31 Flavors of Horror #14: Night of the Demons (2009)

Ha! It's Friday and I just know you were expecting another Friday the 13th review, but I thought I'd do the (really not at all) unpredictable and mix it up a bit here for the 31 Flavors of Horror. However it is a remake, which is practically the same as a sequel, street cred-wise.

This redux of Night of the Demons has some painfully dumb moments, but there's some flashy graphics and lots of fun to be had. When I actually wrote this, quite a while back, there was a lot going on. It was a few days before my birthday, I was snowed in, and I also had a friendship limp to an end that day. There's a story there probably more interesting than any told by this movie.

31 Flavors of Horror #14:
Night of the Demons (2009) 

Angela's throwing a party in an abandoned mansion in New Orleans this time around, and this time the guest list is full of ho-bags. The reheated Night of the Demons is all loud noises, jump-scares, and decent gore. It's lots of noise but is there payoff?

Monica Keena is the lead, but Diora Baird and Bobbi Sue Luther are her pals. Are they here to just be shameless eye candy and characters we don't have to invest in? Their first conversation involves Brazilian waxes. so 'nuff said.

(A few spoilers after the break)

One A Week Reviews #37: The Walking Dead Girls!

If you're a fan of Horror cons you're gonna like this one. If you like cute girls who have tattoos, it'll also be up your alley. This review for dvdsnapshot covers a film with a lotta flaws... and a lotta zimbies!

THE WALKING DEAD GIRLS!

Official Synopsis:

The Walking Dead Girls is a behind-the-scenes look into zombie culture in the United States and the obsession into "Sexy Female Zombies." What is it about Zombie Bimbos or "Zimbies" that are starting to gain the worlds (sic) interest? Why are zombies now in mainstream culture and seen in advertising from JCPenny and Sears? With interviews with zombie master maker George Romero and cult movie star Bruce Campbell from ZomBcon 2010 and so much more. Also with a rare look into the making of a Zombie Pinup Calendar, behind the scenes of "Stripperland." "The Walking Dead Girls" is a sexy look into the zombie phenomenon created by George Romero that is 40 years in the making.

Our Take:
 
Calling this a "documentary" may be a tad generous, but any movie that opens with Lloyd Kaufman doing a PSA to warn the world of Stripper Zombies can't be all that bad.  However, the sparkling sit-down interview with "Uncle Lloyd" is the high water mark of The Walking Dead Girls. This is a weird mishmash of interviews with zombie genre vets and tattooed cheesecake models posing for a zombie-themed calendar.

The recent glut of zombie movies and books have lead to proms, walks, and societies dedicated to planning a response for the evidently yearned-for zombie apocalypse. That's touched on here as some kind of connective tissue to string together the interviews. Kaufman, George Romero and a surprisingly restrained Linnea Quigley hold court for sit-down conversations, most with the quite game Luna Moon, while other actors are restricted to the convention floor. These are interspersed among conversations with the models of a hybrid Fifties cheesecake-zombie calendar. A lovely bunch of actresses and exotic dancers, hold forth charmingly while painted to look like rotting zombies. One, an adult film performer named Lilith Eve, is the most personable and charming of all the interviewees.  Her charm keeps the surprisingly sour Bruce Campbell - here playing Devil's Advocate in an uncomfortable conversation that'll remind you of the William Shatner "get a life" sketch from Saturday Night Live.

The Yucky Movies of October: Graduation Day

7) Graduation Day

Wow, what a stinker. Someone is killing off the high school friends of a girl who died during a track meet. Is it the hammy coach? Is it the hammy older sister, home on shore leave? Is it Blondie, the hammy receptionist? Perhaps the hammy leisure suit wearing lounge singer of a music teacher? The hammy hypocritical cop?

Well, when watching Graduation Day you won't ask any of these questions. Because you won't care!

With an epee through the throat of a girl who's nonsensically shaving her legs in the locker room sink, the de rigueur 80's slo-mo decapitation, and a football with a sword spiked through it thrown at a player, the kills aren't imaginative but they at least occur with some frequency. Okay, what happens to the pole vaulter IS pretty good.

Our first full look at the killer he's dressed in sweats and a fencing mask. It turns out that a fencing mask is no where near as ominous as a hockey mask... even if it does do the only decent acting in the movie.

Just about every adult character lurks at some point so it can be implied they maybe are the killer. Christopher George does it best... and by "best" I mean "hammiest."Linnea Quigley shows up here, looking far too young to open her shirt up in a movie and Vanna White has a role but doesn't even get a close up. In fact, she's almost always shot from the back, looking away from the camera (it's like she knew it'd come back to haunt her one day). The whole mess is so inexpertly shot and edited it's hardly worth watching.

Wait that's not entirely true. The painful, awful "Graduation Day Blues" singalong has to be seen. Then mocked. The fact that it's followed by a Rollerdisco dance scene is just icing on the cake. Between the incredibly dated 80s music and the score's cues that are stolen straight from "Psycho," it'll make your ears bleed, this one.

As an artifact of the times it's worth a watch and the story holds together better than some of the slashers of the era, but on the whole there's not much to recommend here.