movies have taught me that this is a very bad idea. There's always someone out there to just ruin your good time. Sure work gives you at least two weeks off, but those end up being used for doctors appointments and renewing your drivers license and stuff anyway.
And despite popular belief, you can't just follow the 'rules' and get out scott free. Sure the morally challenged among the group end up going first, as they should, but really no one is safe. There have been many occasions where the good go with the bad. In this movie, we have two couples, and each is fairly normal. Save for the one woman who has bad dreams every night and can't seem to function socially at all. However, she's still not a bad person per se. Being an early 80's movie, the slasher genre hadn't really solidified yet. At least not into blanent cliché's that had to be followed time and time again. So while the movie has slasher-esque properties, it's more of a mystery/nightmare flick than anything else. continue reading...
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| Tuesday, September 29, 2009 - Horror |
Candy Stripers [2006] - And outbreak in a hospital causes the nurses to either kill or body snatch the patients. There's a reason movies sometimes have a $5 price tag, and as is often the case, they are still overcharging. At some point, I need to resist the urge of a good deal when in fact buying nothing really is the better option. This movie in particular, short of being free, just isn't worth it. There's nothing of content, either good or bad. A really terrible movie would sometimes be worth it, but here we have just a whole lot of 'meh'.
You can see what they were trying to do. Hiring playmates for the nurse roles, creating a misleading cover, centering the parasitic transfer around kissing (and with a mostly female cast, you can guess why). A bunch of (ineffective I'd say) eye candy, a theme that's been played out before, and a hum-drum plot are used to replace any semblance of entertainment. continue reading...
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| Monday, September 28, 2009 - Cult Figure |
Jeffrey Combs - A brief blurb about my favorite re-animator. The first time I'd ever heard of this marvelous man was in the film Re-Animator. Based on the story by H.P. Lovecraft, Combs assumed the role of Herbert West, the story's twisted protagonist consumed with finding the cure for death. This would not be the only Lovecraft-inspired film Combs would star in, and he would eventually go on to assume the role of Lovecraft himself in the film Necronomicon. continue reading...
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| Friday, September 25, 2009 - Horror |
Blood Freak [1972] - A man does drugs and ends up turning into a murderous turkey. During the 60's, the movie industry was growing tired of the Production Code and its limitations. Starting in the mid-30's the Code dictated what could or could not be in a movie at all. Certain restrictions were relaxed over time, but others were pretty steadfast. In the early 70's the Code was dropped in favor of the voluntary rating system we have today. So film makers could do what they wished, but risked commercial failure instead due to cinemas not accepting ratings of X (later turned to NC17, but with the same issues).
However before all this happened, people skirted the code in two primary ways. One, they would set up a traveling production called 'stag shows' and show them to groups in basements. Since it was a private enterprise, there was little anyone could do. However these were limited in scope, and really for the more straightforward violations of the Code. The second was a bit more creative and was able to achieve a wider release. continue reading...
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| Thursday, September 24, 2009 - Horror |
Night of a 1000 Cats [1972] - Women are fed to cats and a guy takes helicopter rides. When people look fondly on the horror movies of yester-year, they all too often forget horrible examples like this one. Really the worst offense a movie can do, is to be boring. Or blatently relying on perverse or scatalogical humor, but that sort of falls into the same category in the end anyway.
This falls into the former. Pretty much as the summary states: women are fed to cats, and a guy takes helicopter rides. That's it. But I have more screenshots than text at this point, so I must somehow describe nothing for a few more paragraphs. continue reading...
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| Wednesday, September 23, 2009 - Action |
Joshikyôei hanrangun [2007] - When a viral outbreak threatens a school, it's up to the girls swim team to save the day. Seriously. With Zombieland on the way and Dead Snow still fresh in our minds, I thought it would be a good time to review Joshikyoei hanrangun or as the Chinese call it, The Girls Rebel Force of Competitive Swimmers. There’s no way around it so I’ll just come out and say it: this movie is lewd, violent, gratuitous, campy and just plain awful. However, in spite of all these debilitating flaws, it somehow manages to be entertaining and, much like my colleagues, if I’m not bored or seeking egress from my chambers, then it wasn’t a total loss. That being said, what you must come to terms with early on is that this is a Japanese film about an all-girls swim team fending off a viral outbreak in their school while donning one-piece swimsuits. If your brain hasn’t already made travel arrangements after reading that premise, then be prepared to cope with the abandonment issues that follow upon actually viewing the film. continue reading...
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| Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - Documentary |
Whole [2003] - Throughout the world some people cannot cope with having all of their limbs, and long to be missing one. It's not uncommon to hear stories about people who are convinced that they are the wrong gender and won't feel complete until somehow this is corrected. Some may be satisfied by simply pretending and wearing different clothes or changing mannerisms, while others necessitate a medical alteration.
'Whole' makes comparisons to this cultural phenomenon but in a different realm. The title 'Whole' is a double play, both at face value referring to the tangible notion of being whole physically but also as an emotional state of mind insofar as the subjects will never feel 'whole' as long as they are 'whole'. continue reading...
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| Monday, September 21, 2009 - Foods |
Soda Batch #2 - Energy Drink Edition I now present to you, round 2 of the soda collections. This time, we have a few energy drinks I found for very very cheap. Most were found for 50-60 cents rather then the normal $2-3. Are they worth not paying full retail like many other drinks, or do they just suck. Will they energize you and make the work day somewhat more bearable, or will they cause you much internal bleeding and lifetime regret. Read on. That is if you dare.
  
ingredients
Syzmo:
These were 60 cents each. I have to admit, they weren't bad. I didn't think they were really energy drinks though, as they honestly tastes like Ginger Ale soda. Usually most energy drinks have the same taste, even the Moxie variety. Here they are just the same flavored soda idea, but soon after provided an energy boost. And by boost, I mean my heart started racing, and I was pretty well convinced that doom was around the corner and something bad would happen very soon. continue reading...
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