House of the Dead

Bro, check it out - Seriously huge rave on Zombie Island tonight! Seriously! A bunch of us are going over there. Why do they call it "Zombie Island?" Dunno. Think we should ask? Directed by the cult classic, Uwe Boll.

There's a big rave on an island off Seattle. Captain Kirk calls it "La Isla De Muerte"...lol, wasn't that used in Lost World? The movie features a lot of zombie ass-kicking in true video game style. When some of the characters die, their screen even goes red just like in the game. At first, there's an entire mob of people presumably killed at the rave. Then the movie picks up following a small batch of survivors (Rudy, Liberty, Hugh) along with a group of late-comers (Greg, Simon, Alicia, Cynthia, Karma). Plus there's a captain, skipper and a zombie-hunting police officer and we have ourselves a cast. Let the games begin!

Ding, Ding, Round 1!

Ravers Matt & Johanna (plus dozens of others) die in the opening 20 minutes. Matt and Johanna wander off to the lake to go skinny dipping. As Matt bashfully decides not to get naked, a zombie offs him off-screen. Johanna turns around and goes looking for Matt and ultimately gets killed too off-screen. We then see another anonymous couple having sex in the woods right before getting attacked and killed off-screen.

Skipper Salish is wandering around alone in the woods when he gets attacked and killed off-screen.

Off-screen zombie killings: 5++


Ding, Ding, Round 2!

The late comers have arrived to the island via boat, only to find the rave has been ravished. But that doesn't stop Greg and his girlfriend Cynthia from initiating sex. While Greg runs off to pee first, Cynthia is swarmed by zombies and bitten.

The other late comers bump into the last survivors of the rave and then find Greg trapped in the porta-john. When out of nowhere, Zombie Cynthia springs from the woods, and snaps Hugh's neck before being shot by Casper. We hardly knew anything about Hugh except that he had a video camera.

Round 3. The survivors flee to the coast to escape, but find that Captain Kirk's boat is already overtaken by zombies. Kirk, himself, is safe on land when everyone is attacked. Kirk gets bitten and Simon gets burned in the cheek by zombie spit. Later, Casper decides to go elsewhere for help and she takes Greg along with her. Greg doesn't survive the journey.

Round 4. The zombie battle of all zombie battles. This round is just relentless with shotguns, karate kicks and plenty of Matrix slo-mos. During the attack, Liberty, the red, white and blue little Asian chick, succumbs to zombie bites. And Casper gets her legs ripped off as they finally enter an actual house in this movie. Hopefully it's the house of dead.

Round 5. They've made it into the house. Captain Kirk takes a 2nd bite and decides to sacrifice himself with a stick of dynamite. The remaining four survivors wander through the labyrinth where they are attacked by pirates, oh wait, I mean zombies. Simon decides to be a hero and sacrifice himself so the others may escape.

The final three escape down more dark hallways when more zombies try to eat...or bite them. The writers decide that yet another character should sacrifice themselves so Karma screams for the others to GO as her futile attempts at fighting get her killed.

Final round. Rudy and Alicia (ex-lovers) have escape the house that they escaped into earlier. Then I think there's a sword fight (?) between Alicia and a zombie and the zombie impales Alicia right through the center of her chest. She should be dead at this point, but test audiences must have wanted a female to survive the movie so in the voice over we here a vague remark that she might not be dead.

Rudy is basically the sole survivor. He actually tells us this at the beginning of the film, that everyone but him died.

In a Survivor movie it's a big no-no to reveal who survives at the beginning, regardless of how predictable it is otherwise. So for that I give House of Dead just 2 torches.

Shark Night 3D

Shark Night 3D is about 7 college students who travel to a lake house for a weekend of drinking and sex. They run into a few bad men who have lured them there to star in their newest reality show inspired by Discovery Channel's infamous Shark Week. But the little show turns out to be more of the snuff variety as several large, man-eating sharks have been put in the salt water lake with cameras under their jaws to film some teeth on flesh action.

