The Walking Dead Contest Winner

And the winner of The Walking Dead Contest is.....

Daphne White of Daph's Dark Little Corner

and the special prize goes to Jessica Chiou.


Thanks to everyone who entered!

The next contest will be announced tomorrow and you won't want to miss this one...

Live the Fear: Knotts Scary Farm Halloween Haunt

World's Oldest and Largest Halloween Theme Park Attraction
Where: Buena Park, CA in Knotts Berry Farm
When: September 24th - October 31st
How Much: Pre-Sale: $50
Day of Event: $56
Group sale prices also available.

I start my Live the Fear weekly posts with one of California's favorites, Knotts Scary Farm. It's celebrating it's 38th anniversary this year. I went to this event last year with a huge group of friends who I worked with at Disneyland. There were 13 houses, 7 shows, and 3 scare zones. The houses last year included: Lock down: The Asylum, Terror of London, Dia De Los Muertos, Uncle Bobo's Big Top of the Bizzarre, The Labyrinth, Slaughterhouse, Cornstalkers, The Doll Factory, Black Widow's Cavern, Club Blood, Quarantine, Pyromaniax, and Alien Annihilation.
While I was there I got to go into all of the houses except for Pyromaniax and Alien Annihilation. My personal favorites last year were The Doll Factory for the scare aspect. The dolls were extremely creepy. I also recommend Uncle Bob's Big Top of the Bizarre for the fact that it's just a really fun house to go into. The Black Widow's Cavern is actually a ride they transform for the Halloween season. They have character actors and huge spiders jumping out at you through-out this runaway mine car ride. It is so much fun with a big group of friends.  The new houses this year are Sleep Hollow Mountain which is a log flume ride they transformed for this season, Fallout Shelter, Virus Z. The returning houses are Lockdown: The Asylum, Cornstalkers, Terror of London, Dia De Los Muertos, Uncle Bobo's Top of the Bizarre, Slaughterhouse, Labyrinth, Black Widow's Cavern, The Doll Factory, and Club Blood. If you are at Knotts and you'd like to enjoy some alcoholic beverages there's quite a few areas to do so.

Contest Time

Time for a Spooky Brew first... A contest!

This contest is for  The Walking Dead mini poster given away at this year's Comic Con.

How do you win this contest?

Simply by requesting a movie I should review. The winner will be picked randomly. If I really dig the movie you request I will send you a special secret gift.

Send your request to: mschultz.fx@gmail.com

The contest will end August 13th.

Steve's Top 5 Post-Apocalyptic Films

With the DVD release of The Road, I figured now would be a good time to talk about my top 5 favorite post-apocalyptic films.


5. Planet of the Apes (1968)

From the opening crash landing to the twist ending, this movie plays like a two hour Twilight Zone episode. If you haven't seen this classic, (and no, not the mediocre Mark Wahlberg remake) go rent it. Charlton Heston is great and the makeup was revolutionary for the time.


4. A Boy and His Dog (1974)

The story of a young man and his telepathic dog companion searching for food and women in a post-apocalyptic world may not sound like a great premise but it's remarkably better than it sounds. The key to the films greatness is the relationship between Vic (the boy) and Blood (the dog). The writing is sharp and humorous as the two companions, who rely on each other to survive, are constantly bickering and arguing over nonsense. However, the film's dark humor truly shines with the ridiculous twist ending that will probably have you smiling.


3. Dawn of the Dead (1978)

And no, not the mediocre Zack Snyder remake. George A. Romero's classic takes the awful situation he started with Night of the Living Dead and makes it so much worse. The zombies have grown in numbers, hope is pretty much lost, and a shopping mall is the only thing standing between our new band of survivors and becoming a symbol of American consumerism. Oh, and don't forget the gore. This is probably one of the goriest horror films ever made and Romero continued the trend with the sequel, Day of the Dead (1985). Let's just not talk about the remake of "Day".


2. The Road (2009)

It doesn't get much more post-apocalyptic than this. Viggo Mortenson plays a father trying to protect his child born into a post-apocalyptic world from gangs of cannibals. The man and his boy, constantly on the verge of starvation and death, struggle to survive as the boy constantly wants to help others they encounter. The performances are extraordinary and the film is filled with many powerful moments. The duo attempt to maintain the role as the "good guys" even when cast into morally objectionable situations. I read the book before I saw the film and enjoyed the film more. The Road's author, Cormac Mccarthy, paints a picture of the Earth's new, bleak landscape. It's captured perfectly on film. Mccarthy's characters look and speak as I imagined them and many scenes from the book were simply better in motion.

