If “Ginger Snaps” was a hard flaming shot of vodka in a neighborhood bar, Nickelodeon’s counterpart “The Boy Who Cried Werewolf” is a Virgin Fruit Colada in an outdoor cafe. While this movie is meant as mere Halloween filler while simultaneously working as a vehicle for Nickelodeon’s key star Victoria Justice, “The Boy Who Cried Werewolf” ends up being a surprisingly solid family horror comedy that isn’t as soapy or girly as I originally assumed it would be. Within the pandering to preteens salivating after Justice, there is also a solid however flawed and derivative story and some wicked special effects. Sure the flick rips off of “Spider-Man,” and “Young Frankenstein,” but it’s still an entertaining time filler with potential to be a franchise or new series, which Nick seems to be going for in the goofy final scene.
The New Dead: A Zombie Anthology [Paperback]
Christopher Golden assembles a myriad of assorted tales about the walking dead, all of which combine to form one of the strongest combinations of excellent authors and variations on zombies and the undead. While the entire book isn’t a complete success in adapting visions of the walking dead with engrossing characters, “The New Dead” will make a great time filler with some truly strong stories and mini-epics in one compendium. I had a great time sifting through each story and I think most fans of the walking dead will, too. These are only a few of the ones we thought warranted mentioning.
For the first story John Connelly offers up his twist on the Lazarus pit with “Lazarus” the story of a man who dies and is kept in a cave only to be brought back to life a few days later thanks to the will of his loved ones. When he discovers he’s completely lost his place in a world he’s left, he longs for death in the face of loved ones he barely recognizes anymore. Connolly’s writing is vivid and awfully sad and makes for an interesting look at the undead in more tragic form.
The Crazies (2010)
Breck Eisner’s high tension remake of the practically obscure George Romero horror film is much less biological horror film and much more Southern fried “28 Days Later,” with a small town being taken siege by an ambiguous and horrifying infection that turns people in to crazy people. What makes “The Crazies” such an entertaining slice of horror escapism is that it’s about as politically important as the “Dawn” remake was, but still manages to make an impression by being an awfully uneasy horror thriller. The disease that feeds upon the seemingly mild mannered people of Ogden Marsh is spontaneous, confusing, and almost completely unexplained. We never get a full idea of what the disease entails and when it can start to show signs and this allows for two elements among the story. It guarantees the element of surprise and mystery, while also allowing the writers to pop monsters up whenever they please chalking it up to the erratic effects of this disease.
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War [Hardcover]
I’m one of the few horror buffs across the board who have yet to read the 2003 cult book “The Zombie Survival Guide.” So back in 2006 when author Max Brooks released his highly publicized and promoted sequel entitled “World War Z,” I jumped at the chance and actually shelled out the dough to read his latest tome rather than borrow it from a friend or from a library as I typically did in the past. As a rule I don’t usually read zombie fiction because most of the time it’s usually just material that attempts to drastically re-invent the zombie sub-genre by reducing them to nothing but monsters, or more so turning them in to gimmicky creatures easily forgotten. Sue me but I grew up on Romero’s zombie films and admittedly I’ve been spoiled by his films.
For about as far back as I could remember I have been absolutely horrified of zombies. From horror comedies to zombie masterpieces, no matter what form they were in, I shuddered at the mere thought of them. My imagination did more than fill in the holes with the zombie movies I’ve heard of before I actually copped to watching them. I spent many a late nights thinking about zombies creeping up from beside my bed or pulling me down in to my mattress, and I avoided them for a long time. They petrify me. So as my resistance to them grew stronger, I managed to embrace the fear, and after a while I began to seek out all forms of zombie media, even indulging in some zombie fiction of my own.
The Landlord (2009)
I guess on paper, “The Landlord” seemed like a great concept for a horror comedy. Emil Hyde’s movie starts off simply enough with a sitcom premise with a horror twist about a man living with two demons. The man has to rent out an apartment to keep the demons fed. The demons who reside in his flat have a knack for possessing and devouring the tenants and he has to go back to renting the flat all over again. This can be set up for some raucous laughs and clever twists on the concept, but sadly “The Landlord” is a lethargic and brutally tedious horror comedy that never scary or funny.
The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes
Whether we like it or not, from here on in Marvel Comics and Marvel Entertainment is officially owned by Disney Studios. What effect this will have on the comics and characters as a whole has yet to be fully realized, but many can agree one of the positive outcomes of this new ownership has been “The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” a full fledged action adventure series starring all of the heroes we know and love fighting as one super team against Earth’s most impossible foes.
After a very disastrous animated attempt in the late nineties many fans recall with disgust, Disney has rebooted the animated franchise including all of our favorite heroes the aforementioned series failed to include and have considerably gone all out creatively and artistically. While the series will satisfy fans of the actual title, the intent of the series is to garner brand new fans of the titles and characters being pushed on a kids channel geared toward boys and will undoubtedly win over a brand new generation of true believers.
E-Pigs (2009)
I don’t know what I finished watching after seeing “E-Pigs,” but I know that the director makes a great effort in creating as much whimsy as humanly possible in fifteen minutes and it fails spectacularly. I sat in front of my computer throughout the entirety of this fantasy thriller wondering what the whole point of it was and what it meant, and decided in the end that it was just being quirky for the sake of being quirky. It’s a bizarre and surreal little fantasy thriller that is just a fifteen minute filler of pointless ridiculous imagery for no purpose or statement.