The trailers made it clear that this was a Survivor Movie so I had to check it out. I wound up skipping work and seeing it the first day in theaters (today). That makes me feel like such a monster movie nerd. I quite enjoyed the movie for what it is. The reviews seem to shred the movie apart due to the lack of gore and nudity. For me, that's not why I love these types of movies. This genre and blog probably make me come across as some sick f*ck who gets off at watching people die, when that's not really the truth. I'm a huge fan of Survivor the TV show (hence the logo) where obviously nobody dies. It's hard to explain my interest in these "Ten Little Indians" chain of event type stories where players get eliminated one by one. Anyway, as a survivor movie fan first, monster movie fan second, Shark Night 3D left me satisfied. What's even greater is that I am typing this as I watch Shark Tank ;)

The guys who are so upset there are no titties in this film should just stick to porn. Anyway, let's meet the cast.

7 Friends

Nick is supposed to be nerdy and has trouble with the ladies. But once he takes off the shirt and glasses it's like (s)He's All That.

Sara is the cute blonde girl who has boy issues.


Malik is the jock and token African American.


Maya is Malik's girl friend, and noticeably Latino.

Gordon is the true dork of the group. A serious online gamer and clearly unsuccessful with women.


Beth is supposed to be the bad-ass/slutty girl. She has a tattoo!

Blake is the slutty guy who spray tans his entire body.





These seven friends and their dog ride to what appears to be an island on a lake. Oh and they don't get any cell phone service or have neighbors. All the cards are lined up for an hour long shark night ahead...in 3D.

The first near-death happens when a shark bumps Malik off his water board. The others find him swimming ashore and one arm missing. They freak and try to call for help, but oh no - they don't have cell phone service, remember? They decide to take him directly to a hospital on the boat. So Nick, Sara and Maya set off with nearly unconscious Malik, who's losing a lot of blood, on the boat. The still hungry shark follows the boat and rams it so hard that Maya falls out. She doesn't make it back to the boat alive and becomes the first person eaten off the island.

Their boat breaks down (and blows up) so Nick, Sara and Malik wind up back at the lake house. At this point the characters realize they should not be in the water. Shark deaths are an easy problem to solve. Enter the shady sheriff and his two cohorts, Dennis and Red. These are the guys who have brought the sharks to this lake with the sole intention on filming them eat people. They arrive to the rescue but pre-med student Nick suggests they don't move Malik, who's still losing a lot of blood. So Beth and Gordon decide to travel with Dennis and Red on their boat back to the mainland to...get a doctor or something. Little do they know they have just fallen into the men's trap. Later that night they stop, and Dennis forces Gordon into the water at gunpoint. Gordon refuses, so Dennis shoots him and throws him in the water. Gordon manages to swim away from the sharks and climb a tree to safety. Did you know there are 350 different species of sharks? Apparently, some of those can fly because one jumps out of the water and grabs Gordon out of the tree and proceeds to munch on him. Gordon, the sharks have spoken.

Meanwhile, the sheriff is back on the island with Nick, Sara, Blake and Malik. Malik learns that his girlfriend is dead. This makes him go a bit psycho and he walks out into the lake with a spear intending to kill the shark. And surprisingly he does kill a shark, a hammer head shark to be exact. Not the same shark that attacked them earlier. They pull the sharks body up out of the lake and find the digital video cam attached to its underbelly...strange. Back out on the boat, Dennis and Red are now planning to feed Beth to a bunch of cookie cutter sharks. The cameras start rolling and the sharks start biting. Beth, it's time for you to go.

Blake finds a jet-ski and after waiting too long for help to come, he decides to take Malik back himself. Malik is again somewhat unconscious from his wounds inflicted during the hammer head battle. As the two guys are flying across the lake, Malik notices a shark chasing them so he sacrifices himself to the shark so Blake can continue on. Malik dies, and as Blake circles back and continues on, another shark approaches the jet ski from the front. And like freed Willy, the shark flies out of the water right into Blake's pretty face. In a surprising double-boot, both boys have foolishly eliminated themselves.

5 down, 2 to go. By this point Sara has revealed to Nick that she had a rocky past with Dennis and that he might be out to kill her. Funny that, it's true and Sara overhears Red telling the sheriff that they killed the tattooed girl. The 3 men drug Nick, Sara and their dog and take them out to feed to the fishies. The sheriff attempts to drop Nick into a swarm of starving sharks, but Nick outwits and outplays him by igniting a conveniently spilled can of gasoline with his conveniently pocketed lighter. Nick then outlasts the sheriff by knocking him into the water first. The sheriff becomes the 6th person to be masticated off the island. That's not counting that blonde bikini-less girl in the opening scene.

