Horror Movie

Shaun of the Dead

Peter Germany Comedy, Horror, Movie Review, Movies, Zombies , , , ,

In my quest to watch the best 35 horror movies from the 2000s from David Court I come to Shaun of the Dead.

I don’t really need to say much about this one do I? It’s one of the most iconic films of this century, both in horror and British cinema.

In a telling of the outbreak of a zombie apocalypse we follow twenty-something Shaun, his bbf Ed, girlfriend Liz, mum and two of Liz’s friends, Dianne and David. And it’s very British!

Edgar Wright directs, and helms a movie that nails each element. From the gore, to the pain of lose the characters go through during these few days. To get the balance between horror, comedy and pulling at the viewer’s heartstrings is not easy and Shaun of the Dead does each perfectly.

For me, this is a rare perfect film. There’s no real plot holes, no characters who aren’t believable. Even the conclusion of the movie sits well. The soundtrack and score are odd and silly at times, but fit perfectly in building the tone of the movie.

Red glow for atmosphere 😈

If you haven’t seen this movie, please change that and check it out.

Pontypool

Peter Germany Horror, Movies, Writing , , , , , ,

Next up in my watch of David Court’s top 35 horror movies of the 2000s is the movie Pontypool.

I had no idea what to expect with this movie, although for some weird reason I thought it was set in Wales. So going in, I had no preconceptions on what to expect. I had no idea it would be this though.

If you want to watch this movie, stop reading now….. seriously. Stop and watch the movie. Don’t google it, don’t look it up on IMDB. Don’t ask friends. Just please, go and watch it.

Have you watched it? No, go and watch it!

Okay, I’m guessing you’ve watched it now.

So, this is set in a radio station as a shock jock sort of DJ(Stephen McHattie) is starting his morning stint on the station he works out with a producer (Lisa Houle) and an engineer (Georgina Reilly) ( I think those are the two ladies roles), and as the morning rolls along they start getting reports of an incident that is going on.

That’s enough for the plot. The acting is beautiful, the lead actor nails the character while the two other main characters play their parts with a solid strength. The producer character sparring off with the erratic DJ is particularly interesting to see.

The script the actors are working with is beautiful, and gets a lot of depth across. The actors, in particular the fella playing the DJ, really nail their respective lines and characters. I don’t think this film would work without these actors, what they bring to the film sells the story. Their execution of the dialogue has to be spot on as I think movies where its filmed in one location need that strength to hold the viewers interest.

The story plays out well, and there are explanations to what is going on. The ending hits a little hard, and there’s an odd little scene at the end of the film, which shouldn’t work but it does.

Pontypool is a new favourite of mine. Intriguing and from a story tellers point of view, it’s fascinating.

Severance

Peter Germany Comedy, Horror , ,

I started my journey of the top 35 horror movies of the 2000 by David Court last night with Severance.

This is a horror comedy set in a forest in Hungary where an arms company’s weekend retreat goes pear shaped!

The plot is fun and straightforward, it doesn’t hit you over the head or try to make a big statement about one thing or another. It’s well executed, shot, written, and acted.

This film manages to be serious, but has a good sense of humour and isn’t afraid to do things which are very nearly unbelievable. I don’t want to say too much, because I wouldn’t do it justice.

Please check this movie out. It sits in part of the general which is easily screwed up but here they nail it.

5th of March 2022

Peter Germany Editing, Horror, Horror Writer, Movies, Writing , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Good evening, folks! I hope you’re all well.

I took a writing off day yesterday. A very bad nights sleep left me wiped out. I think I got about two hours all in all, but when I was sleeping it wasn’t good sleep. So I took it off and cracked on with non-writing stuff once I’d finished work.

The edit is feeling like it’s a slow process at the moment but it’s still progress. The 431 words I edited tonight are 431 words I don’t have to edit in my next sitting.

Right Folks, that’s all for now. I hope you’re having an awesome weekend! I’m going to watch Pandorum which is now on Amazon Prime here in the UK. I’m sure it’ll give me a few ideas…..

Good Morning, 18th March, 2021

Peter Germany Editing, Horror, Horror Writer, Life, Lifestyle, Mental Health, Movies, Writing , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Howdy, folks! I had a mixed nights sleep. I woke up a couple of times but overall I think it was okay. I don’t feel knackered like I do some mornings.

I finished work a lot earlier than I was expecting to yesterday, which was lucky as I had an important phone call I needed to take. I didn’t do any writing after that but I did watch the movie Night Watch, and damn that was good. (please check it out). Something I’ve been noticing lately is Hollywood films aren’t doing it for me anymore, especially horror. When you look at the more mainstream ones like IT (which I did enjoy), they’re good but not really horror. They’re a commercialised horror designed to appeal to as many people as possible to pull people into the cinemas and spend their money. A lot of people don’t want to have real horror hitting them, and if you’re not a horror person I respect that. If a friend who wasn’t a horror fan watched IT and said they loved it and wanted to watch more horror I wouldn’t immediately recommend The Ritual, VVitch, (both movies I love but each one freaked me out), or Saw. If someone likes a commercialised horror enough to start exploring the rest of the genre then recommending the harder stuff (and yes, I know the films I’ve just mentioned are tame compared to some horror out there), probably isn’t the best of ideas.

