Zombies

Darke Reviews | Overlord (2018)

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JJ Abrams name? Check. World War II? Check. Something that looks like Bernie Wrightson drew it in a fever dream? Check. A potential extended variation from Heavy Metal? Check. See also Fever Dream. Potential DOOM movie accurately made as told by the trailer? Check. Cool title based on the actual Operation Overlord (aka Battle of Normandy)? Check. An opening title sequence straight from a early Hollywood war movie? Check.

Is any of the speculation on this true?

The story of the movie Overlord was written by Billy Ray, who also worked on projects like Volcano, The Hunger Games, and Captain Phillips. The screenplay was done by Mr. Ray and Mark L. Smith, who worked on the 2015 remake of the French film Martyrs (reliable sources say the original is a hard watch), The Revenant,  and the Vacancy franchise. So we have someone who understands epic tales of heroism and someone who gets splatter horror. This seems like an ideal pairing. Second time Australian director Julius Avery (Son of a Gun) takes the helm, with Abrams name as a Producer credit and not a lens flare to be seen.

From a storytelling aspect, they deliver on much of what the trailer for this movie promised. You have a crew going in ahead of the the D-Day invasion in June of 1944. The Nazi’s shoot down most of the squadron and the survivors band together to finish the mission – destroy a radio tower that will make it easy for the Nazi army to defend the beachhead. They work their way through hostile territory and find the French village with the tower, a potential ally, and something far worse. Now me personally, this does hearken back to stories of “Weird War II” and could easily have fit in the same universe as an Indiana Jones, Dead Snow, or Frankenstein’s Army. Weird, occult experiments that involve the profane in an attempt to build a 1,000 year empire. There’s all sorts of anecdotal stories of such things happening during World War II, and those with imaginations take them to wild extremes. This movie being one such extreme.

It looses some internal consistency as the movie develops though that felt a bit jarring to me, but that could be expectations I placed upon character more than writer intent. I’ll let that one go (mostly), as there’s other nice attention to detail that was worth noting such as regional accents with people speaking French. Jovan Adepo (Fences, The Leftovers, The Central Park Five) has some serious chops and carries the movie as our main protagonist Private Ed Boyce. The film is his characters crucible and he does well in both the quiet moments and the loud. The slow fear of waiting on the plane to the panic of being ripped out of it and so much more. Kurt Russel’s son Wyatt, plays our other main protagonist Corporal Ford. He doesn’t have his fathers charm or screen presence, but he tries and delivers what he needs for the movie. French actress Mathilde Ollivier, on the other hand does have some presence even if her character more or less is our standard strong female lead in what is otherwise as a sausage fest.  Pilou Asbaek (Euron Greyjoy) is almost unrecognizable as an SS officer and one of the chief protagonists of the film, and not surprisingly he makes it work.

The technicals on the movie are a mixed bag. We have CG Blood instead of squibs for some of our gunshots, but then squibs in others or better cg at least. Directors. Hollywood. You have not yet gotten CG blood to look nearly as good as a squib and stage blood. I promise you. Keep trying, but leave it for TV, we’ll let you know when you get there. The Gore when it gets there is solid, but I wanted more, bearing in mind I saw this when I was 6 and it was rated PG.

 

The gore is enough for an R, but really this is a soft R in my opinion. There’s beautiful attention to detail in the opening shots and really hits home what many of the stories of the early air raids and paradrops ended up like. They weren’t going for Band of Brothers here, so much is glossed over and left in the wings respectfully. I appreciated it being there though. There’s more things like both these stories through out where there’s beautiful details that most may overlook or beautiful shots, but then something that just doesn’t quite deliver the punch it could.

TL;DR?

It was fun. I was entertained. The actors were engaging. The movie is shot well. I just don’t think it delivered on what it promised enough. This could be a result of me having seen so many other movies, especially more nightmare fuel style that this just didn’t have an impact. I never really got the tension I wanted or the thrills.

The problem I think, is it doesn’t go extreme enough. The movie carries an R Rating, but with movies like Dead Snow and it’s Sequel already touching on this subject and Frakenstein’s Army taking it to the most Holy Hell what in <Dieties Name> was that? If Dead Snow is the Dawn of the Dead Remake, Frankenstein’s Army is Hellraiser, and this….rates as a well made, well executed, The Fog or …maybe Videodrome. This is to say it is a competently made movie with some solid practicals in places, some decent tension in others, oodles of atmosphere, but not nearly as much Gore or “WTF” as they writers think they achieved.

