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Exit Humanity Review

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Movie: Exit Humanity
Year: 2011
Studio: Foresight Features
Director: John Geddes
Stars: Bill Moseley, Brian Cox, Mark Gibson
Language: English
Length: 108 Minutes
Sub-Genres: Drama / Western / Zombie

Plot: As the American Civil War concludes in 1865, Confederate soldier Edward Young begins to see something even scarier than his Union enemies in the wooded battlefields: walking corpses. When Young returns home to discover his 11-year-old son is missing, he begins to search for him across the zombie-infested countryside, while keeping a journal of his account of the living dead phenomenon.

Review: Many horror fans are purists and don’t appreciate the blending of genres that’s become so commonplace today. I’m closer to the purist side of the spectrum myself, so I was surprised that a zombie western that’s primarily a drama appealed to me. I attribute this to how well made the film is. “Exit Humanity” is a good-looking, well written period piece inhabited with the flesh-eating dead. Except for the “period piece” part, that’s all any zombie fan ever wants anyway.

Consider an early scene where Young’s Confederate soldiers are warring against the Union army in the woods. Even though he’s amid the horrors of war, something even more terrifying catches Young’s attention: a seemingly unstoppable ghoulish-looking man charging toward him, barely acknowledging the gun-fired body shots he’s taking from Young’s gun. Here the protagonist fights a literal monster for the very first time, and he behaves accordingly.

Contrast the scene described above with other modern zombie films where the actors confess their awareness that they’re playing in a zombie movie by referring to the monsters as “zombies.” I hate that. So many zombie films today regard their monsters as merely an atypical occurrence on an otherwise typical day. But in “Exit Humanity,” the characters behave as though they are genuinely freaked out by internalizing the fact that dead people are not only moving but trying to eat them.

Think about it: The reason why “Jaws” is a great title for the book and the film is because the characters never refer to the shark as “Jaws.” The moment a film becomes self-reflective is the same moment that the spell is broken for me.

Just to be clear, I review films like “Exit Humanity” with the hard-core horror fans in mind. So, you should know that this movie starts out as a period piece with zombie elements mingled in. And then at that point, the film’s tone shifts into a western, then a romance, and the zombies are almost forgotten about altogether. (And this doesn’t have a horror movie type of ending, either.) I suspect this problem with the changing tone of the film happened at the script level, where the lead character takes on other missions and objectives during the movie (such as keeping a promise to a loved one, or helping a friend in need), because there’s no single objective that the protagonist is trying to accomplish throughout the duration of the film.

“Exit Humanity” has some artistic merit, as well. For instance, particularly in the beginning of the film, there are animated graphics inserted from time to time as transitions. Some of the animations are better than others, but I suspect this decision was made of necessity, as a shorthand solution to cut down on some shooting and special effects costs. Creative choices like these graphics are often the result of some kind of limitation or restriction.

Horror actor favorite Bill Moseley has an antagonist’s role in this film, but his performance is fairly tame by Bill Moseley’s standards. Indeed, all of the performances are quite good, including the lead, Mark Gibson, who resembles Kiefer Sutherland and plays Edward Young convincingly.

The first 30 minutes of “Exit Humanity” are heavy-laden with voice-over narration (by Brian Cox), which is usually indicative of a problem at the script level, but for the first part of this movie, our protagonist is the only speaking character. The journal is the device used to sustain such lengthy narration, and it works.

Overall, “Exit Humanity” is a well written, smart and artistic film. It depicts the story of a believable, struggling character and his grief and pain, mixed with some zombie attacks and kills. The zombies look fine, with black and lifeless eyes, but we don’t see them as often as we do in other zombie flicks. As is the case with many zombie movies, the film itself isn’t actually about zombies.

As a film critic and a lover of the cinema, I have to admit that “Exit Humanity” is far better than I ever could have hoped for. It exceeded my expectations for a zombie film set at the end of the Civil War. But taking into account its genre-blending and how it might hold up for a horror purist who’s looking to watch a good horror movie, it’s a good movie, yes, but not a good horror movie: 5.5 out of 10 — Rental. “Exit Humanity” is currently new at Redbox as of this past Tuesday, June 19.

To hear horror movie reviews from Jay of the Dead and his cohorts, listen to Horror Metropolis.

