So “Zombi 3” is technically “Zombi 2” while “Zombi 2” is technically “Zombi” if you cut out “Dawn of the Dead” which was renamed “Zombi.” It’s a confusing rabbit hole that goes so deep, you’ll pass out from the confusion. In either case, Bruno Mattei’s (Lucio Fulci’s? Claudio Fragrasso’s?) “Zombi 3” is one of those so bad it’s good zombie films that I didn’t hate. Maybe it’s because I didn’t have a history with it, but I kind of loved how aimless “Zombi 3” was with its zero plot, paper thin characters and the way it meanders back and forth.
Tag Archives: Action
Little Monsters (2019)
One of the highlights of 2019 has been the rise of lighter zombie films that skirt the whole gloom and doom in favor of something more. Abe Forsythe’s “Little Monsters” is one of the most satisfying zombie movies of the year, and one of the best movies of the year. It’s a movie that offers everything from laugh out loud comedy, creepy zombie carnage, vicious gore and grue, great music, and a very touching story of two adults that find purpose in innocent children that need them to survive an extraordinary situation.
The Death and Return of Superman (2019): The Complete Film Collection – Limited Edition Gift Set [4K UHD/Blu-Ray/Digital]
After the polarizing “adaptation” from 2007, DC and Warner take another crack at the taking one of the most controversial and news making comic book storylines of the nineties and bring it to the big screen. With a little tweaks, of course. The whole of “The Death and Return of Superman” is compact, but it takes a good effort in streamlining the entire arc for a movie. The whole epic storyline spanned a ton of DC titles from Supergirl, Green Lantern, and Justice League, so Jake Castorena and Sam Liu have to squeeze it in to two whole movies, and they do a pretty great job of it, save for glaring flaws here and there.
Disney’s Gargoyles 25 Years Later
Premiering in 1994, during a time where Disney was really trying to create series with mythos and complexities, Gargoyles stands out as one of company’s most ambitious animated series of the nineties, and a bonafide masterpiece of the decade. Gargoyles came with an unparalleled production quality that was just impressive all around. From an excellent score to a massive cast of voice actors (comprised mostly from “Star Trek” alums) right down to the amazing animation, Gargoyles was anything but a gimmick. The writers unfolded a complex mythos, and great back stories for each of the gargoyles (many of whom had their own strengths and weakness) all delivering an episodic fantasy with substance.
The Box Trolls (2014)
Laika has the ability to conjure up magic and unique premises that you can’t find anywhere else, and it’s why I think they’re bringing so much to the animation medium. While “The Box Trolls” isn’t their best title, it surely is a meaningful and heartfelt work of art that works as an entertaining allegory about the class structure and the idea of the dream of wealth and whether or not it can ever live up to our fantasies. Is there such a thing as too much? And it is really as ideal as we think?
The Pagemaster (1994)
When I was a kid whenever councils or committees tried to encourage kids to read, they always invented some kind of mascot, and for me it was Cap’n O. G. Readmore. Every Saturday morning after the cartoons, he’d show up to remind kids to read, and explain how much fun reading was. “The Pagemaster” has good intentions but deep down it feels disingenuous and an awful lot like a glorified Saturday Morning special turned in to a big feature. At barely eighty minutes in length, it’s a mediocre, dreary, occasionally boring film that you can’t help but feel like it could have been shown as a TV movie.
3 From Hell (2019)
I don’t know what you can chalk it up to. Maybe it was the unfortunate illness of the late great Sid Haig that caused Rob Zombie to re-write a lot of “3 From Hell.” Or maybe he just didn’t know where to take his characters next. For a movie that takes great pains to explaining in detail how and why the Firefly Clan survived, it’s disappointing when “3 From Hell” does absolutely nothing new with them. Rob Zombie has a lot of windows to basically re-invent his characters and present some kind of social commentary, but in the end it’s just Zombie treading water with middling results.