Bet you thought I gave up the ghost didn’t ya? Well, sorry to tell ya, you’re shit out of luck. We’re still here! After a nice two week break we’re ready to hit the skids again and bring you some more coverage of some crappy horror flicks! Lucky you huh?

Well, how about this. I know I left you hanging with my lack of posts and empty promises, and honestly, I feel bad about it. I really do. So, I’m going to make it up to you. We’re going to have another giveaway!

Who likes free stuff?

This time around we have a pretty groovy prize pack to give away. This time around we’re going to have three lucky winners!

Two lucky winners will win:

That’s right. Zombie’s on a motherf$&@!!g plane! On DVD No less!

Again, that’s 2 lucky winners who will win Flight of the Living Dead on DVD, as well as a cute little extra!

A third winner will win a cute little extra in the form of a squishy skull! (It’s no DVD I know, but free shwag’s free shwag right?)

“On a flight from Los Angeles to Paris, a mad scientist on the run from the CIA is transporting a coffin containing the body of a colleague infected with a genetically modified virus. While the 747 crosses a violent thunderstorm, the instability of the aircraft allows the corpse to get out of its container. The flesh-eating zombie quickly starts to spread the virus, infecting many of the passengers which now will have to fight for their lives stranded in the air with no way out…”

How can we pass that up?

How do you enter? It’s easy! Send an email below with the subject line: Flight of the Living Dead! Included should be your name, age, and address! On Friday October 5th, I will randomly draw 2 names for the DVD give away, and 1 for the squishy skull!

Be sure to enter, and good luck to all!

In the meantime, stay tuned for a review on Flight of the Living Dead coming this weekend!

Resident Evil: Extinction

Five years have passed since the end of Nemesis and the outlook is bleak for humanity. The United States and the rest of the world has begun to die off and shamble back to life. There are pockets of humanity left however and our main focus is Claire Redfield (Ali Larter) and her caravan of survivors tracking across the Nevada desert. Enter: Alice (Milla Jovovich), our hero throughout all three movies. Alice has spent the last five years after escaping the evil Umbrella Corp. avoiding their gaze. Hiding out in the desert she eventually teams up with the Redfield caravan and joins them in the fight against the evil mega-corp. Setting their sites on a rumored non tainted land far north in Alaska, the gang fights their way through mobs of undead and mad scientists.

The Res Evil flicks have always been a guilty pleasure of mine; I’ve never followed the games closely, so I did not find their first foray onto film to be all that big of a disappointment. Dark, moody, and full zombies, it was a fairly enjoyable monster romp for the uninitiated. Plus it had Milla Jovovich kicking serious ass, so that was nice too. When the second movie came along I was disappointed that there really wasn’t that many zombies involved with the production, yet it was still action packed and on the verge of post apocalyptic fun, so I stuck with it. When the trailers for Extinction hit the net with promises of zombie mobs and full on apocalypse, my attention was grabbed for certain. Seeing the addition of Ali Larter to the mix as well as a few familiar faces to the franchise and I was ready to settle into the third flick with expectations held in check; this was Resident Evil after all and number two fell a bit flat. Luckily, I was rewarded with a fairly enjoyable zombie flick.

