Review: Festival of the Living Dead

 

Review: Festival of the Living Dead

By William Pattison

Ok, I just finished watching the Soska Sisters latest film, Festival of the Dead. I might post a more detailed review later on my blogs, but I thought I’d share my initial thoughts on this Tubi TV original film.

First off I thought the film was very watchable. It was by far more watchable than their two hour S&M film that they filmed on their IPhones. This film actually had professional audio. Congratulations girls! You actually had a professional film crew with you that made this film look better than a first year film student. Shit, they even had drone shots!!!

The story is about a girl who treats her longtime friends and her little brother like shit because she has decided she wants to fit in and be a shallow self-involved asshole like her new friends and her Chad boyfriend and his rich buddy.

She ends up leaving her little brother with her unappreciated best friend and her unappreciated best friend’s wheelchair bound boyfriend to go to a rock festival in the forest with her new social masters. Amusingly when they are going to park at the event they end up getting into an accident when they hit what they don’t know is a zombie. The main character and the Chads go off to get medical help and leave the two femaie socials behind because they are hurt, how truly social of them. So they find the first aid station and find it all messed up. They run into a girl who is having a bad trip on mushrooms. Rich Chad steals her mushrooms and amusingly gives them to Main girl and her Chad.

Then they hear music and amazingly forget the social girls and go to the main stage to party. At the main stage Main girl starts hallucinating and see the Soska Sisters dancing, because she is a Soska fan. Her living room, which was shown earlier had a bunch of Soska film posters all over its walls. Anyway, the imaginary Jen and Sylvia blow smoke in her face. Then she starts to see zombies in among the crowd, and guess what? The zombies are real and start attacking people.

Anyway, they have to escape the zombies and Main girl’s abused friends and little brother show up to add to the potential body count.

So, I found the main character rather confusing because she acts all strong argumentative and knowledgeable about guns and fighting with her unappreciated friends and her brother yet she cows down initially with the Chads and the social girls. This makes her very much an annoying Mary Jane character. She does go through a story arch and realizes the error of her turning her back on her friends and being so abusive to her brother, but this is at the expense of people’s lives.

I find it rather amusing that it is the Soskas that are writing a morality tale about the evils of choosing a petty, shallow, self-absorbed life over what matters when Jen and Sylvia have burned bridges and stabbed anyone who supported them in the past in order to gain false power in horror through The Horror Socials. In fact it seems a bit hypercritical in my opinion, and I’m one of the people who had been a “friend” of Jen and Sylvia and learned the hard way how little the two of them really respect friendship and those who have helped them.

Anyway this film is a watchable zombie film that doesn’t reinvent the wheel. It has a few Easter eggs to Romero’s Dead films, so fans of those films and the Return of the Living Dead films won’t be completely disappointed.

So there you go. There is my honest opinion. Now the Soska fans can mouth off and say I’m wrong and this is a masterpiece of zombie cinema. Ugh, I taste bile…

Top Ten Edible Food Delivery System

Ok, people, it is list time again and I got a tough one...

Name your top 10 Edible Food vessels (delivery system of food to your mouth).

(note: individual bread types)

Here is my list:

Waffles

Ciabatta bread

Egg

Crepe

Hot dog buns

Hamburger buns

Tortillas

Dumpling skin

Intestine (as in sausages)

Crescent roll

What is your list?

Review: Godzilla Minus One

 Review: Godzilla Minus One

By William Pattison

I just finished watching Godzilla Minus 1, thanks to a friend sending me a screener he got.
I have to say that in my opinion this film is the best Godzilla film ever produced, and yes I'm including the original. This was a solid film with a serious, well written storyline. The story was not simply about a monster destroying Japanese cities. It was the story of a Japanese pilot who survived WW2 and came home feeling that he shouldn't have survived because he failed to do his duty on two occasion. He comes home to find that his girlfriend now has a little girl that survived the bombings of Japan. He doesn't accept this ready-made family because he can't free himself of the ghosts of the past. Now add in Godzilla and this guy getting caught in the middle.
This film has some great monster FX and brilliant camera work. And, amazingly enough it was made on a fraction of the budget of either Shin Godzilla or any of the most recent Monsterverse films.
I hope when this film comes out on DVD/Blueray that it has an English dub because I want to enjoy this film without having to strain my eyes reading subtitles. This is a film I nwill feel honored to add to my collection. 5 stars Awesomtacular!!!!!

