Zombos' Closet of Horror

Dragged to Hell With KNB EFX

Written by Scott Essman

When directors hit box-office gold, it is common knowledge that they can make whatever they wish for a followup film. For Sam Raimi, coming off of three Spider-Man films which all rank in the top 50 domestic box office grossers of all time, he could have made virtually any film he could conjure as his next cinematic venture. But, what did the director of such cult classics as Within the Woods (1978), The Evil Dead (1981), Evil Dead II (1987), and Darkman (1990), decide to do after exiting the world of Spider-Man? One only need look at the opening animated Universal logo to determine Raimi’s intentions: the director chose a pre-1997 Universal opening to set the stage of this film: we were going on a journey that would be a throwback to the time when Raimi was a cult director, still largely undiscovered by the Hollywood mainstream.

For horror enthusiasts, when you think of Raimi’s early work, you recall shaky but taut camera moves, a mélange of harsh sound and light, intensified performances, and unsubtle moments of discovery and revelation. You simultaneously remember the outrageous often guttural practical makeup effects in those films: Evil Dead featured buckets of blood while the sequel was somewhat refined if still surreal in its over-the-top portrayal of horror as a genre that was being infused with new post-slasher film blood, built on the heels of the successes of the original Halloween, Dawn of the Dead, Friday the 13^th, and other instrumental films in the genre.

Enter into this world a name that goes hand-in-hand with horror over the past decades that Raimi has been active in reinventing the genre. “If you’ve seen a horror movie in the last 15 years, they did it,” said special ‘horror’ makeup effects legend Tom Savini of the KNB EFX Group, a makeup effects and creature shop lead by Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger, and co-founded by ex-member Robert Kurtzman in 1988.

Movie Review: Jennifer's Body (2009)

I need you frightened. I need you hopeless. (Jennifer in Jennifer's Body.)

Rating 5 of 7: Excellent

With Diablo Cody's pop, slang-twang dialog peppering the lines of Jennifer's Body, imparting a CW slickness to this story of girlfriends, boyfriends, and evil that is not just high school evil, looks can be deceiving. It is a blend of dark humor involving the gray relationship between the desirable Jennifer and her groupie-like friend since childhood, the desirous Needy Lesnicky, and witty, supernatural gore that revisits and updates 1980's teen horror movie angst with tongue in cheek playfulness and a knowing nod. Not that this movie is all pom-pom kicks and giggles: Cody's dialog goes down like spooned sugar with Castor oil, her adults are few and out of touch, and her characters are lost, nearly found, then lost again. The ugly demon inhabiting Jennifer's beautiful body is the only one not lost, or uncertain, or confused, or lusting after fame, fortune, love, or identity. Demons are always so damned self-assured.

The Video Dead (1987): It's a Crime

"Ladies and gentlemen: the story you are about to read is true. There are many odd stories in the annals of horror cinema. This is one of them."

"Slow down a minute and let me get this straight," said Detective Web. He paged through his notebook. "You say this Paul Hasselhoff--"

"Paul Holstenwall," I corrected him.

"You say this Paul Holstenwall is to blame for Zombos's death?"

"Yes. It's all his fault. He insisted we watch another one of his inane travesties of straight to video horror called The Video Dead. Zombos keeled over dead away toward the end. It was horrible." I held back the tears. Glenor Glenda, our maid, stood in shock over his body. Thank God Zimba and Zombos Junior were at the theater to see the more lively Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa.

"I told him, I did," said Glenor, between blowing her nose and dabbing her wet eyes. "I told him to go with his son and get away from all this nasty horror. Oh, how will we explain this to his son? The missus will be so upset!"

"Hey, has this been dusted for prints yet?" asked Detective Web as he reached for The Video Dead VHS tape.

"Yeah, done."

"Haven't seen one of these in a while," he said, picking it up. "So tell me about this movie. I find it hard to believe Zombos died just from watching it."

"I...I don't know where to begin," I said.

"Start with the facts. Just the facts. That will do just fine."

"Let me think," I said. "Okay. It's about a television set that looks like it came from the house in Night of the Living Dead. The TV is delivered, by mistake, to a writer who is promptly killed by the zombies that can enter our world through it."