For myself, there are a few key factors to an enjoyable zombie flick. First of all, you have to have hordes of monsters shambling about. They can run, they can be slow, I don’t care; there just has to be a lot of them. Second, it helps to show humanity in a heavy decline. I love post apocalyptic flicks almost as much as I love horror flicks so if you can combine the two, I’m a happy guy. Show me just how bad humanity is struggling against this new and unexpected menace. Third, action. Lots and lots of action. A movie with people doing nothing but running and hiding, it worked for Romero but for anybody else, you’re copying. Let’s see a fight. Guns, explosions, the works. Those are the three basic tenants that make a zombie movie enjoyable for myself. For Resident Evil: Extinction, those three aspects were all met. While the mass of zombies were obviously cgi, the panned shots of the military bases, and other clusters were superb. Shambling ghouls all forcing their way to the surrounding fence because all they know is that they smell flesh, and they want to eat it. Badly. Combine this with a mix of random clutches of creatures popping up here and you have some great jump scares scattered throughout the movie. I jumped several times, and that’s saying a lot. I watch this crap a lot, that doesn’t happen much anymore. On the second factor, this was showcased nicely as well. Humanity is spread out and there’s not much of it left. This is evidenced in Claire’s caravan traveling across the desert. With a focus on their struggle to find supplies to keep moving, the tactics they take to ensure their safety, and their sacrifice to protect the survivors, all go a long ways to showcase a world in decline. When they roll into Las Vegas and you see how the sands have taken over the city due to no one being there to hold it back, you see the scope and damage cause by this plague helping to heighten the despair of those still alive. This works great for sucking us in makes you think in the back of your mind just how these people are going to make it all the way to Alaska. It’s going to be a rough trip. Finally, the action is packed in rather well and gives us the layer of excitement needed to keep the movie interesting, and help you to believe that these people just might have some hope. Sure, they’re over the top in Extinction, but that’s to be expected. With Jovovitch’s wire-fu as well as some over the top explosions and effects, we get a slight feeling of campiness that rounds out the heavy feelings that came before. Luckily, they managed to balance out the campiness giving us just a good old fashioned zombie ass kicking that’s fun to watch with the customary tugs on the heart strings in just the right places. Not everybody is a super hero in these fight sequences and there’s consequences to show that.

As far as the acting goes, all went as expected. We are already familiar with Jovovich’s Alice, and really there was no change from the first two outings. The character has grown sufficiently with her story expanded on and explained more thoroughly. Carlos Olivera (Oded Fehr) returns once again with a bit more of an involvement with Alice than I remember from the previous outing. While I honestly can’t remember if this romantic turn was hinted at in number two, it just goes to show how forgettable their previous engagement was. Fehr as well acts as suspected with his military background and general bad-assitude. New comer Ali Larter the only true new element to be involved and luckily managed to perform adequately if not a bit over the top. Claire is the bleeding heart caring for the nations survivors and it shows; it’s just that it times it comes across a bit fake and over worked. Overall however it’s not distracting and still mostly believable. And she looks great with red hair as well .

Resident Evil: Extinction managed to redeem the franchise after the slightly disappointing showing of the second film. There is plenty of action, an engaging story that ties the three together, and zombies. Can’t go wrong with zombies, right? My only fault comes at the end where Alice’s story comes to a conclusion and the cheese gets turned up to 11. While I rolled along with the entire movie, and even the beginning sequence of the conclusion, our final minute takes an eye rolling turn into unneeded complexity. If they made a fourth flick and plan on continuing on from this point? It’s going to be rough.

4 Milla’s cowboy outfit is pretty nifty’s out of 5

Cinema Fromage has been off track this week, but is scheduled to return to it’s regularly scheduled schedule on Monday!

That is if I survive.

Tonight, I face unspeakable horror as I take 12 – 7 year old girl scouts camping. With only 4 adults.

Wish me luck, I hope to see you again on Monday.

Unholy

Martha (Adrienne Barbeau) returns home to celebrate her daughters birthday, only to find the birthday girl locked away in the cellar holding a shotgun to her chin. Doing everything in her power to stop the young Hope from pulling the trigger, she unfortunately fails the task and Hope lies dead in the basement. Calling in her stoner son (Nicholas Brendan) to help with the arrangements and to get her out of the house for good she soon finds that her curiosity wins her over and she must uncover why her daughter decided to take her own life. Soon Martha and her son are in over their heads as the find connections to strange local folklore including government sanctioned top secret experiments, Nazi scientists, time travel, and all sorts of other kookery.

Unholy was a fairly interesting flick to watch. I think. And therein lies the problem. With a slow plodding start as the various plot elements were revealed to us in the start of the flick, this seemed to be an interesting movie with a healthy dose of paranoia, mystery, and conspiracy. As we reached the midway point however and journeyed on to the conclusion, it turned to corner from mysterious and interesting to full blown WTF!?!? Mixing in elements of time travel and mind control the plot becomes overly complicated and simply doesn’t flow well enough to keep track of what’s going on. Mix in Brendan’s affliction of deadly invisibility and I just don’t know what to think. There are some strong points here; as the bits and pieces of what exactly is going on in Martha’s life come to lite, it’s a fairly engaging turn of gruesome Nazi experiments with US Government involvement. Where it falls apart is the discombobulated unraveling as Martha’s memory is slowly returned. We are hit with so many disconnected elements of her hidden past and two sided present at one time, it’s near impossible to follow exactly what is going on. There is brainwashing and time travel going on here and it feels that the creative team was overwhelmed trying to make sure it all got on screen in the allotted time. Poor writing? A victim of editing? I really don’t know.

