Frozen Nazi zombies

Is it possible to make zombies even less sympathetic than they already are? Well, by golly, the makers of the Norwegian horror film Dead Snow found a way - turn them into undead Nazis. If the Indiana Jones films taught us nothing else, it's that Nazis are the perfect bad guys. I mean, how can you sympathize with them? It's not possible. So with zombie Nazis, you have what is quite possible a beyond perfect bad guy.

The set up of Dead Snow is one horror fans have seen a million times before. College students, a secluded cabin (this time on the Norwegian fjord), hormones in overdrive and no cell phone service. One of the characters even mentions "how many movies start out with friends going to a cabin in the woods with no cell phone service?" At least what's about to happen doesn't take them by complete surprise.

Soon, a mysterious stranger shows up to infodump the back story. The area where they are staying was, during WWII, occupied by a particularly nasty group of Nazis. They tortured and stole from the villagers until one night, toward the end of the war, the Nazis and their leader were chased into the woods, never to be seen again. An evil lurks in these mountains, the stranger says, and you won't like it when you're holding your own intestines.

It doesn't take long for zombie mayhem to ensue, although I will say that for about the first half, until the first really good zombie attack, the movie felt more like a slasher film. I chalk that up to the fact that we don't get a good look at the zombies - they hide in the trees and under the cover of darkness. But once they attack a la Night of the Living Dead, with zombie hands coming through the windows, it feels every little bit like a zombie movie.

These are fast zombies and don't seem to subscribe to the "kill the brain, kill the ghoul" law of zombies, but the movie more than makes up for it. I didn't find it so much scary as I did gory and as I so frequently say, the scariness of the movie for me is so often inversely proportional to the amount of gore. There are some pretty gruesome deaths, one of which was followed by a line that made me laugh out loud.

This movie owes a huge debt to other movies, most specifically Evil Dead. Apart from the obvious cabin in the woods, there's even a chainsaw and an amputation. But more than that, it pays homage to zombie movies that came before it, mostly a little bit tongue in cheek. There's even a cockamamie secondary storyline that wasn't really referenced all that much until toward the end that seemed lifted straight out of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.

One final note about this movie - it contains the least likely sex scene I have ever witnessed in all my years of watching movies. It took place in an outhouse, on the seat, after the guy had just taken care of business. The woman came in all hot and horny and even though he hadn't even wiped, he was ready to go. I'm sorry, if that were me, I don't care how good looking you are. No. OUTHOUSES STINK and are decidedly unsexy.

Dead Snow is cheesy and gory and was a very enjoyable way to spend 90 minutes on my day off. Beware - it is the first zombie movie that I have ever seen that had subtitles. It did not detract from the experience so don't let it deter you from watching..

Tomorrow's news

So the first day of my time off hasn't been as productive as I would have liked. Granted, it's only 1:00 and I can turn that around pretty quickly. But mostly, I've been content to sit around in front of the TV, which is odd for me because I so rarely do it. The show I've been spending my time with today is the unlikeliest of candidates - the late 90s Saturday night drama Early Edition.

Early Edition has a very simple premise - regular guy Gary Hobson (Kyle Chandler) gets a copy of the Chicago Sun-Times delivered to his door every morning. The catch is that it's tomorrow's paper. He spends most of each episode going around trying to change the bad headlines before the day is out. I always kind of liked this show, although I have to say that I rarely ever watched it. Mostly, I just watched it sporadically if it happened to be on, never deliberately tuning into it. Even by 1997-98, being devoted to a TV show was quickly becoming a thing of the past. I'm not sure how or why that happened, but somewhere along the way, I decided I just couldn't be bothered with remembering when a show was on TV and that pretty much continues to this day. The big exception to this is Glee, and that's because there's three of us remembering when that show is on. So more often than not, I missed it even though, as I said, I did really like it when I watched it.

Thanks to the brilliance that is TV on DVD, I finally have the chance to rewatch all these old shows that I just didn't watch back then. And after watching three episodes of Early Edition this morning, I realized that I had actually underestimated my fondness for this show and also marveled (much like I do when I watch The X-Files on DVD) why I didn't watch it when it was on TV. What sets this show apart from something that hasn't aged as well (i.e. Quantum Leap) is the writing and characterization. Even three episodes in, you can tell the writers are paying attention to character. If someone is going to get a copy of the paper a day ahead of time, it couldn't happen to a more likable guy than Gary. He's just such an "aw shucks" guy that you can't help but root for him. He does good without being a do-gooder. What I especially like is how Gary is just an ordinary guy who has had something extraordinary happen to him. Yes, he stumbles with it, he screws up, but don't we all? As an everyman hero, he works. He's the kind of guy I'd want to be friends with.