"Flesh-eating zombies?"

"Well, not quite. They strangle people, mostly, then toss them into washing machines and start the spin cycle."

"I thought you said the television set came from the house in Night of the Living Dead. Don't those zombies eat people?" asked Detective Web.

"Yes. I mean no. I mean I didn't say the set came from the house in Night of the Living Dead, it just looks like it did. Now, one neighbor does get eaten, sure, but that happens later in the movie, and we don't see it happen, just the messy aftermath. The rest of the time the zombies giggle a lot, and want to go dancing, too. Oh, and there's this Garbage Man fellow that appears briefly in the TV, but we never find out why, or what he's actually doing in there, or even how he got there in the first place. Then again, I'm not sure how the zombies got into the television set, either."

Killer Klowns From Outer Space (1988)

Part Three of The Shudderites Attack
(Read Part Two)

Things are looking grim for our heroes at the mansion. Steve Brown, Zombos and Chef Machiavelli are desperately trying to hold off the Shudderites and their vile, but playful, pets at the pantry door. But can they be stopped? Will Chef Machiavelli ever be able to prepare the evening meal, or will Zombos be shaked and baked instead? Looks like another takeout night at the mansion.

"Mr. Zoc! Mr. Zoc!" cried Glenor Glenda the maid, running down the hall from the pantry.

"I'm rather busy blogging," I told her.

"But you must come at once! Mr. Zombos is taken by those nasty creatures, and Steve Brown is lying unconscious by the pantry door."

"Where's Chef Machiavelli?" I yelled back.

"I don't know."

Great, I thought, definitely a takeout night. Must I do everything around here? I am, after all, only the valet. I pushed aside my laptop. Killer Klowns From Outer Space would have to wait until I attended to this annoying 8th Dimension incursion into the mansion. As I hustled down the hall, I stopped briefly to pick up a nice Narsil-looking sword and hefty battle-axe from one of the medieval suits of armour that line the east hallway leading to the kitchen.

I found Steve Brown lying unconscious on the kitchen floor. "Fetch some Scotch whiskey, if you please," I told Glenor. "Make it snappy."

She quickly returned with a bottle. "Have you no sense of decency, woman?" I told her, seeing she brought the wrong bottle. "Not the vatted malt! Bring back the Royal Brackla. The man is unconscious you know. I mean really."

Trailer Park of Terror (2008): Unrated and Unrelenting

From the case files of the League of Reluctant Reviewers comes this trashy horror, based on the Imperium Comics series, that will make you think twice before eating beef jerky ever again.

The Adventure of the Nauseating Necromancer

I remember it all quite well. It came uninvited in a small brown envelope mixed in with the mail, on a day when the leaves tousled angrily on the limbs of dying trees, fighting against their inevitable descent to lesser heights of vibrancy. An oily pipe smoke fog, so thick it choked the throat and chilled the soul, gamboled in the deserted streets, stirred by winds playfully knocking off the hats of the few brave passersby hurrying along the quiet streets. Darkness had come early this unusual day in October. I twirled my scarf tighter to ward off the dampness. Or was it something else that made me shake uncontrollably as I tapped the brass flamingo knocker against the massive oak door of 999 Transient Street.

"Welcome Mr. Bolton. Good to see you again," said Chalmers. He took my raincoat and scarf as we walked toward the Champagne Room, so named because of the pale yellow light that reflected in sparkling shimmers from its large Waterford crystal chandelier. Chalmers reached for the small brown envelope. I instinctively held it tighter, though I was not sure why. He smiled and went to hang up my coat. I entered the room.

"Punctual as usual," said the unseen man sitting in the Chippendale wing chair facing the fireplace. A lively fire blazed on the grate. "Let me see it," he said in a soothing voice. I relaxed my grip on the envelope and dropped it into the starkly white hand that appeared from the left side of the chair. The envelope disappeared from sight for a few seconds. A light chuckle came from the unseen occupant of the chair. "You do bring the most challenging movies."

Chalmers appeared. "Your drink is ready, and I've taken the liberty of leaving a copy of Mayberry's Zombie CSU for your perusal while you wait."