As far as acting and presentation, there is nothing overly spectacular here. Barbeau feels somewhat wooden in her delivery. Nicholas Brendan feels a bit looser but no less wooden. You get a feeling that both are phoning this performance in simply to collect a paycheck. In presentation the movie feels like the end product of a PBS produced episode of the Twilight Zone. This in itself is not so bad. Lending a dreamy atmospheric touch to the movie we’re allowed to concentrate on what’s going on screen as opposed to watching the various flashes that are going on in the background, and thank the lord, there’s no shaky cam involved.

Unholy could have been so much better. Tails of gruesome Nazi experiments are intriguing as is the conspiracy slants when the US Government gets involved. Unfortunately the ending is so vague and muddled that I felt disappointed and heavily confused by the time the end credits rolled.

2.5 my brane hurts now’s out of 5

This week marks a veritable shit load of cheesy genre goodness on DVD! There is literally so many, I can’t cover them all! This week I’m trying to highlight the ones that look the most entertaining, so read on and see what’s waiting for us!

“A caretaker at a summer camp is burned when a prank goes tragically wrong. After several years of intensive treatment at hospital, he is released back into society, albeit missing some social skills. What follows is a bloody killing spree with the caretaker making his way back to his old stomping ground to confront one of the youths that accidently burned him.” Haven’t seen this one myself, but the formula seems solid enough to make a worthy rental.

“Dr. Pretorius and his colleagues are working on a sensational experiment: by means of stimulation of the pineal gland, they want to open the human mind to higher dimensions. When the experiment succeeds, however, they are immediately attacked by terrible life forms, which apparently are floating around us all the time. When Dr. Pretorius is killed by one of them, Dr. Tillinghast is under suspect and thrown into the psycho ward due to his stories. Only the ambitious psychologist Dr. McMichaels believes him and wants to continue the experiment.” Quite possibly the greatest pairing of Stuart Gorden and Jeffery Combs ever, this Lovecraftian gorefest is a must see for the genre fan. Gore, monsters & boobs. Can’t be beat!

“England is torn in civil strife as the Royalists battle the Parliamentary Party for control. This conflict distracts people from rational thought and allows unscrupulous men to gain local power by exploiting village superstitions. One of these men is Matthew Hopkins, who tours the land offering his services as a persecutor of witches. Aided by his sadistic accomplice John Stearne, he travels from city to city and wrenches confessions from “witches” in order to line his pockets and gain sexual favors. When Hopkins persecutes a priest, he incurs the wrath of Richard Marshall, who is engaged to the priest’s niece. Risking treason by leaving his military duties, Marshall relentlessly pursues the evil Hopkins and his minion Stearne.” History, horror, political intrigue and exploitation, all starring Vincent Price! This is another flick viewed as a classic by many that I have not managed to catch as of yet. You can be sure this one will be on the ‘to watch’ pile soon.

“Five men heist the Camp Pendleton payroll and kidnap a pilot and his daughter, who are forced to fly them to Mexico. Enroute a double cross has one of the thieves parachute with the loot into an abandoned graveyard surrounded by strange scarecrows. The rest of the team jump after their loot and their former partner. Everything happens during the course of one very dark night.” Yet another that I’ve been waiting years to stumble across, combine scare crows and zombies and you’re bound to have a good time.

Vincent Price is a household name when it comes to cheese and horror and you you can find out why in this nifty little box set. Included are The Abominable Dr. Phibes, Tales of Terror, Theater of Blood, Madhouse, Witchfinder General, Dr. Phibes Rises Again, and Twice Told Tales. Needless to say, if you can’t find something to like there, you probably like Romantic Comedies and stumbled on this site by mistake.