Review: SAW X

Last night I watched the new installment in the SAW series, SAW X.

John Kramer is back and in good form in this prequel that takes place between SAW and SAW 2. In this story John goes to Mexico for an unauthorized surgery and drug treatment that he found out about from a supposed cancer survivor. Unfortunately for John it turns out to be a scam being done by a bigger monster than John himself. So in picture perfect Jigsaw style John decided that these con artists need to be taught a lesson and prove themselves as worth of life.  The main lesson of this film is don't fuck with John Kramer or suffer the repercussions.

I really loved this film and loved seeing John and Amanda back in action. 

The games in the story were definitely appropriate. The only issue for me was two of the games dealt with weighing body matter. I think should have made each game totally different. But that can be easily fluffed off because both games were great.

Also, I think they could have done some de-aging on Amanda because she was showing her age. As for John I thought even though Tobin Bell was showing his age too it worked with the fact that the character was suffering from terminal cancer, this many people in that condition look prematurely aged.

Also, and I love this, I think that putting this story on its own yet actually between two of the installments was a brilliant and gutsy idea. The filmmaker managed to have freedom to do the story he wanted without messing with the continuity.

In conclusion I have to say SAW X is a gory, fun, installment of this beloved series that fans of the series should treasure.

Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season 2 Review

Well, I finished watching season 2 of Star Trek Strange New Worlds and I have a few thoughts on it. First, I believe that this season was far weaker than season 1. I felt that there were far too many oddball episodes this season. Three in one season is far too many when you only have ten episodes. Also jumping the shark with the musical themed episode was far misplaced.this episode would have been better place in the 6th season. The first three seasons are for establishing the characters and the tone of the show, not going off the wall. 

Also, I believe that they have mishandled Ethan Peck’s Spock and his relationship with Nurse Chapel. Spock has been way over emotional. His cheating with Chapel when he is engaged to TPring is way out of line with his character. Also, the way Chapel treated Spock in episodes 8 and 9 were very much against her character. The writers need to stop screwing with fan favorite characters. I know they can do thatby the way they have handled Kirk, I have no complaints about him.

Finally, there is the literal elephant in the room, The Gorn. The Gorn presented in the opening episode as the big bad this season, but except for a few mentions they were absent until the season finale. We got far more Klingons than Gorn this season. I’m  not saying I’m not happy to see real Klingons again, but they weren’t supposed to be the main villains. This shows a definite problem with the writing staff and the show.

All in all this season has been a mixed bag. This show is definitely better than Discovery but it still needs to gel and become the great show it can be. I await the next season and we’ll see what happens.

Review: Nefarious

Review:  Nefarious

By William Pattison

I watched the possession film Nefarious last night and have to say I was impressed. This story is about a psychologist who goes to a prison to evaluate a prison who is about to be executed with old sparkie. This multi-murderer claims to be possessed by a demon who calls himself Nefarious. The psychologist has to prove that the man is not crazy and can be executed according to the law.

The majority of this film is just the two men talking yet I was never bored. There is only a few minor FX scene which mostly involved the brutal, yet brief execution scene.

This film shows itself to being worlds better than the FX laden possession films we get on a regular basis. Just this demon sitting and calmly telling this psychiatrist how he took over and destroyed this man's life and how Hell is manipulating the human world to destroy people and send the majority to Hell is far more disturbing than Regan's green puke or Emily Rose twisting herself backwards. This is the one possession film I give high respect to but this film is truly a frightening affair...

Review: Slasher: Ripper

Review: Slasher:Ripper

By William Pattison

Last night I finished watching SLASHER: Ripper. Honestly, I have mixed feelings about this season. The plot was interesting. The killings were interesting. But all the WOKE bullshit this season was annoying and took me out of the story. The black detective with the cornrows (give me a fucking break) and the black woman coroner distracted me. I kept saying to myself that this was bullshit. It went against the era the story was set at and did NOTHING to forward the narrative, thus shouldn't be there.

I'm sorry but the social politics ruined what could have been a very interesting season. I cannot recommend this season, unless you like to yell at the screen and get annoyed...