Aaah! Zombies!! (2007)

Aaah! Zombies!! (2007)

Directed by: Matthew Kohnen

Starring: Matthew Davis, Julianna Robinson, Michael Grant Terry

Back in December, I made a decision to stop watching zombie movies for a while. I’m honestly a little amazed that I managed to go five whole months without seeing another one, and it was actually really nice. Aaah! Zombies!! did nothing to make me regret my decision, either.

Four idiot teenagers eat some ice cream laced with a secret government super-soldier serum and turn into zombies. However, they don’t realize that they’re zombies, and after they meet a soldier who also seems to be one of them, they actually start thinking that everyone ELSE are zombies. They eventually learn the truth and go off to start their own zombie-friendly community.

The way they do the effect of the main characters being zombies but not knowing it is to separate “real life” as being black and white, and the zombies’ perception in color, where everybody else are going really fast, but the characters look normal, apart from their injuries. Which is fine and all, but even the slightest amount of thought into the parts where they switch back and forth and they show that it really doesn’t make any sense how the zombies could be bowling, or talking with normal people, or fucking anything else they ever do. Actually, NOTHING in this movie holds up to even the most cursory amount of scrutiny, and it’s not even close to being funny enough to make you suspend your disbelief for the sake of the writing. Because it isn’t funny at all. Fucking zombie movies.

I Woke Up Early the Day I Died (1998)

I Woke Up Early the Day I Died (1998)

Directed by: Aris Iliopulos

Starring: Billy Zane, Tippi Hedren, Ron Perlman

So this is a pretty weird movie. It’s based on an Ed Wood script he wrote before he died, and the whole thing has no dialogue, just really shitty 90′s pop-punk music and a couple blocks of text explaining what characters are.

Billy Zane robs a bank and hangs out in a cemetery afterward. Unfortunately, he has some sort of super-sensitive hearing that makes him be in extreme pain when there’s a lot of noise (yet he shoots guns off all the time with no problem) and he has to run away when Ron Perlman starts playing the bagpipes, stashing the loot in the soon-to-be-buried coffin. When he returns the next day, he finds that the coffin is empty (well, of money), and goes on a killing spree to everyone who was at the funeral in an effort to get his money back.

I think the director was trying to copy Ed Wood’s style here, but it really doesn’t work at all. To the point where you wonder if he had ever even seen an Ed Wood movie. Overall, it’s just a weird movie, but it certainly isn’t boring. Weirdly enough, Billy Zane seems like he was born to be an insane silent movie villain, as he actually does a really good job in this.

Down and Dirty Duck (1974)

Down and Dirty Duck (1974)

Directed by: Charles Swenson

Starring: Howard Kaylan, Mark Volman, Robert Ridgely

In the 70′s, there was a pretty interesting underground comic movement going on with people like R. Crumb and Harvey Pekar, and Ralph Bakshi helped translate that to weird underground “adult” cartoon movies with his version of Fritz the Cat. Down and Dirty Duck is an example of that same kind of idea, though it’s probably more of just an example of this guy Charles Swenson (who went on to do Rugrats and Aaah! Real Monsters!) ripping off Bakshi.

A guy with a shitty job is disillusioned with his life and constantly strikes out with the girl he likes at work. He meets an anthropomorphic duck and loses his job, then goes on an adventure to get laid. It’s kind of a road movie, where they meet whores and lesbians and crooked cops and Mexican drug traffickers. You know, all those types of things you’d imagine you’d find.

Honestly, I was kinda interested by the beginning of this film. It starts out interchanging between the main character’s perceptions and daydreams and the reality (which is also bizarre and overtly sexual, just in a different way), and it made me think that the whole movie might be more of a Freudian exploration of this average guy dealing with his base urges or something. Once the duck comes into play, it gets a little lazier, and more than that they just cover the same territory over and over again. Yes, women don’t like you and you’re angry about that, I get it. Some of the songs were kinda funny, I guess.

Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996)

Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996)

Directed by: Mike Judge, Mike de Seve, Yvette Kaplan

Starring: Mike Judge, Bruce Willis, Demi Moore

Today I’m doing another of my INFAMOUS movie challenges, five films with the theme of “mature” animated films. Mature is in quotes because it’s shit like Beavis and Butt-Head which has all the maturity of a 7th grader, but gets an R rating anyway because they show tits or swear.

Two teenagers wake up to find that their TV is stolen, so they go on a journey to find it. They get waylaid when they meet a drunk (Willis) who hires them to “do” his wife in Vegas. They think he’s hiring them to have sex with her, so they agree and go there. The wife (Moore) takes advantage of their naivete and startling idiocy and uses them to smuggle a nuclear weapon of some sort into Washington D.C. Eventually, Hank Hill gets blamed for the whole thing.

I’ve never seen the show that this movie was based on, mostly because there was this kid in my middle school class who constantly did the voice of… one of them, I don’t remember. But that guy was a fucking moron, and it made it pretty obvious to me that there was no reason to watch the show. This movie just strengthened my belief, as it turns out the only joke of Beavis and Butt-Head is that they sometimes say words like “boobs” and “bunghole”, and… that’s the joke. The whole thing. What the fuck, America. How could you let this be considered entertainment?

Blues Brothers 2000 (1998)

Blues Brothers 2000 (1998)

Directed by: John Landis

Starring: Dan Aykroyd, John Goodman, Joe Morton

I specifically tried to not watch this movie for so long, because I just knew it would be like watching grave robbers at work, and I was completely right (of course!). The music’s good, though.

Elwood Blues is released from prison to learn that his brother Jake has died. Despite this, Elwood wants to get the band back together yet again, and goes on a road movie to Louisiana followed by cops, racists, Russian mobsters, John Goodman, and a little kid.

There’s one musical number near the end of the movie with B.B. King, Eric Clapton, Bo Diddley, Jimmie Vaughan and others, and it’s pretty fucking awesome. It’s also just nice to have the musical numbers, because the rest of the movie just feels wrong. I think I have to go apologize to the ghost of good taste after watching this (hah! You thought I was going to say the ghost of John Belushi, didn’t you?).