Here’s yet another box set dedicated to a master of the macabre, in the same week! This time we get a collection from one of my Personal favs, Boris Karloff. This time around we get 15 flicks. The Bells, Juggernaut, Mr. Wong, Detective, The Mystery of Mr. Wong, Mr. Wong in Chinatown, The Fatal Hour, British Intelligence, Doomed to Die, The Ape, Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome, Sabaka, The Terror, Mondo Balordo, The Snake People, Dupont Show of the Month: Treasure Island and a special bonus…. 100 Years of Horror: Boris Karloff (Hosted by Christopher Lee)

Honestly, this one falls in the must buy category for myself, hope it makes it’s way to your shelf as well.

As I said, there is a veritable shit load of horror flicks being released on this week, this list is the highlights. Not to be over looked is a ton of Midnight Movie Double Feature releases which are always fun! For a complete list of releases for 9/11 be sure to visit The Digital Bits!

Enjoy, let us know if you enjoy our new feature, and stay freaky folks!

Today is….Football season. That means Fantasy Football season. That means beer! And chicken wings.

Fear not, Cinema Fromage isn’t turning into ‘yet another football blog’. I’m just over excited and must share the love. Just be prepared that if you try and contact me on a Sunday, I may be highly inebriated!

In the meantime,

Go Colts

Irish, please stop sucking

And let it be known that 2007 is the Year of the Indy Poopinsteins.

(Jaxe and Ak? Might as well hand me the prize money now; I’m not worried about the rest of you fools!)

The Host

Cribbing from IMDb;

The film revolves around Park Hee-bong, a man in his late 60s. Park runs a small snack bar on the banks of the Han River and lives with his two sons, one daughter, and one granddaughter. The Parks seem to lead a quite ordinary and peaceful life, but maybe a bit poorer than the average Seoulite. Hee-bong’s elder son Gang-du is an immature and incompetent man in his 40s, whose wife left home long ago. Nam-il is the youngest son, an unemployed grumbler, and daughter Nam-joo is an archery medalist and member of the national team. One day, an unidentified monster suddenly appears from the depths of the Han River and spreads panic and death, and Gang-du’s daughter Hyun-seo is carried off by the monster and disappears. All the family members are in a great agony because they lost someone very dear to them. But when they find out she is still alive, they resolve to save her.

The Host is a throwback to the classic monster movies of yore, with some extra added drama, some humor and some adventure all mixed into one shiny package. All of your monster movie staples are here; giant monster, rampaging chaos, carnage and heartbreak. For this outing the CGI effects are the true star as our computerized creature lays waste to Seoul. From the moment it shows up, this baddie is highly enjoyable. From casual observers sent flying through the air to regurgitated victims, the host with the most here is a monster to go down in celluloid history. No longer do we fear the man in suit; now we have a fluid and living baddie that will make you grin with delight.

Uncharacteristically of monster movies, The Host manages to have a plot as well. With underlying tones of family discord, Park Hee-bong does his best to provide for his family. Watching over his slacker son Gang-du and his grand-daughter Hyun-seo, his life seems to be a work a day one with not much sign of change in the future. With his grumpy son Nam-il and his successful daughter Nam-joo mostly out of the house living their own lives, his family seems spread apart and not very close. When the host absconds with Hyun-seo, we get the dramatic touch as the family bonds together in their singular goal of rescuing the young girl. This fleshes out our story giving it a human touch and more than just some monster tearing up the Seoul riverside. Unfortunately, once we reach the middle of the movie, it starts to concentrate heavily on this family building experience and in turn starts to bog down the pace. A monster movie with some meat to it is a good thing indeed but there is a fine balance between overload and function. After watching the hosts opening salvo on the crowd around Park’s concession stand, we proceed into the long family bonding moment with nothing but sporadic glimpses of it as it pops up here and there or takes out a random passer by. To many this is not a bad thing and had my expectations going into the movie been different, I probably would have appreciated it more. But after falling to the hype for The Host and tag lines such as ‘the Greatest Monster Movie Ever Made’, I had my heart set on some old school Godzilla style carnage and received a little more drama than I was looking for.