Reviewer: Jay of the Dead
Date: 06/22/2012
Rating: 5.5/10
Recommendation: Rental		 Trailer: Watch
DVD: Amazon
BluRay: Amazon.ca
Social Media: Facebook

The Fields Review

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The Fields cover posterMovie: The Fields
Year: 2011
Studio: Breaking Glass Pictures
Directors: Tom Mattera and David Mazzoni
Language: English
Length: 100 Minutes
Genres: Drama / Mystery (Not Horror)

Plot: Supposedly based on true events and set in Pennsylvania in 1973, “The Fields” is about a young couple who are having terrible fights, so they send their young son to stay at his grandparents’ farm while they try to work things out. But the boy isn’t any safer on the farm, because there is something or someone out in the cornfields terrorizing the grandparents.

Review: First question: Why am I reviewing a non-horror film on the Horror Palace Network? Answer: Solely because horror fans won’t be misled into renting this film under the false notion that it’s a horror flick. “The Fields” has a horror-suggesting trailer, and it has played at a couple of horror film festivals, but it’s a drama and a mystery, with a few thriller elements; there are no horror elements whatsoever. But “The Fields” has its moments, nonetheless, so please read on.

Having noted everything above, “The Fields” is a mildly creepy little oddity of the cinema. I think cornfields are inherently freaky — thanks to “Children of the Corn” (1984). “The Fields” has moments of potential that it never fleshes out, but the fact that the moments exist in the first place is an achievement: For example, the foul-mouthed grandmother (Cloris Leachman) frequently and adamantly instructs the boy (Joshua Ormond) to stay out of the cornfields. And when she says this, her reasoning is as follows: “We don’t want to have to come lookin’ for ya, and find you all dead and black and swollen up.” Each time she delivers this same line, she says it creepier than the previous time. We’re certain this set-up is going to pay off later on, but it never does.

And really, the masterstroke of “The Fields” is a subtle statement that the horrors of the outside world are often not much worse than the horrors we experience within the supposed sanctuary of our own lives. We watch the boy in this movie witness disturbing scenes, which seem to be commonplace in his childhood. For instance, there’s a scene that takes place with a few of the kid’s degenerate relatives in a basement where they hack the head off a live chicken just for laughs. This reminded me of a similarly gruesome scene that my mother once witnessed as a child, and she still speaks of it to this day as something that scarred her childhood mind.

Granted, “The Fields” obviously wasn’t aiming to be a horror film, but if writer Harrison Smith had embellished the horrific depictions of the “outside world’s” characters — such as the mystery assailant(s), then we might have had a unique mystery that doubled as a legitimate horror flick. I’ll cite two quick examples for this point: First, the boy discovers a dead girl lying in the cornfields, but the murder happens offscreen, long before we encounter the corpse. Second, there are frequent news reports of the Manson family’s murderous exploits — particularly the murder of actress Sharon Tate from four years earlier — but none of this is depicted.

Though it seems like I’m being overly critical of “The Fields,” there is something major that it does exactly right: Just because these filmmakers had a minimal budget doesn’t mean they commissioned minimal acting talent. I have to give credit to the directors and Colleen Kay, who oversaw the casting for this film. Even though most of their faces aren’t overly recognizable, the quality of the actors’ performances is. The aforementioned Cloris Leachman was in “Young Frankenstein” (1974), and the lovely Tara Reid (“Urban Legend,” 1998) plays the boy’s mother. I have often wondered why low-budget films don’t just get very selective when choosing their no-name acting talent. What have they got to lose? Is it better to cast lesser-known actors who can’t act — or lesser-known actors who will deliver great performances. For the most part, “The Fields” is uncommon in that it does the latter.

In conclusion, for most Horror Palace Network listeners and readers who are strictly looking for horror films, I’m rating “The Fields” a 4.5 and telling you to avoid it. But for those who are willing to watch other genres and appreciate unusual indie films, then I’d suggest checking out “The Fields.” The film’s destination is obvious all along, and therefore, unsatisfying. But like most things in life, the joy is in the journey.

For those who are interested, “The Fields” is currently available at Redbox (listed as a “Drama”), Netflix, and Blockbuster.com, but again, I’m recommending that viewers who are strictly looking for horror to avoid it.

To hear horror movie reviews from Jay of the Dead and his cohorts, listen to Horror Metropolis.

