TwoGunBob
20-Feb-2007, 04:24 PM
Season of the Dead review
To set the stage… I made a trip to the Only 99 Cents Store and picked up a few kung fu DVD’s and some other miscellaneous junk that you find at these dollar stores. So I got home and watched Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) season one, episode seven, Robot Monster. After some laughter induced time with Joel and the Bots I popped in one of these 99 cent lock n’ block kung fu movies, Death Duel of Kung Fu with Eagle Han with a double feature of Dragon, the Hero with Dragon Lee one of the more humorous Bruce Lee clones. After about two hours of 70’s style kung fu my brain had mostly just switched off under the assault of guys blocking each other’s blows for a majority of both films. I have a love of Kid with the Golden Arm, Chinese Super Ninja (Five Element Ninja, whatever you want to call it), The Eighteen Bronzemen, etc. but a lot of the 70’s kung fu just bores me near to death. Story in the Temple Red Lily was one that nearly killed me. Anyway, I was giving myself a slow tortuous death with half a loaf of kung fu.
As I was getting up to get a cup of apple juice Miss TGB mentioned I had received a package she had forgotten about. It was, of course, Season of the Dead much to my surprise as I had totally forgotten about well… everything not relating to family, work, or my part time job pretending I know how to manage spread sheets and inventory.
My first viewing experience was completely tainted by the cinematic atrocities I had subjected myself to. Maybe some of you can quip your way through an Eagle Han kung fu movie but I can’t. Being an MST3K junkie I cannot help but riff on films and Season of the Dead went through the wringer on my first viewing. In the end I felt better at the expense of Season of the Dead and really didn’t have a review to show for it. I try to make it a solemn oath not to trash a movie without analyzing it unless Jess Franco is involved. Being that Eric Kent was smart enough to keep Jess Franco away from his film I watched it again with the commentary to see what Eric thought about his own film a few days later. I was also in a more positive and critical mood to write an even handed review.
I’m not going to stick my tongue down anyone’s trousers (unless it’s a female with short hair and a penchant for striped tights and even then… sorry sidetracked) cause anyone making a film, especially small budget indies, needs honest opines rather than congratulatory backslapping that sometimes happens. I’ve worked on two movies and one of them is quite possibly the worst horror movie ever made. I was lucky to actually catch it at the Texas Frightmare Weekend and see what became of it and it was… pretty god awful. It was a learning experience on someone else’s dime. The other film was Risen and I don’t talk about that one cause it’s still being worked on and all that. I’ll probably write about Risen and my experiences some day after it gets released. That worst movie ever made? No, I’m not telling the title of it. You’ll just have to be thankful you’ll probably never see it. Suffice it to say, some honest opines might have helped that film but the creators got so full of themselves and believed their own hype to a degree they thought they had a classic when it was actually a petrified piece of fecal matter.
So, where does this leave Season of the Dead? Yes, I was getting back around to mentioning this film eventually. Eric Kent was dealing with a cast of three, some extra zombies, and a microbudget. Did he make the most of his resources? Well, like anything the answer is a yes and no. He started the film with a jump of action but the choreography of the struggle with the zombies is a little shaky. The opening dialog between Marcus and Shane is a bit stiff which even they as actors admit to not being warm to the camera. It’s something that plagues the film until near the end where I’d say Eric is just starting to get used to being in front of as well as behind the camera at times. I think the dual roles hampered the onscreen performance. Eric was just starting to find his feet when the film ended really.
I’ll mention that the zombies irked me, the shed attacking zombies mostly. The problem with having a small group of zombies is that certain things like a Rasta zombie really stick out. There was also the girl with nice hair zombie that distracted me. I’ve always been of the school of thought that zombies should be dressed in earthen tones to blend together more as it makes them seem more numerous. The uniformity of dress set up in Night of the Living Dead really works to make it seem that there’s an endless number of ghouls on the prowl. It’s a personal thing and something even Romero didn’t stick with, Hare Krishna zombie, clown zombie, overly super obese zombie, etc.
The crowd of zombies away from the shed blend together more and the framing of the shots works better for it. Worthy of mention is the scene of the zombie busting through the shed door. The extra portraying the zombie here does an excellent job and the shot is excellent. Really, when watching these films I tend to look for that more than anything. A lot of self made films really just use the tripod method with little or no creativity or thought about composition of the framing and setting up clever shots. It’s not something Eric Kent mentions in his commentary but he does make use of quite a few clever angles throughout the film.
The zombie extras act like, well, extras when confronted with a chainsaw. They had a lot of acting stiff rather than zombie stiff. As the actor noted, his character Shane would have lopped the zombies to pieces with the chainsaw and I’m sure Kent would have directed it as such if he had the budget. As such there are a couple attempts at effects but they do get rather hamstrung by the budget versus a weapon of carnage like a chainsaw.
The escape by the character Marcus led to riffs of
Miss TGB: “He’s in the forest.”
TGB: “And he’s running.”
TGB and miss TGB: “Run, Forrest, Run!”
Of course on second review I actually paid attention to the composition of the shots and also paid note that Kent did a good job of matching the backyard scenes to the park scenes without any noticeable hiccup. There is one long shot with the silhouette of a zombie a distance down the path that looks well thought out.
