The Quarantine Movie Marathon - Part 1

 [Editor's note: Hi all! I know it's been a hot minute since my last post *cough* four months *cough*, but what with moving house, finishing my degree and adjusting to a post-corona dystopia, it's been very hectic for me, as I'm sure it has been for all of you. I just wanted to say thank you for your patience and I hope to post more content soon!]

[SPOILERS AHEAD]

Humble beginnings

Unless you've been living underground (which at this point sounds more favourable), then you'll be fully aware that the world is currently in shambles. 2020 has undoubtedly been the worst year for everybody but that's not what we're going to talk about today, don't worry. 

See, when I was in lockdown, I was living alone in a tiny flat, surrounded by my one true love: my film collection. I found myself realising 'hey, this could be a great opportunity to watch all the films I never got round to watching after I bought them!'...which then diverged into 'hey, why don't I just watch all of them?' A crazy notion, really, when you consider I have nearly 400 films. But it's lockdown, there's nowhere to go and nobody to talk to, so is it really that far of a stretch to save me from boredom?

So, I did. I sat down and, in alphabetical order, I watched every single film I own. In 125 days. Basically, I was still continuing the list after lockdown had ended. And, knowing I hadn't produced content during lockdown, I wrote down my thoughts on every single film in a concise, one sentence summary: today, I'm going to share those thoughts with you, dear reader. Obviously I can't put all of them here, otherwise you'd be reading a novel, so I'm only sharing those that are considered horror films (if you'd like to see other genres, let me know). So if you ever wanted a quick-fire idea of any of these films, then this is the list to go to!

Battle Royale (2000)

0 to C

• 28 Days Later (2002) - The score of this film is phenomenal and we have to stan a WOC being one of the main protagonists and a survivor in a horror film. [8/10]
• 28 Weeks Later (2007) - 28 Days is confined horror, whereas 28 Weeks is mass hysteria and it works so well: also the opening scene is one of the most iconic, chaotic openers I've ever seen in a horror film. [8/10]
• Abel Ferrara's The Driller Killer (1979) - Typical 70s, b-movie smut that has some redeemable qualities in the third act: laughable dialogue, though. [5/10]
• A Bucket of Blood (1959) - Hilariously deluded with a fun concept: I'd love to see a remake of this. [8/10]
• Akira (1988) -  The animation, the characters, the attention to detail with the worldbuilding...*chef's kiss*. [8/10]
• All Cheerleaders Die (2013) - Cringe in places but entirely self-aware and fun: also any horror film with erotic, blood-thirsty women is my cup of tea. [7/10]
• Already Dead (2007) - Terrible dialogue, predictable plot with an almost redeeming ending. [6/10]
• American Mary (2012) -  A strong, unique horror that you can tell is directed and written by women because all of the female characters are likeable and feel real. [8/10]
• A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) - The blood geyser scene: that's it. [9/10]
• A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985) - I know this is considered to be the outlier of the Elm Street franchise but I think it really ups the ante in terms of creativity and the manifestation of fear; a horror that every baby-gay should see. [8/10]
• A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) - Arguably the coolest Freddy Krueger monsters of all seven films with a bangin' soundtrack. [8/10]
• A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988) - I like that they gave Freddy more agency in this film and made him more camp: there's no such thing as too much camp. [7/10]
• A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989) - The worst of the seven films: it tries too hard, which is disappointing to see. [5/10]
• Apollo 18 (2011) - Not as awful as I remember when I reviewed it last but I'm still giving it a low score. [5/10]
• A Quiet Place (2018) - Masterful use of sound; I definitely cried at Jim getting fucking GOT. [8/10]
• Battle Royale (2000) - The Japanese have certainly mastered the combination of absurd and horrifying with really fleshed-out characters. Hunger Games could never, bitch. [9/10]
• Bear (2010) -  The best scenes are where people are getting fucking mauled, just so you don't have to hear the atrocious dialogue anymore. [3/10]
• Bite (2015) - The storylines are entirely too predictable but the body horror is fun to watch and I will give credit where credit is due: the sfx are impressive. [7/10]
• Black Death (2010) - Nice plot twists but a really fucking bleak ending; Sean Bean dies again. [7/10]
• Black Swan (2010) -  Natalie's performance is so damn good and she deserved her Oscar for it; Aronofksy is one of my all-time faves, so I'm a bit biased here in saying it's a magnificent example of cinema. [9/10]
• Black Xmas (2006) - 'Meh' ending, more entertaining drunk with friends, I imagine. [6/10]
• Braindead (1992) - A guilty pleasure film because it's so fucking gross and funny, plus I challenge you to find a horror that's as inventive with its gore as Braindead is. [9/10]
• Candyman (1992) - The soft lighting, screams and orchestral soundtrack, accompanied with a dramatic soliloquy makes for a very out-of-body experience but in a good way;  a staple of horror cinema, though I hope the remake fixes the mistakes of the original. [8/10]
• Carnival of Souls (1962) - Creepy imagery and a good ending, though I found the soundtrack to be obnoxious at times. [7/10]
• Case 39 (2009) - Your average Hollywood cash-grab: something to stick on whilst you're hoovering. [4/10]
• Cassadaga (2011) - Creative serial killer but problematic plot-line: LGBTQ+ individuals should avoid this at all costs. [4/10]
• Cell (2016) - Stupid fucking movie that I hate with a passion; Y'ALL DID STEPHEN KING DIRTY. [2/10]
• Chernobyl Diaries (2012) - This could've been a good film, had it been written and executed better. [5/10]
• Creature from the Black Lake (1976) - The storyline and characters are pretty uninteresting and the reveal of the creature is less terrifying humanoid and more discount Bigfoot. [4/10]
• Creep (2014) - I fucking adore this movies because it's one of the first that unsettled me upon first viewing, which is a hard thing to do; Mark Duplass is a great actor. [8/10]
• Creepshow (1982) - The lovechild of King and Romero, segments reminiscent of Argento's cinematography and cameos from both King and Savini? If you haven't watched Creepshow, you aren't a real horror fan. Simple. [8/10]
• Cronos (1993) - I love Del Toro and everything he does: his films are gothic and disturbing and yet you can feel how lovingly they were written and made. [7/10]