Out side of the of the slow 2nd act, the first and third acts are action packed as promised and help to make the time slogging through the middle a worthy endeavor. I can’t express enough how fun it was to watch this CGI baddie lay waste to all around it. When you add in the other elements to the story such as false assumptions of disease and bizarre government plots (U.S. mind you) too fool desperate Gang-du into becoming their unsuspecting guinea pig, we are given a grand monster epic that really is one of the better monster flicks of our modern age. The closing scene and penultimate battle with the beastie is highly enjoyable and provide edge of your seat action finishing off with an Asian film flourish seldom seen in US flicks. Add in the bitter sweet ending that most were not expecting (I know I wasn’t) and we get a fun ride despite the pacing problems in act 2.

The Host is worth your time. Even if you aren’t a fan of foreign films, you still owe it to yourself to give it a chance. Just prepare yourself for the strange amalgamation of movie themes that this is, and you will have a more enjoyable ride than myself. The action is there, but it is not non-stop from beginning to end. There’s a story to tell here as well.

3.5 men in suits are a thing of the past’s out of 5

Horror DVD Releases for September 4th!

Thanks to The Digital Bits we can sort through the chaff of all the new DVD Releases for any given week! Tuesday’s mark a day of happiness for all of us movie-philes and I hope to weed through the non-genre stuff to give you a condensed glimpse of what’s out this week. These are not reviews but just a blurb and perhaps a quick plot recap! If you enjoy and find these handy be sure to comment, we’ll try and keep it somewhat regular for you!

“Two college students share a ride home for the holidays. When they break down on a deserted stretch of road, they’re preyed upon by the ghosts of people who have died there.”

Psychological horror? Looks interesting enough for a rental for sure.

“Martha, a widow living in rural Pennsylvania, comes home to find her daughter about to blow her own head off with a shotgun in the basement of their house. The girl’s death gradually leads the grieving mother to investigate a conspiracy that involves a legendary local witch, Nazis dabbling with the occult and secret government experiments.”

The key here is that this one stars Adrienne Barbeau, scream queen deluxe. (And to a lesser extent, Xander from Buffy!)

“A group of teenagers invent a game in which one of them is secretly chosen to be a “killer,” while the others remain innocent victims. Armed with prop weapons, the “killer” must eliminate the other players before being found out. To enhance their experience, the teens sneak into a large self-storage warehouse during its closed, late-night hours to hold their game. At first, it’s better than ever. But, things take a horrific turn as one by one, the players begin dying…for real.”

This one sounds pretty straight forward. Teens, drinking, a murder game, people die.

” Three childhood friends have bonded deeper than natural brothers. As eighteen-year-old men, we share with them their dreams, loves, and friendships as well as life s hopes and frustrations. We, once again meet them at age forty and learn how their lives have unfolded as we experience their marriages, strengths and disappointments. The group is together now on their annual football weekend, this year in Philadelphia. While bonding and enjoying the vibrant nightlife, they become separated only to find a darkness they have never known. It becomes a struggle of life or death where everyone must pay the price”

Sounding vague and overly convoluted this one could be hit or miss with out further detail. They find a darkness they have never known? Heck I do that every time the light burns out in the bathroom.

“John Wayne Gacy was a model citizen that often voluntered as a clown for the children at the local hospital. Shockingly, he kept a gruesome secret. A trail of missing young men led to Gacy’s suburbon Chicago home. The nation watched in horror as, one by one, the details of over 30 murders came to light. Soon the bodies of the victims were discovered entombed in the crawl space under his house. Based on a true story one of the most prolific serial killers in American history. “Gacy” will leave you shocked and in disbelief.”

This one looks pretty apparent. The ‘true’ story of the notorious serial killer. These often times feel uninspired and border on ‘made for tv’ feel, so tread lightly on this one!

So there you have it folks, this week’s horror dvd releases in a nut shell. Be sure to check back regularly for upcoming reviews on Unholy, Wind Chill and The Murder Game! Again, if you find these handy for populating your Netflix or Blockbuster queue for the week, be sure to comment below! If these do indeed prove to be a handy service, then they may indeed continue to show up!

