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A review of “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” (2016)

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“Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” (2016) is a fun enough horror-comedy — maybe not quite as good as it could be, considering all of its excellent ingredients, yet still better than most new zombie movies out there.  I’d give it a 7 out of 10.

It’s a great genre mashup, and I don’t just mean combining Jane Austen’s 1813 classic book with horror’s most grisly sub-genre.  (This is a film adaptation of Seth Grahame-Smith’s 2009 eponymous satirical novel.)  It’s also a detailed and thoughtfully constructed horror-fantasy.  (That opening credits’ alternate-history lesson was a nice touch.)  Then it tries, with less success, to be a serviceable romance and a mystery.

The film has a lot going for it: a fun concept, good actors, mostly competent direction, and a creative team that obviously had a hell of a lot of fun with the source material.  Science fiction fans should have fun spotting Matt Smith, Lena Headey and Charles Dance.  The movie has outstanding sets, costumes and filming locations — this was shot on location at historic mansions throughout England.  The fight choreography was decent enough, even if it was occasionally a little hard to follow.  Finally, the zombies that we get to see are indeed creepy — they’re not Romero-type zombies, but the livelier, chattier, brain-eating, sentient baddies similar to those of John Russo’s “Return of the Living Dead” films.  The makeup and digital effects for the monsters are pretty damn good.

Considering its unique idea, its zaniness and its high production values, “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” could have been an instant cult favorite.  But it still falls short of greatness with two flaws that I couldn’t ignore.

The first is its seeming reliance on a single joke — the juxtaposition of Austen’s proper ladies as badass, feminist heroines in a crazy, Kung-fu, blood-and-guts zombie war.  I believe that’s funny and tickles the viewer for maybe 20 minutes.  But it isn’t enough to sustain the humor for the length of a feature film.  It’s fun, but badass, wise-cracking warrior women have been a common trope in mainstream horror film and television for a long time.  Joss Whedon’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” came to TV 19 years ago, for example; the film that inspired it was five years earlier.

Second, for a film with “zombies” in its title, the monsters are a little sparse.  I’m guessing the script closely followed the 2009 book, which I have not read … but this isn’t the actioner that horror fans might be hoping for.  (And why not?  The film falls under so many other categories.)  The movie could have been better if there had been less banter and situational humor, and more zombie fighting.  Its establishing shots and sweeping vistas were downright beautiful … I kept waiting for a major land engagement that would knock my socks off.  But … there isn’t really a final battle, and the story disappoints a little with its anti-climax.  The action sequence that we are presented with is cool, and well executed, but the large-scale period battles you’re probably hoping for occur almost entirely off screen.

Oh — one final quibble … who exactly were the Four Horsemen, outside their allegorical context?  And what happened to them?  They were nice and unsettling — one of the movie’s few scary moments occurs when we wonder whether they’ve spotted a protagonist.  Were scenes cut from this movie that would have explained their role in the story?

 

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A short review of “The Collection” (2012)

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I have to give “The Collection” an 8 out of 10.

No, it’s not a classic horror movie — it’s derivative of the “Saw” movies, and it seems to result from too little thought by the screenwriters.  The antagonist is a serial killer (and here a mass murderer) who employs extraordinary Rube Goldberg-esque machines to brutally trap his victims.

We know nothing about how he arrived at his expertise.  (He appears to be a demon-possessed Thomas Edison.)  His choice of victims is random.  His modus operandi is puzzling.  (Why bring a prior victim to a new crime scene?)  And we’re not even shown how these machines work — only CG’ed tracking shots of cables and pulleys.  Neither do we know why he has unarmed combat training that seems to approach the level of Batman’s.  And the question I was left with by the previous film (“The Collector,” 2009) is still the most egregious omission — how on earth does our bad guy have time to invade a house or building and set all these things up?!  There is SOME nice exposition about the killer’s motivations in some closing dialogue, and it’s wickedly interesting, but it’s cut short.