1.5 28 Days Later (2002)

I can't believe I forgot this film. My favorite horror film ever is not really post-apocalyptic since Britain is the only part of the world affected by the zombie outbreak, but those opening scenes of Jim walking around London are so powerful that it deserves a spot on this list. Danny Boyle single-handedly rebooted the zombie sub-genre with this film. This was probably the first time we saw fast zombies which are now common in today's video games and cinema. Just don't listen to anyone who says the people infected with the rage virus aren't really zombies. It's the same formula.

1. Stalker (1979)

Well, it may not technically be post-apocalyptic but it certainly feels like it is. Andrei Tarkovsky's greatest, yet, lesser known science fiction film tells the story of a group of three men traveling into the heart of a mysterious area known as "the zone" that has been blocked off by the government. At the center of "the zone" a man's deepest wishes are said to come true. Stalker, the leader of the group navigates the zone which is supposedly filled with many dangers. The film is used by Tarkovsky to fully explore the many philosophical ideas first brought up by Solaris. In addition, like Solaris, the ending is used to cast everything you thought you knew about the film into doubt. This is one of the greatest science fiction movies of all time and one of my all around favorite films.

-Steve N.

The BlogTv Return of Maweanne

If anyone is following me on Twitter you may have heard me talking about doing a live broadcast tomorrow on BlogTV.  I'm going to be doing it around midnight tomorrow night. BlogTV is basically a live video broadcast with a live chat where you can talk to me and everyone else logged in. I think it wil be a great way to talk and connect with the Spooky Brew followers. You can sign up for an account here and it's totally free.

If you have any questions you'd like to ask me you or want to know what my opinion is on anything horror related please post a comment below.

BetterThanEvil AKA Steve will also be in the chat so if you'd like to ask him anything you can post that in the comments too.

So if you'd like to tune in, here is the link . I'd really appreciate it.

Breaking Down: Vacancy

There is a lot of talk surrounding the production of Robert Rodriguez' upcoming Predators reboot/remake/re imagining/reincarnation/reload/refresh/requel. A big portion of which is about his decision to put the film in the hands of director Nimrod Antal (Kontroll), and there is no shortage of opinions about him all over the internet. Vacancy is Nimrod's horror directional debut, and may provide some insight into what we can expect from him. Written by Mark L. Smith, the screenplay is for the most part neither exceptional nor terrible. The script is essentially a voyeuristic B-movie wrong-turn scenario set in a creepy motel, a classic genre setting. While on the surface it might appear to be another torture porn movie, but unlike recent movies before it such as Hostel and Saw, it actually is supposed to turn the audience off the violence instead of get off on it. Smith made sure to write characters we empathise for instead of cheering at their every squirm. The scene in which Luke Wilson's character, David, shockingly looks into the t.v. straight at us, the audience, was written in the script specifically to emphasize the double-sided mirror aspect. Unfortunately, the first 2/3 of the film are much stronger than the third act, and the script as a whole is nothing special, however, what Antal does with it at times is nothing short of brilliant.

The opening sequence in the car is probably the strongest of Antal's career. His use of framing in isolated shots to show the character's disconnection from one another is pure art. Coupled with constricting rear-view mirror images, he really adds to the bickering dialogue and is a great example of how a director can utilize the visual advantages the medium of film can offer over novels. There is a claustrophobic feel to this sequence that returns through out the course of the movie. The basic synopsis of the story is a couple, David and Amy, are on the verge of a divorce as they are having trouble coping together after the loss of their son. Their car breaks down suspiciously soon after a well mannered gas station attendant gives a reluctant to ask David directions, and checks under the hood for the cause of a noise the car has been making after a close encounter with a raccoon. Staying with each other in the car for another minute, let alone long enough for another car to come along willing to help is out of the question, so they decide to trek back on foot to a motel they saw straight out of Hitchcock's twisted imagination. After hesitantly buying a room for the night from the motel's sole employee Mason, played to perfection by Frank Whaley, David and Amy soon realize they are about to be the next unwilling stars of a murderous game caught on candid camera.

Antal utilizes hidden cameras as a storytelling device to great effect. These wide angle shots add a creepy realism, and actually become a large part of the plot when David and Amy ( mostly David ) use them to their advantage. Where Hitchcock had Norman Bates peering through the peephole, Antal has Mason spying from the hidden cameras. It's obvious that The Master of Suspense was an inspiration, as the tension will have you clenching on more than a few occasions. As I mentioned earlier, the theme of claustrophobia comes into play through out. Culminating in a sequence underground in a rat infested tunnel beneath the motel. Antal knows what makes us squirm, and he seems to take pleasure in doing so. If you wish to dig a little deeper into the psychology of the film, there seems to be some commentary on how to heal a wounded relationship. As goofy as it may seem that the notion of this holds any weight in a film like this, it was still nice to see that it had something to say regardless of the validity. Vacancy turns from genuinely tense and chilling to slightly non-sensible and far-fetched in the last act, but not enough so that it dissolves the effectiveness of the first two. The ending also left me with mixed feelings about bringing a certain character back to life. Even as the film veers into the direction it does in the final third, the thrills are still there. So although a bit on the Silly side, it is at least skillfully-silly.

