Horror Palace

I was trying to think of the type of person who would like this movie. My 17 year old daughter? No. My 10 year old son (not that I’d let him watch a rated R movie)? No. A total dip shit? Maybe. A Little Bit Zombie was a painful 87 minutes.  I would ask for a refund but I watched it for free. It is truly baffling how a movie like this got the green light. Was it someone with deep pockets who wanted to waste 1.5 Mill?  The fact that it cost that much has me even more surprised.

Steve is the world’s biggest push over and is about to marry a bridezilla named Tina. Together with Steve’s sister Sarah, and her husband, who just happens to be Steve’s best friend, Craig (A.K.A. The poor man’s Steve Stiffler) go on a cabin trip to plan and set up for the upcoming wedding. On the first night, Steve is attacked by a mosquito, that had previously bit a zombie. After that happens, Steve spends the next few days discovering that he is in fact a zombie. His first clue is a dream that he has about his craving of brains. Then whenever he or anyone else mentions the world he begins to profusely drool. This goes on for the duration for the movie and becomes very boring after the second time it happens. Along the way you get to meet Max (A.K.A the poor man’s Lance Henriksen) and Penny who are an awkward pair that appear to be hunting zombies by following a glowing sphere.  Max and penny’s side plot is hard to explain for the simple fact that, well it’s never explained!

Have I lost your attention yet? Okay, then I’ll proceed.

This is a B-list cast with B-list acting. To expect more would be asking a little too much.  I must admit that the three main women in this film are very nice to look at which made the 87 minutes a little less painful.  There is not a whole lot of character development, which is a good thing because I don’t know if these actors could handle it.  Each of the characters were very one dimensional. I feel like they were given very little background and were asked to bring them to life.  But like I said, what do you expect from a movie called A Little Bit Zombie.

The soundtrack would have not been that bad…if it were 1980. You can probably attribute that to the low budget. Director Casey Walker did a good job picking the Canadian location. After that, I have nothing else positive to say. Ninety percent of the movie is filmed at night. So you’d think they’d find someone who was better with the lighting. As far as the costumes go…I’ve seen worse.

I think the film’s underlying message is, that there are worse things than becoming a zombie. You could be marrying a control freak bitch.

I have to say, I was not impressed with this film. There were no big surprises. No climatic final battle. No twist ending. It really just left me empty once the credits began to roll. I can think of 87 better ways to spend 87 minutes. One of which is pulling teeth.

Grading scales:

Letter Grade – F

RT – 7%

Stars – ½  stars

Thumbs – Thumbs Down

Get The Point?

Reviewed by Damnetha Jules

Damnetha  is a staff writer, movie and book critic.

When you’re a household name like Francis Ford Coppola, you reach a point in your career where you want to make whatever kind of movies you want to make. Coppola has made the legendary likes of “Apocalypse Now” and “The Godfather” movies and now he wanted to make something personal, something different…that something is “Twixt.” It’s about a man named Hall Baltimore (Val Kilmer) who goes to a small American city on a book signing tour, despite the fact he is a continual financial failure at writing witchcraft novels. Local sheriff LaGrange (Bruce Dern) informs Hall about recent murders that connect to a mass murder that took place several years ago. Hall begins having dreams guided by Edgar Allen Poe (Ben Chaplin) and a ghostly girl named V (Elle Fanning); as he tries to piece together the truth of these odd dreams and events and pool them into a new book.

Trying something new and different is good for the creative mind, especially someone like Coppola; but even with his name attached to new ideas, it does not always mean those ideas are going to work. “Twixt” is a darkly atmospheric, confusing, spooky film that feels like every convoluted conspiracy, wrapped in a sack of cryptic clues and ties in an unbreakable knot of utter weirdness. “Twixt” feels like just an excuse for Coppola to try something spooky related, not even realizing or wondering if he has any idea of how to make one or put it together correctly. Visually, the film is darkly gorgeous and works wonderfully with the creepy atmosphere; the dream sequences are especially jarring and are a mix bag of oddness and intrigue.

But just like dreams in real life, sometimes all the bizarre imagination visuals mean absolutely nothing and you can end up wasting hours and hours of your life trying to piece together puzzle parts that don’t add up to anything sensible or logical at all. I think the idea of this story and set up sounds more interesting than the actual finished product, which to be perfectly honest, after seeing this film I seriously question why anyone would call this story a “finished” product. There are too many loose threads and cryptic story elements that are strewn about in random fashion, implying some higher amount of sophisticated storytelling is at work here; when in truth it feels more like Coppola snickering every time to think you understand everything and then fail miserably.

Sometimes movies play out as if they are smarter than they actually are, that’s always been my biggest problem with analyzing art house films as opposed to every day films you see in your local theater. There is this expectation that movies from certain directors imply a certain sense of class and that everything is layered with deep, rich subtext. Perhaps being confused and bombarded with dark, dreary visuals of nightmarish dreams was the subtext Coppola wanted all along and if that is the case; mission accomplished…but where does it say in the rules I have to like it JUST because I understand it? I don’t knock the beautiful use of dark imagery; in fact, I think it’s truly the finest piece in the movie’s structure.

The acting is also quite pleasing as well; Chaplin provides an excellent turn as the ghostly nightmare version of Poe and Elle Fanning, though simple in character execution, proved very effective as her ghostly character V. Val Kilmer deserves more work like this, even if I felt this movie went all over the place with its loosely looped story; Kilmer really kept my attention and interest from start to finish. Unfortunately, “Twixt” is just too wrapped up in its self-indulgent, spooky story glories to let the viewer fully appreciate whatever the hell it is Coppola is going for. I think that’s the issue I had with this movie: I don’t know what Coppola was going for and if I do think I know what he was going for; I don’t like it. Branching out into genres you’re not used to is all well and good for directors but in cases like this, the branching out only seems to be pleasing the director and not the people watching the movie.

I’m sure someone who is much smarter and sees things in a more “sophisticated” light can tell me they saw or found out what this movie was conveying but no answer is adequate enough to change my mind here. “Twixt” is great to look at from a distance, the actors are more than satisfactory and the creative use of dark imagery and color schemes definitely provides a great mood setting for this story. Too many twists and turns and loose clues that don’t add up into anything worth watching only increase this movie’s self-written dementia and inflate the confusion cloud that has circulated around your head since the credits started to roll. Coppola, if you’re enjoying your “personal projects” then more power to you, just don’t expect me to be adding any more time or power to “Twixt” again.

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I give “Twixt” 2 stars out of 4.

Reviewed by Damnetha Jules

Damnetha  is a staff writer, movie and book critic.