Dead and Loving It

John Pata is one of the nicest guys around. That’s the dirty truth.

He doesn’t have a bad bone in him and always offers a warm smile if you’re talking to him. There’s a twinkle in his eye that’s adds to his boyish charm. You wouldn’t even know that he likes to make zombie flicks.

They’re gory. They’re demented. A true horror fan’s delight.

But May 14 is his day. At the Reeve Union on the Oshkosh university campus, striking the hour of 8 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., he offered two free showings of his latest thirty-minute film “Better Off Undead” which tells of three survivors holed up inside a house and how they deal with dead people walking the streets. Or walking in their own house. Produced by Newbeat/Head Trauma productions.

This film is a definite representation of Oshkosh. And there’s nothing wrong with it. You can tell that Pata fuels his movie with so much passion for horror movies that it’s contagious. You have a lot of fun too. And it’s a damn funny movie too. With some smart dialogue to go with it.

In some ways Oshkosh becomes mythic in the film. The city becomes a character of its own.
It’s nice to see all the familiar settings of Oshkosh as I’ve been a long-time resident of the area since I’ve moved here in 1980 as a young toddler. Those images of buildings and streets become engraved in Pata’s film. The cornerstones of Oshkosh such as the Grand Opera House thrusts into the movie. But none of it feels forced. The scenery blends in with the film.

Drew Schuldt, Dale DeVries and Jordan Brown star as the trio of unlucky survivors who bicker, swear and make unencouraging remarks to each other while the mass population of zombies grow in the Oshkosh landscape. They make the heart and soul of the film. In some ways the zombies are the heroes too as they’re equally as funny. In a warped sort of way. Don’t miss Lee Marohn as the zombie making leering, suggestive faces in the House of Heroes door window. He licks the glass too.

DeVries provides his stunning, punkish voice with his band the Lemurs for the title theme music. The tight direction and the music is one of the highlights on of the film and gives “Better Off Undead” its own unique character. The Lemurs is an established band in Oshkosh. Another very excellent and talented group established in the Oshkosh music scene is Lead Me Not who helped to install their own metal style and gothic mixture to the film’s presence.

You might find two members of Lead Me Not as part of the hordes of zombies filling up the streets of Oshkosh. T.J. Stark, guitarist of Lead Me Not, lends his talented musical intuition by coming up with three different soundtrack songs. The thumping, pulsing music twists and burns with some of the scenes when there’s a zombie takeover in the house where the survivors find brief refuge. But not for long.

It’s a creative stab at the horror field done on a shoestring budget. It goes back to the good old flesh munching days of zombie movies. But Pata does bring something new to the now tired genre. He has something to say in here.

And the dead comes back to feed again. That's okay by us, isn't it?

Many of the horror scenes involve zombies ripping off flesh from the victims. There are splinters of gore everywhere. Blood splatters. But you’ll be too busy being glued to what’s going on in the movie for you to look away.

Don’t miss Scott Dercks, owner of House of Heroes, towards the very ending. It’s a riot. And I do mean it. It's much funnier seeing him wear a necktie.

Pata has brought back the zombie movies in true form. And there’s no doubt he loves what he does. And that passion still has plenty of fire that’ll make him stand out above all others in making zombie movies fun again.

Grind This!

Horror. Lots of it. Bleeding out of the theatres like a sick passion.

That’s all right. I managed to get a seat pretty well up front of the audience on Friday night to see the Grindhouse. I wouldn't miss a good severed leg if I can help it.

The Grindhouse is a double movie feature which is a nice throwback to the 1970s drive-in flicks that is schlock full of b-budget stuff. There are a lot of weird ideas going on in some of those double features during its highlight years and the current film brings it back with far more exaggeration. And enough gore to satisfy the lust of any horror fan.

Several nice touches were made for the film. The splices and cuts in the film, making it look old, along with missing reels in the most pivotal scenes such as the lap dance bit, made Grindhouse feel like it belonged to the 1970s outhouse. But it never distracts from the telling stories that are straight in-your-face kind, pulling no punches. They go for the guts. Literally.

Lots of nice familiar faces, big heavyweight actors like Bruce Willis and Michael Biehn gave their turns in likable performance amongst the chaos of the flicks. You couldn’t help but like Michael Biehn as the stalwart cop whose favorite line is, “Those sonofabitches.”

There’s a real feeling of drive-thru atmosphere in Grindhouse as you get to watch mock trailers of movies that gives advertising to coming movies.

The only problem is, unfortunately, is the film will be chopped into two movies in countries outside of the USA. I’m not sure why the decision was made in countries like Germany to give it two separate movies rather than a single entity.