Acting wise, leads Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale are satisfying as a struggling couple at the end of their relationship rope. I had a chance to talk to one of the cam ops of Vacancy during a commercial shoot we were both working last year, and a little fun fact for everyone is he told me that Wilson and KBecks absolutely could not stand each other during production. I couldn't help but think how easy it must have been for them to do the first half of the movie. Beckinsale is intentionally not her glamorous self here, and I actually really liked her. Obviously neither Wilson nor Beckinsale took these roles thinking Oscar gold was going to come from it, but both put in a serviceable enough effort. Wilson was even slightly endearing here as a guy obviously still in love with his woman and willing to do whatever it takes to protect her. Frank Whaley really steals the show acting wise, and makes the most of every scene that features him on screen. As the sly mousey Mason, equally creepy as the roach infested motel he manages.

The bottom line here is that this is Antal's show the whole time. He makes the most of every scene, and elevates the tension far above the level of the script. And isn't that, after all, what a good director does? Make a movie better than it has any right to be. There is never a dull moment, and it runs at a perfect length at 80mins. If there is one thing I want any reader to get out of this blog is that you may not have heard of Vacancy, and you may have even heard it's bad news. But if you like horror movies that bring a fresh style, give this one a shot. You may be as pleasantly surprised as I was. The fact that a straight to DVD prequel was released at least proves the first was somewhat successful.

What does this all mean for Predators? At this point it's just too early to tell, but if the teaser trailer is an indication of the final product than it definitely looks as if it's in the right hands. Something I couldn't say about the last two installments in the franchise.


Vacancy is available on Blu-ray and DVD.


Score:

• Story: 6.9
  
• Sound: 8.4
  
• Music: 8
  
• Editing: 8
  
• Effects: 7.8
  
• Cinematography: 8.1
  
• Acting: 8
  
• Direction: 9.5
  
• Overall (not an average): 8.2

Shutter Island (2010)

Plot: The film is about two U.S. marshals, Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), investigating the escape of a criminally insane patient. The story takes place on the secluded (and fictional) Shutter Island in Boston Harbor. Immediately, director Martin Scorsese creates the feeling that everyone on the island has something to hide. The staff look at the marshals as if they are enemies instead of government officials trying to aid in their search.
As soon as the film starts, there is a foreboding feeling surrounding the island that is aided by the films excellent score. The first wide shot of the island brings forth memories of King Kong and later, when the marshals enter the main gate, Jurassic Park. The entire film is film noir at its finest. All of the pieces of film noir are here. The 1950's time period; the up-close, smoky shots; the heavy weather effects; and most importantly, the flawed protagonist. Teddy Daniels is a mess with a morally objectionable past. He is an ex-alcoholic veteran of World War II who witnessed and partook in atrocities. His memories haunt him throughout the film in dreams and trippy, drug-like flashbacks that are very interesting to watch. Teddy desperately needs a shrink. As his partner, Chuck, tells him, "Teddy, you are wounded."
Leonardo DiCaprio does an excellent job in the lead role. Teddy is extremely smart. When arriving at the island his eyes are constantly surveying everything. Everyone is a potential suspect. As the film progresses and his past continually haunts him, Teddy develops subtle nervous twitches. Leonardo DiCaprio is at the top of his game in this role.
Most importantly, what drags the film down is the twist of plot towards the end. You won't know all of the island's secrets until the very end where the movie actually needs a character to explain the entire plot. This scene literally lasts 15 minutes because the twist makes the plot incredibly convoluted and pretty much nonsensical.

Conclusion: What happens with the plot is a shame considering how well the film worked until the point of revelation. Having read the book (written by Dennis Lehane), Martin Scorsese did the best he could with the source material. The film follows the book almost exactly. If you see Shutter Island, expect that you may be disappointing. This is a film reliant on the feeling it gives the viewer. It's the kind of film where ominous piano notes play as clues to the mystery are revealed and a single solitary light hangs above a radio operator in an otherwise pitch dark, smoky room. There is a lot to like about Shutter Island and a lot to be longed for and this is coming from someone who loves film noir. It is an interesting film. It shows the amazing versatility and skill of its director, Martin Scorsese, but is ultimately held back by its plot. It is so well made that it's impossible to stop watching. It draws you in until the very end. However, when the credits finally roll there is a sense that it could have been something truly extraordinary instead of merely mediocre. -Steve N.