DEAD, ALIVE
Dead, Alive, already an underground classic with horror buffs
everywhere, snags
the MELVIN vote for the balls-out goriest movie ever made. Stemming from New
Zealand, where the film was a smash, Dead, Alive boldly goes where
horror films
have gone before but with an unexpected black humor twist and a dash of kung-fu.
Any person staunch enough to sit through the full-length can sense that, yes, the
producers were trying to make filmgoers sick. Dead, Alive tracks the story of a
lowly store clerk who's just trying to get a date. Along the way though, his
mother and several others get bitten by a diseased monkey whose bite changes
people into zombies. Eventually, he and his date are the only ones left facing an
entire zombisized town. Filled with Freudian overtones and the bloodiest
conclusion ever witnessed by a power push mower, Dead, Alive will make your
friends wish they hadn't wolfed down your last slice of pizza.
NEAR DARK
White-trash vampires marauding across America's Southern Baptist heartland in a Winnebago with extra-dark, tinted windows--what more prompting do you need to see Near Dark? The producers even gave this one a fully-functional script with character development, suspense, and enough blood-spurting horror to make any first-time viewer an unquestioning acolyte. The film tracks the story of a teenage would-be vampire stud from Oklahoma who gets seduced into the life by a sultry vampires and falls in with her white-trash band of bloodsucking friends. While he initially thinks he can handle the life, he finds later that slaughtering Southerners doesn't quite give him the thrill he expected. Not recommended for pansy squeamish-types.
REFLECTING SKIN
Out of Canada comes the eerie tale of Seth Dove, a farm boy trying to make sense
of evil. After witnessing Seth's father emphatically douse himself in gasoline
and set himself on fire, the anti-climactic return of his supposed savior
brother, and a wacky group of greasers driving around in a black Cadillac and
killing children, the effect on both the viewer and Seth is maddening. Stunningly
filmed and feigned, this movie clasps on to the viewer's wrists and forces them
into the gooey insides of a child struggling to comprehend the darkness of human
nature. The final scene will leave you disturbed for days, like a bowl of
grandma's chili.