Right, I’m digressing too much. Back to word wrangling. Today I’m going to work on Ashes, there’s just a few edits to do on it, and then see if my beta readers are available to have a little look at it. After that I’m going to get back into Black Blood and get the next episode of the vampire book prepped.

And yes, I still haven’t tidied my desk yet!

I have two phone appointments today, one of which will be a longer call. That one I know will be at midday but the other one will come whenever it comes.

I’m setting myself a lot to do today, but I’m feeling fired up and I’m looking forward to reporting back a productive day.

Here’s the link to my BuyMeACoffee page. If you like what I’m doing here and would like to contribute to m writing fund then please hit the link.

Disposable gloves and sharpies, so why not? 😎

Alien:Covenant

Peter Germany Horror, Movie Review, Movies, Sci-Fi , , , , , , , , ,

This film has been on my mind a fair bit since its release. I had mixed feelings going into it due to Prometheus. Prometheus is a movie I think is very beautiful to look at and has some decent bits in, but overall is a bit of a mess. It feels like it’s trying to tell two stories by two different camps from the production standpoint. In one camp you’ve got the urge to make an prequel film for the Alien franchise, and the other camp want to make a film about creationism. Add in some daft elements in the script (run off to one side!) and we’ve got a film which is hard to love, also the technology is massively advanced compared to the other films. I know the Prometheus is an advanced space craft but they could have easily made the tech look like that of the previous films (Sorry, this is something that really bugs me!).

The problem of what film is being made carries on into Alien:Covenant. On one side we’ve got a story about colonists wanting to find a new world to settle on, then on the other side we have the urge to look at this creationist storyline. I’ve watched this movie maybe half a dozen times now and I really believe there is a good movie in here, if you take away that creationist element, and some of the dumb-ass choices the characters make. There’s a bit early on about a funeral that shows there is friction between the characters, but it feels ham-fisted. The funeral is forbidden due to repairs needing to be done, but the repairs could wait and the funeral is brief. It feels like it’s there just to create conflict.

If they took away the David storyline, the plot device of wondering off to another planet and just had a story about colonists arriving at a new planet to then find it was once inhabited by an alien race that died out. Then they find an egg and chaos ensues. Why couldn’t we have had that movie? Up until David shows up we’ve got the makings of a really good atmospheric horror movie and then it slips into a psycho-robot-with-delusions-of-being-a-god movie.

When I think about the original Alien movies they were pretty straightforward. Horror and action pretty much, what you saw was what you got. They never really felt like there was a grander story happening that needed to be addressed. They were just what they were. There was social commentary there, but it was subtle. You didn’t feel like you were being hit over the head with it. Maybe that’s what they need to get back to. Imagine the type of social commentary we could of had in this film if it had been about landing on a planet for colonisation only to discover these horrific aliens that had maybe already wiped out an alien species that had been on the planet before.

Where this series goes in the future, I don’t know. There’s rumours that this new generation of Ridley Scott Alien movies is a trilogy and there’s a third part coming, but this movie didn’t do especially well. So I’ve got to wonder if Fox will give it one more go, drop the franchise for the time being, or go in an entirely different route altogether.

Time will tell, but I know how I’d like it to go.

Movie Review : Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil

Peter Germany Horror, Movies , , , ,

This is A film about the hillbilly’s side of a movie.  Normally these people are the bad guys that kill and violate the unfortunate college kids who are on their well deserved spring break etc.  Tucker and Dale vs Evil is the total opposite of this.

Tucker and Dale are on their way to their newly brought vacation home.  It is the house of their dreams and they are especially impressed with it.  On the way to their new vacation house they encounter some college kids who are off to go camping.  One of the college girls, Allison, (Katrina Bowden) takes Dale’s (Tyler Labine) breath away.  Tucker (Alan Tudyk) encourages Dale to go and talk to her.  It doesnt go well.

Once they get to their house they go night fishing where they see the college kids going skinny dipping.  Allison is on a formation of rocks and sees Tucker and Dale, screams and falls into the lake. Being good people Tucker and Dale pull her from the lake and take her back to the cabin.  The rest of the college kids see this and assume that they are kidnapping her and from here on out it just goes badly, badly wrong for all concerned.  There is a lot of misunderstandings and some very unfortunate accidents.

I really liked this film.  I am A big Alan Tudyk fan.  I cant recall anything that he hasn’t impressed me in.  Tyler Labine I’ve seen here and there but I had not really noticed him beyond that but in this I was very impressed with him.  Both him and Tudyk really play the stereotypical hillbilly really well and bounce off one another even better.  This film really has a lot of heart and fun in it.  Its rare nowadays that a film really makes me laugh, but this one does.  There are bits where I thought to myself ‘I can see whats gonna happen here!’ but I found that some of these bits did not play out as I thought they would.

All in all I was very impressed with this movie.  I will be buying it on DVD when it comes out.