"Thank you," I said and followed Chalmers to another, smaller room, where a polished Stiegel glass, filled with lightly chilled sherry, waited for me . The cheery, paisley-tailed peacocks embroidered into the linen upholstery of the settee I nestled into were very soothing, and the plump cushioned seat, along with the sherry, had my cheeks on both ends glowing with warmth. I started reading about zombies while the League of Reluctant Reviewers did what few could do or care to; there but for the grace of God and all that as John Bradford would say.

Prom Night (2008)

Why Rework a Slasher Classic Into a Lesser Movie?
Bad Movie Drive-in

Prom Night's life-size promotional cardboard standup of a door, strategically placed in theaters to pique the potential audience for this teen thriller, is a good indication of how much effort went into this movie. Opening the door produces a half-hearted, single scream. A hearty laugh would have been more appropriate.

My mind wandered a bit when Donna (Brittany Snow) and her boyfriend, Bobby (Scott Porter) exchange corsages as Donna's aunt and uncle look on, beaming with happiness. I imagined a prom night filled with monster corsages devouring boyfriends, Carrie-like J-horror prom night ghosts seeking vengeance, or tuxedoed zombies crashing the prom night party. Anything else but this unnecessary reworking of Jamie Lee Curtis's more violent 80's slasher. In my defense I will say I didn't attend my senior prom. Perhaps I have unresolved issues with that. Or perhaps this movie has unresolved issues with terror, tension, and thrills.

Director Nelson McCormick has done a large amount of episodic television work, so maybe this is why his movie is paced around imaginary commercial breaks. Each time tension builds he moves away from the action to show people dancing or crowning the prom king and queen. Like an episode of CSI, nothing appears out of control or erupts into hysterical terror. He also has a fetish for closets. I lost count how often someone opened, reached into, looked in, or hid in, a closet. Donna hides under a bed twice, but I didn't find that as annoying. Not much tension builds from opening closets. You can sum up the entire story this way: give sinister look, slash a victim, show dancing in slow motion, show someone opening a closet, give sinister look, slash a victim, show more dancing, show someone else opening a closet, slash a victim, stop the dancing long enough to show prom king and queen crowning, show someone opening a damn closet again, slash another victim.

Shrooms (2006)

League of Reluctant Reviewers:
The Perplexing Case of the
Axe-wielding Psycho
and the
Getting High-minded College Kids

Psilocybin mushrooms (also called psilocybian mushrooms) are fungi that contain the psychedelic substances psilocybin and psilocin, and occasionally other psychoactive tryptamines. There are multiple colloquial terms for psilocybin mushrooms, the most common being magic mushrooms or shrooms.--Wikipedia

None of the creative people involved in the film, Shrooms, apparently ingested any during its production, making it one big, unmagical, mystery tour. The mystery is how it ever got green-lighted in the first place.--ILoz Zoc

Down a forgotten street somewhere in New York City there stands a used-up, ashlar-surfaced office building waiting to be torn down. Should you enter through its bell archway, walk towards the solitary elevator that's seldom used, and turn right, you would find yourself in a narrow hallway. In its heyday, you could find the finest business agencies rubbing elbows, hustling and bustling, here. But that was in its heyday. If you walk past those frosted-glass doors now, with their chipped and peeling lettering looking like the worn names on tombstones, and continue all the way to the end, you would come to a frosted-glass door whose lettering still shines. That's my office. My home. My name is Sicular Greensleeves. Since my regular business has been slow, I decided to pick up some extra cash by working for the League of Reluctant Reviewers. I didn't realize how busy I'd be.

The Sickhouse (2007)

"Fear Is Infectious" (Unless You Shake the Camera A Lot)
Bad Movie Drive-in

To visit plague-ridden homes, they soaked the robes in wax in hopes of repelling any infectious fluids or vapors. The rest of their skin, they covered with leather boots, smocks, gloves, and hoods. These strict precautions may well have protected them against the true cause of the Black Death--bacteria-carrying fleas that hitched rides on the ubiquitous rats. The doctors' distinctive masks could be made of leather or metal. The eye holes were covered with heavy netting or glass, and the long beak was stuffed with camphor-soaked cotton and herbs. Experts vary on whether the doctors believed the herbs had healing properties or simply used them to overcome the horrible smells.---Beverle Graves Myers, Cruel Music: The Plague Doctors

"I don't have time for this," said Anna (Gina Philips), the comely archeology student in The Sickhouse. Zombos and I looked at each other. We agreed with her. Once again Paul Holstenwall, the scion of inconsequential cinema, had underwhelmed us with another exercise in pointless filmmaking.