The number of players remaining increases from 2 to 4 as now Dennis and Red are viable shark treats. The men have taken Sara and the dog out on their boat to feed 'em to an even bigger shark just let out of her holding pen. But before they can carry on, Nick arrives with a gun. Dennis flings a knife at Nick, but it winds up stabbing Red in the back - err I mean front. Red is dead and Dennis jumps into the water with Sara drowning in a metal cage. This is an interesting strategic move by Dennis because he's vulnerable and Sara is safe in the cage. The shark attacks and kills Dennis and then tries to break through the cage to Sara. Nick swims down with a spear and kills the shark with one swift jab.

The survivors are Nick, Sara and the dog.

Alien 3

I just saw Alien 3 for the second time this past week. I had only seen parts of it on cable nearly a decade ago, and since I didn't care for it then I had little desire to rewatch it until now. It picks up right where Aliens leaves off with Ripley being the sole survivor of her escape ship. Newt and Hicks have died enroute and that is one of the key factors to many fans disliking this third Alien chapter. I think Alien 3 will only gain likability as time goes on and fans get over these deaths. The movie itself is dark and certainly not goofy like Alien Resurrection. I think it has gotten and will earn more respect as time goes on.

Alien 3 brings us a survival scenario similar to the original. There's one alien on the loose chasing a finite group of unarmed people, widdling them down one by one...and there is only one survivor. The plot gave the characters little weapons against the alien which I learned to appreciate on the rewatch. My favorite contribution from Alien 3 to the series is the half dog alien breed. This shows us that the alien which we've come to know in the first two movies is half parasite/half human because its hosts were always human. This little twist comes into play in later Alien movies.

The cast primarily consists of 25 men on Fury 161 and one woman, Ripley. Here is the bootlist:

26. Murphy

25. Rains

24. Boggs

23. Clemens

22. Warden Andrews

21. Frank

20-16 - Several unnamed prisoners are killed as a result of Frank's action

15. Junior - Sacrifices himself to trap the alien (not shown in theatrical release)

14. Arthur - Guards door and killed by Goric (not shown in theatrical release)

13. Golic - Insane and runs after "dragon" (not shown in theatrical release)

12. Vincent

11. Troy

10. David

9. Kevin

8. William

7. Eric

6. Jude

5. Gregor

4. Dillon - Lures alien into lead chamber where he sacrifices himself.

3. Aaron 85 - mocked for having an IQ of 85, he's the wardens assistant. He is shot and killed by Bishop and his company after he tries to knock out Bishop.

2. Ripley - With the new queen alien inside her, she commits suicide by jumping into the fire

1. Morse - Sole survivor.

Eight Legged Freaks

Invasion of the jumping spiders!

This movie packs a lot of over-the-top, giant spiders jumping on people. It really doesn't disappoint when it comes to that. I remember seeing posters for this movie at the theater and really looking forward to it back in '02. It stars the lovely Kari Wuhrer, from my favorite movie of all time, Anaconda, so that's partly why. Oh and David Arquette's there at the end of his career and Scarlett Johansson at the beginning of hers.

For a lower budget (presumed) this movie does a good job blending the CGI with the puppet spiders (good, not great). It's the actual context of some scenes which can be absurd at times (spiders chasing and jumping on a group of dirt bike riders for instance). But the special effects alone never ruined a scene IMO. In a movie like this the believability of the spiders is more important than the human storylines and acting. So there's not much competition there.

The movie begins with a chemical accident and we instantly realize where things are headed. Farm animals turn up dead or missing and the town is worried. Next thing you know there are giant, jumping spiders everywhere! Eventually they corner Sheriff Kari and Arquette in a shopping mall and later a mine where the movie climaxes in an all-out war. While in most monster movies there may be 2-5 good scenes of monster carnage, this one has too many to count. I had a hard time picking just one scene to use in the monster movie montage i'm working on.

Eight Legged Freaks reminds me so much of well done 80's monster movie, despite being made during the crappy computer generated horror era. I award it that, but it's personally not one of my favorites. I would say it's only mildly scary, mildly funny, and mildly freaky.

Survivors do not include Joshua, the spider specialist, some ostriches, some miners, some dirt biker guys, some truck drivers, some senior citizens and most of the other townspeople for that matter. Survivors do include nearly everyone likeable and given a name for their character.