But, hey — this still got under my skin enough to be an effective horror movie.  The opening action set-piece (YEESH!) was not only frightening, it was also something completely surprising.  I knew bad things were afoot when we spot our horrible machinist lurking above, but … I didn’t expect THAT.

Even with almost no speaking lines, Randall Archer deserves credit for terrific physical acting throughout — not to mention some the best (worst?) crazy-evil eyes in horror film history.  (Just LOOK at this mamajama in the second picture below.)  Archer is a professional stuntman, and his movement and posture sell the role perfectly.

Even better is the presence of Josh Stewart, who returns as the first movie’s nuanced antihero.  I’ll say it again — I love this guy.  He’s a damned talented actor, and he deserves more leading roles in major films.  He was even frikkin’ awesome in his small role as Bane’s craven little henchman in “The Dark Knight Rises” (2012).

And Lee Tergeson, who I remember best as Beecher in HBO’s “Oz” (1997-2003), is also great to watch.

There are other nice touches too.  Like its predecessor, this movie could be smart and creative when it tried.  The use of a gun here is pretty clever, even if it seems obvious in retrospect.  (I wouldn’t have thought of that.)  And the fate of some of our bad guy’s past victims is both fresh and very disturbing.  If those ideas had been expanded on much further, this film would have risen above its status as a “Saw” imitator.

Finally, I love endings like the one we see here.  I won’t say more for fear of spoilers.

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A review of “Extinction” (2015)

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I’d give “Extinction” (2015) a 6 out of 10; it’s a fairly average postapocalyptic horror movie.  And that’s kind of sad, as it seemed to have the ingredients for a great one.

We open with a delightfully scary nocturnal ambush on two school buses crowded with fleeing refugees.  The scene isn’t perfect.  (The soldiers here are both too stoical and too stupid.)  But it’s effective thanks to its claustrophobic setup.  The assailants actually aren’t zombies or “undead” — they’re vicious, fast-moving mutants that are far more interesting.  (Their monsteryness is contagious and catches quickly, a la 2002’s “28 Days Later.”  This predictably spells disaster for the busses’ passengers.)  The animalistic albino baddies actually reminded me a lot of the creatures from “Mutants” (2009).

Then we jump ahead nine years, where two men and a nine-year-old girl suspect that they are the last of the world’s survivors.  But three people are enough for conflict, human nature being what it is.  There is a creatively conceived and fresh idea for a particularly dark end-of-the-world drama.  Jeffrey Donovan and Matthew Fox are both very good; yet the incredibly talented young Quinn McColgan outshines them both.  (Seriously, that little girl is off the hook.  Her performance might be the best thing about the film.)  The makeup effects for the monsters (here only referred to as “they” or “them”) are surprisingly fantastic for what seems like a low-budget film.  And you can tell that a nice amount of thought went into this movie, even if its understanding of Darwin is a little puzzling.  (Why would blindness be an adaptive trait for the monsters?)

I’m just not sure why this movie didn’t work so well for me.  Its formula sure as hell worked for “28 Days Later” and “Maggie” (2015).

Here’s what I think the problem was — the conflict between the two men was a plot that just never advanced.  One hates the other.  We eventually find out why, and it’s a compelling plot point, rendered fairly well in flashback.  But … it’s a static situation that just doesn’t proceed anywhere.  I actually got bored.

The monsters often did little to advance the tension.  They are usually offscreen, absent entirely, or even (in much of the movie’s beginning) presumed extinct.  My attention really did wander.

Finally, the extremely cheesy musical score detracted greatly from the tension that the movie does manage to establish.  This horror movie sounded like a Lifetime Channel movie-of-the-week.  That is not a good thing.  If only those violin players had been victims of the initial apocalypse.

Oh, well.  This is still a fairly good end-of-the-world tale.  And the creepy-crawlies were nice, when we got to see them.

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