That said, his choice in friends is a bit uneven. I take no issue with Marissa, the receptionist at his office (a job he promptly quits after the pilot episode.) She is the angel on his shoulder, providing the moral compass. It's his "best friend" Chuck Fishman that I have serious problems with. I don't remember him from the few times I watched the series and apparently he leaves after two seasons, but his presence, even after three episodes, is beyond grating. His function is clearly to be the foil to Gary, and in so doing, is everything Gary is not. I'm trying to think of adjectives that describe him, but I keep coming back to selfish. He's like a weasel - one that is completely and utterly harmless - but a weasel nonetheless. When it comes to the paper, he thinks of nothing but the potential ways to make money off of it, usually in the form of knowing the sports scores so that he can safely bet on them, the outcome completely secured. But what bothers me most about him is that he's basically a beta-male pretending to be an alpha, whereas Gary has a healthy mix of both. Nothing bothers me more than someone walking around pretending to be something they aren't and the overcompensation that Chuck does in the guy-ness department just makes me shake my head in complete exasperation.

But no one's perfect. Gary does follow in the late 90s tradition of wearing approximately one pound of product in his hair.

An annoying character and excess hair product aside, I'm going to keep on going with this show. The stories are tightly written and almost always satisfying. And there's always a happy ending, which I am a sucker for, regardless of how cool or uncool that might be. One other bonus is the abundance of Chicago scenery. It just makes me want to go live in Chicago! New York City might be fun to visit, but Chicago is probably the only big urban area that I would actually consider living in.

But that's enough TV for now. I'm going to go read till it's time to go pick Anna up from school. Heidi's disappeared into her office and is back in writing mode.

Early Edition is available from Netflix. Sadly, only two of the four seasons are available.

Cursed objects and big hair

So I've been slowly (and I mean SLOWLY) watching Friday The 13th: The Series via Netflix. It's still one of those TV shows that I can't believe is on DVD in that it is one of the more obscure late 80s television shows. I remember it being at least better than average, and, as I so frequently say, so much better than a show called Friday the 13th: The Series has any business being.

That having been said, I am only on the second disc of the first season, and man, they don't hold up nearly as well as I thought they would. The acting is bad, the special effects cheesy and the writing only so-so. Under normal circumstances, I would have stopped watching after episode 2 or 3. But something keeps me coming back for more - I'm not really sure what it is. Part of it is that it is great fun to watch on my iPod. I have taken to converting the DVD to iPod format and watching it that way. Watching it in small 20 minute bursts on break or lunch at work or before bed is so much easier than sitting in the living room watching it on the TV. Must be something about that 2 inch screen.

The other thing that kills me about this show are the characters. Granted, we are only in the early part of the first season, and the first season of just about any show is usually not indicative of the rest of the series. Every show has to find its legs, try things out that might or might not work, fail miserably and/or succeed wildly. But these characters are fricking hilarious. The best is Micki - played by one-named wonder Robey - who really can't seem to act her way out of a wet paper bag. Along with her cousin-by-marriage, Ryan (with whom there is this odd and uncomfortable bit of sexual tension), they are kind of the Scully and Mulder prototypes, only I don't think either of them is the skeptic.

The other thing that's hilarious about Micki/Robey is her damn big hair. It was the 80s, after all.



(and apparently Ryan's counterpart to Micki's big hair is the skinny tie)

So against my better judgment and at risk of further sullying great teenage memories, I will continue on with this show. I swear it was better than this, and really, it's still better than HBO's Tales From The Crypt which was so bad on the rewatch I just couldn't do it. (kudos to Matt for being able to though!)

Le bleutch

This Christmas, we decided that our big present to ourselves would be one of those Roku boxes that allows you to stream Netflix movies directly to your TV. For an investement of a hundred bucks (as well as the monthly subscription to Netflix), movies and other entertainment can be streamed over the wireless network. Watch as much as you want, whenever you want. Truth be told, it was done partially in an attempt to hold off getting cable or satellite. I really don't want to get cable because that is another 50 bucks a month AT LEAST and then I will feel obligated to watch TV.

One of the pleasant surprises of the Netflix box is the discovery that a whole slew of Inspector cartoons from the 60s. The Inspector was kind of a spin-off of the Pink Panther cartoons and I remember them primarily from seeing them in the theater as a kid. On Saturday afternoons, you could pay a dollar to get in and then it was nothing but wall-to-wall cartoons for the next 3 hours. The Pink Panther and The Inspector were among the most frequently played.

Anyway, one of the first ones that I watched on the Netflix box was one of the ones I remember most vividly from my childhood. It was called "Cirrhosis of the Louvre" and involved a criminal named The Blotch, except the Inspector could only refer to him as "the bleutch" due to his thick French accent. The Blotch is basically an ink stain that can morph into just about any shape or form he wants. In fact, the first time you see him, the Inspector and his sergeant are in the Louvre (after The Blotch sent a letter to police vowing to steal every piece of art in the museum) and they step over a red bit of paint on the floor. The Inspector says to Sergeant Deux-Deux, "Look, someone left that bleutch of paint on the floor" only to have it gain human form as soon as they walk past it.

Naturally, the entire Louvre Museum is stolen on the Inspector's watch. But not before having The Blotch paint a likeness of himself on the back of the Inspector, leading to him being shot at and hit over the head with a club on several occasions.

Anna is loving the Pink Panther as well - having watched about 30 episodes after school tonight! We were marveling at how frequently people are depicted as being heavy smokers or drunk off their ass. What a difference 40 years makes! Now, we're all too sexy for our cigarettes.