Great built up, just not quite sticking the landing I thought I would get.

Should I see it?

If this is your type of movie. Sure thing. In theatres. The opening sequence with theatre quality size screen and sound is totally worth it.

Would you see it again?

Honestly, if someone took me to see it, I have no problems with that.

Buying it?

Odds are in it’s favor.

Ok, but I am a HORROR FAN!

Horror fans should get a kick out of this as we don’t get movies like this in theatres often enough that are well made, well acted, engaging, and deliver at least on some of our horror needs.

Anything else?

There’s a hard R horror movie waiting here, maybe on the editing room floor, but Overlord just didn’t give me what I hoped it would.

Darke Reviews | Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016)

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2nd review of the year. Only took a few weeks for the cinematic ball to get rolling to things I want to see. Per the usual rules, I have not read the book here – either of them. Either being Jane Austens original Pride and Prejudice or Seth Grahame-Smith’s zombie “cover” of her material. Now SGS is known to us thanks to the train wreck that was Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, and I was thankful to not see his name in the writing or directors credit. He may write a good novel, but not so much on the film material. Unsurprisingly my tastes do not go for the period or romantic dramatic style film, so Austen and her body of work is and shall remain a mystery to me for some time. I did, however, watch Pride and Prejudice (2005 Kiera Knightley/Matthew Macfadyen) a few weeks ago when a friend was over and put it on while I was playing Fallout. I admit. I enjoyed it far more than I ever anticipated. It was shot so remarkably well, music, acting, everything top notch. I have absolutely no idea how that director gave us last years Pan.

So how was this movie?

Well, we’ve covered who wrote the book, who added zombies to the book, and who shouldn’t touch it as a movie. The man who did is named Burr Steers, as both screenplay credit and director. Not familiar with the name? Don’t expect you to be with two Zac Efron movies, no one I know of saw to his credit, 17 again and Charlie St. Cloud. Having watched the 2005 film adaptation made me judge what I saw far less harshly than I would. The dialogue was stilted, the actors stiff as a corpse, and the pacing was beyond awkward. Just like the source material. Honestly, the ability to match parallels between the last adaptation of the real source material and this one really allowed me to acknowledge the designs in this movie which would be painful otherwise were purely intentional. Changes must be made to incorporate zombies into the structure and with that a new world history which is glossed over nicely; but all in all the film does a remarkable job of being in step with the materials previously published. A feat that must be given credit to Seth Grahame-Smith and Steers himself.

From an actors point of view, Lily James shines. I thought she was a saving grace in Cinderella and I can tell now the critique there squarely falls on the production. The movie lives and breathes around her performance; she is as capable of the romance, the language, and action simultaneously. She does quite a bit with her eyes, which is a requirement for the role of Elizabeth Bennet. She was absolutely believable for both her battle prowess and will. I really want her to have a long and distinguished career in good movies; though her next film has Jai Courtney so I worry there. Sam Riley, Diaval from Maleficent, whom I loved there and love here. What is it with the leads in this film being the standouts in previous Disney live-action adaptations?  His Mister…sorry Colonel Darcy, is engaging despite the required stiffness. He too does a lot with subtle expressions that are all too intentional and very well delivered. Two other roles are also handled well by Douglas Booth (Jupiter Ascending) as Mr. Bingley and Jack Huston (George Wickham); both of whom I could deal with more of.

Rounding out the cast in supporting roles are some true heavies who have minor, but important roles, such as The Doctor (Matt Smith) as Parson Collins, and two Game of Thrones alumni in Charles Dance and Lena Headey. Dance gets to be nice this time as Mister Bennet, while Heady continues to be one of the scariest people on screen as Lady Catherine deBourgh. All three castings were absolutely perfect and all three easily let you know THEY were on screen in just the right ways.

Costuming was solid, a little too much emphasis on being sexy a couple of times, but overall beautiful as the weapons being carried. Sets were good, but I could tell when the budget was thin as some shots that were supposed to be different looked the same just from another angle; but I could be wrong. The fight choreography was good and gave us a scene that in my mind rivals the Zorro fight between Banderas and Zeta-Jones. A little more steady cam would have been nice. Some more creativity in the shots would have been nice beyond the opening sequence. Transitions were handled really well. The make up effects were also top notch. There’s a lot of trainees in the credits, but the film really was one of the better looking zombie films I’ve seen.