Next week: D to F

- K

The Evolution of Brain-Eaters

In recent years, zombie flicks have become a dime a dozen. Hypnosis, virus, magic, science: take your pick of zombie origin. We are all but accustomed to the scab blood, the torn clothes, the twitchy movements. But where does this come from? Have zombies always been this predictable, this gross and terrifying in their depictions?

White Zombie (1932) is considered to be the first "mainstream" zombie film. Starring Bela Lugosi (who many may remember for his famous portrayal of Dracula in the 1931 film of the same namesake), the film follows a couple who are to be married under the roof of Charles Beaumont (played by Robert Frazer), a man set on making the bride-to-be his property. He enlists Lugosi's character to make her a "zombie", regarded in this context as an undead slave with no ability to speak and limited/slowed physical movement: he achieves this through the use of a "potion" and, interestingly, the power of telepathy, an aspect we don't really see anymore.

White Zombie (1932)

Back in the 30s, zombies were still structured under the origins of Haitian folklore, wherein a "zombie" was the living undead, brought back to life through ritualistic voodoo or magic: this was a trope that remained true for the next 20 years in other films such as I Walked With a Zombie (1943) and Teenage Zombies (1959). However, this changed significantly with the arrival of Night of the Living Dead (1968) in the late 60s when George A. Romero decided to up the ante.

Night of the Living Dead was Romero's magnum opus: one of the first cinematic pieces to show gratuitous violence on-screen and depict the zombie archetype in a truly revolutionary way. In comparison to White Zombie, this film showed them to not only move a little quicker but also look undead, featuring gaunt expressions, blood around the mouth, sunken eyes and gaping wounds. Lastly, the most important factor and one we take for granted now in 2018 is that the zombies are cannibals.

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Romero's inspiration for such stemmed from the Richard Matheson novel I Am Legend, which featured man-eating vampires as the antagonist. Romero's zombies are almost a homage to Matheson's instantly recognisable and monstrous creation, blending two types of evil to make something terrifying, a villainous idea that would scare the pants off movie-goers in the midnight screenings. These zombies weren't created by voodoo, though: they were created by radiation from a satellite returning from Venus, introducing a more new-age and technological aspect to the horror genre.

So, by the late 60s, we had bloodthirsty, slow yet menacing zombies. It's groundbreaking, and somewhat scary, but how can it be expanded upon? Can it be expanded upon at all? Of course it can. And it was in the mid-80s with the arrival of Romero's ninth film Day of the Dead (1985) and Re-Animator (1985). Whilst Re-Animator leans more into the biopunk subgenre of sci-fi horror, it still stands true as a zombie film, in that the dead characters become undead pretty swiftly; what the two films share in common, however, is their evolution of the zombie archetype. In these films, zombies are able to speak, to use logic and reasoning, albeit limited in most cases.

Day of the Dead (1985)

Between 1985 and 1999, the horror genre spiked in many different directions, and the zombie route seemingly became more haphazard and comedic. Most notably is Dead Alive (1992) directed by Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson, a wonderfully dark and disgusting comedy about people becoming infected by a Sumatran rat-monkey, and consequently transforming into zombies that ooze, bleed and bloat. Less terrifying, yes, but definitely more gross.

Fast-forward to the 21st century and you have the zombies we know today or, more realistically, genetically enhanced and pathogen-ridden people. In the early noughties, we were treated to Danny Boyle's incredibly violent 28 Days Later (2002), a film fixated on a society overrun with zombies caused by the "Rage virus": the zombies have bright red eyes, dark and congealed blood spilling from their mouths and insanely fast movement. In essence, a zombie you most probably wouldn't be able to outrun, which is arguably much more frightening than previous models.

28 Days Later (2002)

What made the 28 franchise special was that it played off the victim's transformation psychologically as well as physically: it's noted that writers Alex Garland and Danny Boyle wanted the virus to be reflective of "social rage" and that it "amplifies something already in [everybody], rather than turning them into something entirely Other". This made for an incredibly unique social commentary on contemporary British life and a very different depiction of zombies entirely. It was, in my eyes, more intellectual than the traditional route.

A lot of other countries hopped aboard the viral pandemic train, as it were. This includes staple horror films such as REC (2007) from Spain, Train to Busan (2016) from Korea and The Night Eats the World (2018) from France. These films centre around the nuanced trope of viral infection, one which we understand to cause zombie outbreaks in modern cinema, and something I'd argue has become outdated. I believe there are some films (such as Train to Busan) that can still make it engaging and still cajole the audience into wanting the characters to survive, however I've found in my experience that in later years, these films are becoming a minority and much harder to find.

Train to Busan (2016)

It's hard to say where zombies go from here. Films like Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Zombieland (2009) adopted their 90s counterparts' comedic value and films like the Resident Evil franchise (2002-2017) still encompass traditional aspects of the zombie sub-genre, but I think it's going to take something truly exceptional to break the mould.