They’ll lose the whole flavor of what Grindhouse is supposed to be: a double billing of movies that can take up half an afternoon (a waste of time to some) and set off an exploitation of offensive material. It’s not something you would bring your kids to see.

The first half was Planet Terror starring Rose McGowan as the go go dancer who gets her leg
ripped off and replaced with a machine gun that raids the living daylights out of zombies. Just the idea of this woman going around with an automatic weapon and walking on it gives the film its flavor. It’s also very funny. Brutally so.

It’s probably the one I like better of the two. The ideas and concepts in the film are hilarious. There’s a swell of comedy against the backdrop of horror that goes on as the world is plagued by infected zombies looking for a bite. Some gory scenes do hark back to the best of George Romero’s dead movies.

The second half of the Grindhouse horror fest is the simply titled Death Proof with Kurt Russell starring as the manic Stuntman Mike who likes to driving people off the roads and into their deaths. This was directed by Quentin Tarantino who is best known for Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs. It’s actually not a bad flick with some excellent dialogue between some of the female leads. Though I have to admit I didn’t understand the linear storyline, with bits of it not making sense. Plus I thought there was a missed opportunity of not finding out how Stuntman Mike got his scar.

Tarrantino is a pig as usual.

But it’s not bad. It does suffer in comparison to the overly exaggerated gory piece of filming that was Planet Terror which is exception in storytelling. And at the same time giving the horror fans what they’re looking for most. A good gross-out.

Rated R for blatant violence, gore, sex, drug use and all that other good stuff.

This is the Grindhouse, folks. Enter if you dare.

Third's a Charm for Doctor Who

In my own imaginary world, I stepped into the now famed blue Police Box where I would venture into time and space. The roaring sounds of the engines. The flashing light on top of the box stirring away. The image is iconic.

Some of us want to do more than just imagine. Some of us would like to be whisked away like that of a ten year old child being caught in fantasy land.

I felt like that again on Monday night when I got to see the season opener of the Doctor Who third season.

It’s pretty good stuff.

My high expectations of this season can be now put to rest. Thankfully.

There were a lot of other people who might be running through worries and disappointments.
Don’t worry. The third season is as every bit as interesting as the first time around. Perhaps more so because the TV series is solidifying itself into something of a landmark. It’s hitting a niche in the American pop culture where it finds a home on the Sci-Fi channel. That’s good. Even though my stomach grumbles at hearing the label “sci fi.”

All is in the good word for the Doctor who is making house calls. This time he’s now in the company of a new assistant in the form of Freema Agyeman. For all she’s worth, she’s really a very good replacement for the popular Billie Piper. Freema plays Martha Jones who is a departure from the blonde, blue eyed shop girl.

This one is more mature, older, a bit wiser, perhaps more of an equal to the Doctor. That makes for some dynamic relationships here. Rarer still is seeing a black woman as a heroine. And she's very lovely too.

The story is written by Russell T. Davies, the head huncho of the revived TV series. You can see all the trademarks of Davies in here and then some more. The running bits with the Doctor and new assistant, the typically sharp dialogue, and the thrilling new creature that isn’t really evil… just a sort of cosmic policeman running about.

I like the new girl. A lot. She’s very different from Billie Piper. I was smitten with her in fact. And she has good reason for leaving with the Doctor in his time traveling space machine. Her family is very dysfunctional almost to the point of insanity. Her parents are divorced. Her father is dating a white girl. Her mother hates the white girl. And then the family tale goes downhill from there.

I do like this story as the Doctor is separated from his traveling machine, making the isolation even more severe. No chance of getting help from his technology. Even his sonic screwdriver, a staple in the series, is temporary dismantled in this episode. So the Doctor is forced to use his wits through the show.

The only thing I didn’t care for were the biker alien dudes with the black uniforms and helmets. I suppose this was a sort of financial offset from the wonderfully realized, expensive looking rhino creatures of the Jadoon. They were a warrior race, very interesting features. Best of all were the booming voices they had. Though they do remind me a lot of a former race from the old shows… the Sontarans.

But David Tennant is very good in this show too, showing off his emotional side, his scenes beating with a manic energy that harkens back to the Tom Baker days. His youthful enthusiasm is great to watch. The good new is that he’s already committed to doing a fourth season. That means he will be the longest serving actor in the part since the seven year stint by Tom Baker.

That’s something of an achievement.

This is definitely another golden era for the series hitting its popularity like it did in the 1970s. The BBC finally realized that it is the great flagship of TV shows for their channel and overseas success. The BBC supports the series now.

We have two different spin-offs from the series in the form of Torchwood and Sarah Jane Smith Adventures. The series is anchoring its slot on Saturday nights. It’s covering a lot of grounds in the TV landscape. Where to now Doctor? I wonder.