TL;DR?

For a movie that has been in production hell and switched directors multiple times; this is actually pretty good. The more I talk about it the more I find myself liking it and overlooking its flaws – which are there. It isn’t risky. It isn’t particularly daring with a PG-13 rating, but despite that…it’s watchable.

That said, this is a Zombie movie for fans of Pride and Prejudice. This is not necessarily a zombie movie for someone who hates P&P or otherwise can’t stand a more british drama style pacing. If you DO like Downton Abbey or other British drama’s and also like Zombies this may be right up your alley.

It wasn’t particularly scary or funny, but it was entertaining. I enjoyed myself and really isn’t that what you are supposed to do at the movies?

 

Darke Reviews | Dylan Dog: Dead of Night (2010)

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This is one of the more recent films I am reviewing this month and was unfortunately only a direct to DVD release. Even with that it wasn’t advertised and hard to hear about if you don’t peruse movie insider sites. I happened to come across this one back in 2007 when Superman Returns was still in the popular conciousness and Brandon Routh was cast as the title character. It as also based on an Italian comic series which makes it one of the rare Horror comic adaptations.

There’s not much to say about director Kevin Munroe, who has mostly done video game work and the 2007 CGI Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie; which will still likely be better than what Bay makes. For a rank amateur in the scheme of things he shows a surprising sense and appreciation of 1930’s and 40’s Noir films. He captured that pulp feel that came with the Private Dick character type and executed it better than most directors who have tried it. Rian Johnson’s “Brick” being one of the few exceptions.

The writing deserves some credit as well, a two writing team who tend to work together on other projects as well. Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer, also responsible for A Sound of Thunder and the new Conan movie; with rumored work on Doctor Strange coming. While the dialogue and scenes aligned in the script are not particularly inventive, they don’t have to be to be entertaining. They found a way to blend humor, pulp and horror into a single film and do it well. The abomination that was RIPD this summer needed to use Dylan Dog as a basis. It may not have been an abyssmally horrific film had they even watched DD.

The story moves around a Private Investigator named Dylan Dog (Routh), a human who was once a mediator and policeman for the supernatural creatures of New Orleans. He gave up the game and became a normal P.I. His time away could not last as his assistant Marcus (Sam Huntington – Fanboys, Being Human (U.S.)) gets him into a case trying to solve the murder of the father of beautiful Elizabeth (Anita Briem – The Tudors). He finds himself thrust into the world once more and is forced to confront the monsters of his past, both literal and figurative. The vampires of New Orleans are lead by Vargas (Taye Diggs – Chicago, Private Practice) while the Werewolves are lead by Gabriel (Peter Stormare – a lot!). Can he uncover the mystery of the killer and solve the case and maybe save the world of monsters & men.

Routh is an absolute natural in the film who comes across as a man who truly was part of the supernatural world for many years. He handles every situation with a kind of Laissez-faire or Blase attitude while those around him, especially Huntington, react the way normal people do. Even the delivery of his voice over lines that add to the pulpy detective feel show a keen attention to the nature of the role. He almost seems to channel Bogarts style of “I’ve seen it all” as he goes through the investigation. Even his questioning of Digg’s Vargas, may read as flat to others, but is spot on for the character he is playing. I really think he deserves more work than he gets and that he has a fine sense of timing that is under rated. I also can’t deny seeing him topless a few times isn’t bad on the eyes.

The rest of the cast is fine as well with Huntington providing a humorous counter balance to the dry wit of Routh. Stormare as always is just damn entertaining to watch, his Lucifer in COnstantine is amazing, but he sadly does not get enough screen time. Diggs is a beautiful man and just seems to relish in every aspect of the role he is given. Briem perhaps is one of the flatest performances in the film, but they can’t all be perfect.

As far as the effects and other technicals such as Make up the film does the subjects justice. The weakest effect is the final creature where they depended on CG for a transformation. The rest of the film has some pretty solid Make up work and practical effects. Once again this proves practical is greater than digital when possible.

For the TL;DR crew….

I highly recommend this noir story. It is suitable for people who are squeamish about their horror and has just enough monsters and mystery for everyone else. The movie is not nearly well known enough and I found it rather entertaining.

Thats the key here, it is entertaining. So check out Dylan Dog: Dead of Night, I think you might be a fan.
Tomorrow’s review will warn you to stay off the moors (this is an easy hint!)