To set the stage… I made a trip to the Only 99 Cents Store and picked up a few kung fu DVD’s and some other miscellaneous junk that you find at these dollar stores. So I got home and watched Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) season one, episode seven, Robot Monster. After some laughter induced time with Joel and the Bots I popped in one of these 99 cent lock n’ block kung fu movies, Death Duel of Kung Fu with Eagle Han with a double feature of Dragon, the Hero with Dragon Lee one of the more humorous Bruce Lee clones. After about two hours of 70’s style kung fu my brain had mostly just switched off under the assault of guys blocking each other’s blows for a majority of both films. I have a love of Kid with the Golden Arm, Chinese Super Ninja (Five Element Ninja, whatever you want to call it), The Eighteen Bronzemen, etc. but a lot of the 70’s kung fu just bores me near to death. Story in the Temple Red Lily was one that nearly killed me. Anyway, I was giving myself a slow tortuous death with half a loaf of kung fu.
As I was getting up to get a cup of apple juice Miss TGB mentioned I had received a package she had forgotten about. It was, of course, Season of the Dead much to my surprise as I had totally forgotten about well… everything not relating to family, work, or my part time job pretending I know how to manage spread sheets and inventory.
My first viewing experience was completely tainted by the cinematic atrocities I had subjected myself to. Maybe some of you can quip your way through an Eagle Han kung fu movie but I can’t. Being an MST3K junkie I cannot help but riff on films and Season of the Dead went through the wringer on my first viewing. In the end I felt better at the expense of Season of the Dead and really didn’t have a review to show for it. I try to make it a solemn oath not to trash a movie without analyzing it unless Jess Franco is involved. Being that Eric Kent was smart enough to keep Jess Franco away from his film I watched it again with the commentary to see what Eric thought about his own film a few days later. I was also in a more positive and critical mood to write an even handed review.
I’m not going to stick my tongue down anyone’s trousers (unless it’s a female with short hair and a penchant for striped tights and even then… sorry sidetracked) cause anyone making a film, especially small budget indies, needs honest opines rather than congratulatory backslapping that sometimes happens. I’ve worked on two movies and one of them is quite possibly the worst horror movie ever made. I was lucky to actually catch it at the Texas Frightmare Weekend and see what became of it and it was… pretty god awful. It was a learning experience on someone else’s dime. The other film was Risen and I don’t talk about that one cause it’s still being worked on and all that. I’ll probably write about Risen and my experiences some day after it gets released. That worst movie ever made? No, I’m not telling the title of it. You’ll just have to be thankful you’ll probably never see it. Suffice it to say, some honest opines might have helped that film but the creators got so full of themselves and believed their own hype to a degree they thought they had a classic when it was actually a petrified piece of fecal matter.
So, where does this leave Season of the Dead? Yes, I was getting back around to mentioning this film eventually. Eric Kent was dealing with a cast of three, some extra zombies, and a microbudget. Did he make the most of his resources? Well, like anything the answer is a yes and no. He started the film with a jump of action but the choreography of the struggle with the zombies is a little shaky. The opening dialog between Marcus and Shane is a bit stiff which even they as actors admit to not being warm to the camera. It’s something that plagues the film until near the end where I’d say Eric is just starting to get used to being in front of as well as behind the camera at times. I think the dual roles hampered the onscreen performance. Eric was just starting to find his feet when the film ended really.
I’ll mention that the zombies irked me, the shed attacking zombies mostly. The problem with having a small group of zombies is that certain things like a Rasta zombie really stick out. There was also the girl with nice hair zombie that distracted me. I’ve always been of the school of thought that zombies should be dressed in earthen tones to blend together more as it makes them seem more numerous. The uniformity of dress set up in Night of the Living Dead really works to make it seem that there’s an endless number of ghouls on the prowl. It’s a personal thing and something even Romero didn’t stick with, Hare Krishna zombie, clown zombie, overly super obese zombie, etc.
The crowd of zombies away from the shed blend together more and the framing of the shots works better for it. Worthy of mention is the scene of the zombie busting through the shed door. The extra portraying the zombie here does an excellent job and the shot is excellent. Really, when watching these films I tend to look for that more than anything. A lot of self made films really just use the tripod method with little or no creativity or thought about composition of the framing and setting up clever shots. It’s not something Eric Kent mentions in his commentary but he does make use of quite a few clever angles throughout the film.
The zombie extras act like, well, extras when confronted with a chainsaw. They had a lot of acting stiff rather than zombie stiff. As the actor noted, his character Shane would have lopped the zombies to pieces with the chainsaw and I’m sure Kent would have directed it as such if he had the budget. As such there are a couple attempts at effects but they do get rather hamstrung by the budget versus a weapon of carnage like a chainsaw.
The escape by the character Marcus led to riffs of
Miss TGB: “He’s in the forest.”
TGB: “And he’s running.”
TGB and miss TGB: “Run, Forrest, Run!”
Of course on second review I actually paid attention to the composition of the shots and also paid note that Kent did a good job of matching the backyard scenes to the park scenes without any noticeable hiccup. There is one long shot with the silhouette of a zombie a distance down the path that looks well thought out.