Labor Day weekend is an annual tradition for the Fromage Family. Every year for as long as I can remember we pack up the fam and head north to Mamaw and Papaw’s house for a weekend of fried fair food, time with parents, etc. etc.

This year promised to outdo the last though as we set off into our annual Sunday Night Festivities.

Every Labor Day weekend, my hometown has what’s known as the Marshall County Blueberry Festival. On Sunday nights of the Festival they have a huge fireworks display every year. After a decade of fighting elbow to elbow with strangers with the large masses of people in the park and dealing with the cops trying to get back to my mom’s house post show, (She’s a mile from the festival) we decided to hell with it. You see, mom has about two acres behind her house and it’s about 1 mile from the fireworks display as the crow flies.

Thus, a new tradition was started. For about four years now the Dietrich and Mann Clans have rallied together on Sunday night of Blueberry weekend for fireworks, bratwurst and general family camaraderie. This year there was to be excitement however.

Five or six years ago, the Festival committee added a ‘Balloon Glow’ to the fireworks display. The balloon glow consisted of the large number of hot air balloon owners across the north half of Indiana setting up their rides, and firing off their heating elements at dusk filling the soccer fields with a mass of large glowing balloons. Pretty cool the first time you see it, but frankly at 33 and seeing it about the third time, I kind of stopped giving a shit. It was apparent that others did as well as they expanded the balloon glow to include a first round of balloons who would lift off, fly to the local airport, repack and return for the glow. Seeing as my mom’s house was directly in the path of soccer fields in the park where the show was and the airport, it was generally a good show for the family bbq and the kids get quite a kick out of it. Normally we’re not in the direct path but the winds were on our side this year as many of the balloons floated directly over head, close enough for us to yell to!

‘Well, that was cool’ we all thought as we continued on in our merriment. It was soon however that we spied this balloon creeping over the tree line.

Nothing out of the ordinary, we’ve seen two balloons on this path already. Thinking we’d have another chance to shout bad jokes at the passengers we prepared our salvo and waited. It was then Mamaw noticed something amiss.

This balloon appeared to be far lower than all the others that had passed by, close enough we could make out faces.

This is all well and good, and something you don’t see everyday. We unleashed our bad jokes asking them if they’d care for a hot dog etc. About this time it started to dawn on us that there was another line of trees they had to clear and on their present path they were not going to clear it. Sure enough, they didn’t.

Once making contact with the trees they were able to back it up, and set the basket straight down into the yard. No one was hurt, not even the balloon was damaged. So, 2007 marked a highlight year for the Dietrich/Mann Clann family bbq. The majority of the family was pretty awestruck with this new found entertainment as we all gathered about, helped to maneuver the balloon to a safe spot to deflate, and all pitched in to help tear down the balloon.

Soon the chase truck drove into my mom’s back yard, we tore down the balloon and helped to pack it away. While they waited for the truck the pilot let the kids check out the basket, and we managed to draw a rather large crowd from the surrounding houses. Delaney managed to check out the cockpit, and was quite thrilled.

(Delaney is the blond in the cockpit, I myself am in the light blue shirt to the right of the basket, being an ‘anchor’ which I am quite talented at!)

Once packed away, the pilot was gracious to the fam for the help and understanding. He gave my mom a handful of free balloon ride tickets although we’re all a bit weary of this offer, obviously! (Not really, the pilot handled it like a pro.) So, now my poor mother is faced with another dilemma as the 2007 family bbq draws to a close. Just how the hell is she going to top the entertainment for next year?

Meanwhile, Papaw has a message for all involved. “Damn kids! Stay off my lawn!”