Anna has just discovered the four punk metal wannabes who are freaking out because one of them appears to have the plague. For shame: that will teach them not to go kicking about in stolen cars for joy rides and breaking into bio-hazard excavation sites previously used as plague hospitals. And shame on Anna, too. Here she is yelling at them for breaking and entering when she did it first, releasing a centuries old evil--former member of that notorious 1665 London touring group known as the Black Priests--in the process. The five of them, the usual mix of underachieving and overachieving victims slamming into each other in supernatural slasher films, are in for a rough night of it. So is everyone else watching this whoozy camera, blurry-head-spinning-shockcut-apparition, and zoicks! music extravaganza. Whatever originality and novelty inherent in the story is undercooked by director Curtis Radclyffe's palsied camera and over-reliance on J-horror hackneyism.

House on Haunted Hill (1959) See It With Someone With Warm Hands

Filmed in "Emergo". An inflatable skeleton attached to a wire floated over the audience during the final moments of some showings of the film to parallel the action on the screen when a skeleton arose from a vat of acid and pursued the villainous wife of Vincent Price. The gimmick did not always instill fright; sometimes the skeleton became a target for some audience members who hurled candy boxes, soda cups or any other objects at hand at the laughable fake skeleton.
--Wikipedia entry on William Castle and his gimmicks

In his book, Step Right Up! I'm Gonna Scare the Pants Off America, William Castle describes his chance meeting with a depressed Vincent Price in a coffee shop on a rainy evening. Price, melancholy over losing out on an important picture earlier that day, listens to Castle's pitch on the role of the scheming millionaire, Frederick Loren, out to murder his wife.

"Sounds interesting," he said. "Go on."

"During the night, many strange ghostly things happen...blood dripping from the ceiling...walls shaking...apparitions appearing. The millionaire--the part I want you to play--has plotted to kill his wife. She plots to kill you...It's a battle of wits."

Price smiled. "Who wins?"

"You do, of course. She tries to throw you in a vat of boiling acid."

Price's eyes gleamed. "How charming!...I think I'll have another piece of pie."

Castle sums up by saying "the deal was made on the second piece of pie that same rainy night."

League of Reluctant Reviewers: The Blood Shed (2007)

Watching paint dry would be a more productive expenditure of your seventy-three minutes. Possibly not as much fun for some of you, but definitely more productive. --LORR

The League of Reluctant Reviewers Presents:
The Inexplicable Case of The Blood Shed
by ILoz Zoc

Although the chandelier was unlit, light from the brightly burning logs in the large fireplace shimmered through its crystals, sending beams of white into the high, dark corners of the ceiling, across the walls, and across the richly carpeted floor. Facing the fireplace stood a high-backed Chippendale wing chair with exquisite cabriole legs. The chair was upholstered in the same deep color as the carpet. A short man briskly entered the room and walked toward the chair.

"Ah, Mr. Bolton, you are early." A small, stark white hand briefly appeared on the right side of the chair, flicked the ashes off a long cigar, then disappeared. "It must be a serious matter then?"

Bolton looked down at the ashes piled in the bronze ashtray resting on the oval-topped trestle table beside the chair. He pulled a DVD case from his worn messenger's pouch. He addressed the back of the wing chair. "Yes, it's a serious matter. Seventy-three minutes of bloody hillbilly debauchery that defies sanity, convention, and good people's decency. Bluntly put, it's schlock with a capital S."

"Excellent, I love a challenge!" said the voice, accompanied by a single clap of hands. From the left side of the wing chair a stark white hand reached out expectantly. Bolton was relieved to hand over the DVD. "You will find sherry and a polished Stiegel glass by the couch. We will be a short time, I'm sure."

Bolton removed his overcoat and retreated to the couch in the other room. He sat down, poured the sherry, and waited, as he normally did, for the review that no one else would do;  no one, that is,  except for the League of Reluctant Reviewers.