Reviewer: Jay of the Dead
Date: 06/15/2012
Rating: 4.5/10
Recommendation: Avoid		 Trailer: Watch
DVD: Breaking Glass Pictures.com
BluRay: Breaking Glass Pictures.com
Social Media: Facebook

Slaughter Review

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Autopsy cover posterMovie: Slaughter
Year: 2009
Studio: After Dark Films
Director: Stewart Hopewell
Language: English
Length: 93 Minutes
Sub-Genre: Serial Killer

Plot: When a North Carolina teenager moves to a pig farm on the outskirts of Atlanta to escape an abusive boyfriend, she begins to realize that her new home is even more dangerous than the one she moved from.

Review: I value a good story arc and character development in any genre, including horror. But “Slaughter” is a rare example of a horror film that actually takes these elements too far. Indeed, much of the film seems more like a drama than a horror film. Yet, as one might hope from any film that spends so much time developing its subplots, “Slaughter” rewards the patient viewer with a wild, 35-minute grand finale. It borders on the absurd, but after the 53-minute drama that precedes it, I think horror fans will find the film’s over-the-top ending sequence refreshing.

To be fair, “Slaughter” opens with a curtain-raiser that definitely gets your attention: We see irritatingly, intermittently blurry close-up shots of a young woman who is bound at the wrists and ankles and being dragged onto a lakeside dock. Then we see her captor anchor a cinder block to her legs and then push it into the lake, pulling the woman in with it. That’s how “Slaughter” opens. Then the chronology backs up and starts at the beginning to show us how the submerged woman got in such a predicament.

It turns out that the woman from the beginning of the movie is our protagonist, a girl named Faith (Amy Shiels). This character earns our pity because she is apparently fleeing an ex-boyfriend whom she fears. At one point we see scars from slashes on her back, and with her anxiety and nightmares involving her ex, Jimmy (Vance Daniels), we get the picture that he is emotionally unstable and a genuine threat to her life. Here again we have another horror movie character who already has suffering in her life and doesn’t deserve the forthcoming horrors. Unfortunately, this Faith character is also somewhat aloof and withdrawn, so she doesn’t have much charisma to make her likable to us. We feel sorry for her on a human level, but that’s about it. This is particularly puzzling since writer-director Stewart Hopewell went to such great lengths to develop this character for us.

Soon Faith meets Lola, played by Lucy Holt, and she is Faith’s opposite in almost every way. Naturally, they become fast friends. But not long after moving onto Lola’s father’s pig farm, Faith begins to suspect that Lola’s father does some unsavory things in his slaughter house that go beyond just killing pigs.

Now, if you’re bored reading this review so far, I agree. I’m bored writing it. As noted above, up to this point, “Slaughter” is a drama which depicts two young women finding comfort from their broken backgrounds through their newfound friendship.

But the reason I’m rating “Slaughter” a 6 out of 10 and calling it a “Rental” is due to the way it unfolds once the story catches us up to what we saw in the beginning, with Faith getting dropped in the lake. This finale begins at about the 55-minute mark, and this movie doesn’t stop delivering onscreen madness until the end. In some ways, “Slaughter” approaches “pushing the envelope” with some of its dealings with children and other unsettling occurrences. And though it doesn’t show everything graphically or explicitly, I still got the point and was squirming on my couch over some of the awful fates that befall Faith.

If you want to try something funny with someone who has a good sense of humor, find a chick-flick or drama lover and don’t show that person the introduction to this movie. Start off with Faith’s move to Atlanta. Then watch your friend’s reaction when things start to unravel with this movie’s grand finale. This film will be especially entertaining for those who have a phobia of dentistry. Good times. But seriously, if you can’t tolerate a slow-burn in order to get a good pay-off, then “Slaughter” isn’t for you. But if story and character development are up your alley, like they are for me, then “Slaughter” is worth the investment of your time.

To hear horror movie reviews from Jay of the Dead and his cohorts, listen to Horror Metropolis.

[Note: This review is 2 of 8 of the Horror Metropolis 2-DVD, 8-horror movie give-away contest.]

Reviewer: Jay of the Dead
Date: 05/29/2012
Rating: 6/10
Recommendation: Rental		 Trailer: Watch
DVD: Amazon
BluRay: N/A
Social Media: N/A