Halloween

There’s no real need to rehash the plot for you this time around. Familiar to each and every genre fan, we all know what happens and where we’ll end up. The big difference here as when the original hit the scene back in 1978 it was relatively unknown and a surprise hit. This time around, ever since Rob Zombie’s name was mentioned as the director to of this ‘re-imagining-re-launch-re-whatever’ there has been no way to avoid the hype whatsoever. From Zombie’s well oiled hype machine running on Myspace, to interviews, to arguments of internet film nerds declaring the movie shit from early leaked scripts, it’s been impossible to avoid. After a year or two of teasing and embittered internet nerds I was finally able to take in Halloween over its opening weekend. You may note that I’ve mentioned the embittered internet nerds several times. It’s been a long while since we’ve seen a new release that has had this passionate of a group set against it from the very start. Every where from Ain’t it Cool News to Bloody Disgusting have declared it shit without seeing a scrap celluloid, based on what seems to be a predisposed of Mr. Zombie doing a remake as storied as Halloween and leaked scripts. Just for you folks, I want to stress I stayed away from this mind set as well as I could. What did this result in?

To be quite honest; I liked it. I liked it a lot.

In Halloween 2007, we take a more realistic look at Mike Myers changing him from a random supernatural slayer, to a fairly plausible lunatic that in many ways, could really happen. Sure there are some faults to this theory such as his breaking chains, etc. but I’ve always felt that the key to enjoying any horror flick is a strong suspension of disbelief. For this re-launch of the shape, we are given a heavy dose of back story aiming to show us were Mr. Meyers came from and what makes him tick. In the original he was hell bent on the destruction of his sister, and we heard bits and piece of what had happened to the rest of his family. Did we know why he was after his sister? We had an idea. This time around, we know for sure. Starting out as a desire just to be with her he does not seem intent on murder. Not until she turns on him does the rage return and he resumes his rampage. This scene alone gives The Shape a human side, something which many die hard’s will say ruins the character; myself, I say it just makes him more real.

Where I would have liked to have seen more, was in the hospital sequences in the early Michael portion. We were tipped off early on about his issues with small animals, and we understand why he went after his family like he did. What was it that finally pushed him over the edge in the hospital? What was it that made him ‘the Son of Satan’ that Loomis refers to him as in his book tours. What we mostly see his him lumbering about in his masks, saying nothing, with no real hint of him being evil. After his attack on the nurse in the early months of his incarceration, we really don’t receive any more hints that he’s evil. (What more do we need right?) Was it Loomis’s poor handling of his patient that drove him over the edge? Was there an inner turmoil causing him to bubble over? We don’t know clearly. The other minus towards the film is the copious amount of cameo’s spread throughout the entire flick. I love surprise cameo’s as much of the next guy, but it was soon apparent that if the actor wasn’t Mike Meyers or Lori Strode, it was probably a cameo. With such a high number of people sprinkled about you find yourself playing ‘ooo I know them!’ more than watching the movie in certain parts.

As an adult, Mike Meyers was played superbly by Tyler Mane. Large and imposing in real life, he translated well to The Shape. Watching him destroy scenery in his rage was highly entertaining and cheer worthy. Be it a bathroom stall of the walls of the house, none of it stood a chance in his single minded obsession. Adding to Mane’s performance was his mask. I caught a blurb on another blog that mentioned that this was probably the best mask we’ve seen since the first flick, and I’d have to agree. I myself also found the effect of the large mask on young Mikey quite humorous. Bobble headed murderer? Sing me up.

Lori Strode was quite effective as well. Many disbelievers will have written her off already due to the fact that her name is Scout Taylor-Compton and not Jamie Lee Curtis. While she was not Jamie Lee, and really who can live up to that, she was actually fully believable and did not detract from the movie in the least.

Rob Zombie’s attempt at the Mike Meyers story will be written off by many before it even hits the box office. I would urge you to go and see it though. While it’s not the suspense thriller of the original, it’s a completely different film from the original. This time around we’re getting more of an action packed slash fest, as well as a more realistic story and developed characters. There’s no gun shot to the head and the body disappears moment’s later hoodoo here. This time around it’s a more realistic visioning of a mind gone terribly wrong in the suburbs. Furthering the trend of “Devil’s Rejects” Zombie continues to prove that he’s growing into an actual film maker as opposed to the ‘LOOK AT ME I’M SO CRRRRRRRRAZY!’ sensibility of “House of 1k Corpses”.

4 by god he actually did it’s out of 5

Special Note: Halloween marks our longest screen time yet of Sheri Moon’s bare ass, and for that, we salute you Mr. Zombie.