SANTA CLARITA DIET
(January 2017)

"... On the other hand, maybe nothin’s impossible. Who would have ever thought an octopus and a kitten could fall in love?
"It’s on YouTube. You gotta see it. It’ll give you hope.”

There’s a select group of actors who, because of a Single Fantabulous Film (or TV Show) that they helped shepherd into reality, have got a lifetime Pass from me; they can choose to come out in whatever kind of film or series they want, and I will have no right to look at them askance or criticize them, because I’m eternally grateful for that Single Fantabulous Film (or TV Show).

Nicolas Cage immediately comes to mind. Because he produced E. Elias Merhige’s Shadow of the Vampire, I can forgive him for a lot, even (gulp) The Wicker Man remake.

There’s also Drew Barrymore, who now has two lifetime Passes from me: the first, for Donnie Darko (executive producer), and the second, for Santa Clarita Diet (again, executive producer). And she backed both up with her star power by appearing in the cast.

Thanx, Gertie!

“No. Don’t do anything, okay? Just relax.

“I’m dead. It can wait until tomorrow.”

Barrymore and co-star (and co-executive producer) Timothy Olyphant are husband and wife realtors, Sheila and Joel Hammond, doing their best to cope with Sheila’s new titular diet, which is (gasp!) human flesh.

Seriously, I haven’t had this much fun with anything zombie since Shaun of the Dead.

Which is why I’m talking about it here, outside of the ¡Qué horror! rundown, since this isn’t really a horror show, so much as it is a comedy with some horror elements.

“Maybe we should just keep driving. Go home, get some clothes, and just never come back.”

“Well, that’s crazy! We can’t just run away. Where would we go?! Oh, we have so much equity in our house!”

“Ah! I didn’t think about the equity! I’m a monster.”

The beauty of the show though is, as much as it’s about the hijinx that result from Sheila’s zombiefication, it’s just as much about the way a family deals with seismic upheavals, about finding family wherever you can, and embracing the reality that, even if something’s changed, that doesn’t mean it can’t be beautiful.

And not only do we have Barrymore as the newly confident and energetic Sheila, and Olyphant as the weed-smoking, occasionally manic Joel, but there’s an excellent supporting cast here too, starting with Liv Hewson (as their headstrong daughter Abby) and Skyler Gisondo (as lovable creeper next door, Eric), and stretching out to the two cops who live on either side of the Hammonds (uh-oh), Richard T. Jones and Ricardo Chavira (who also happens to be the jerkface stepfather to the aforementioned lovable creeper Eric).

Oh! And a 2-episode appearance by Grace Zabriskie! So awesome, ‘cause we all know there is No Such Thing As Too Much Grace Zabriskie!

And for another dose of awesome, Portia de Rossi shows up at the tail end of the season (in a role that was apparently written specifically for her).

“Hello.”

“I’m sorry. I’m not in the mood.”

“Just saying ‘Hello.’”

“I know your ‘Hello’s, honey, and that one was pouring me a glass of wine.”

If you’ve frequented the Iguana in the past, you’ll know that we’re pretty big here on atypical titles of bone-tired genres, and most everything zombie these days is so SO tired. So I wasn’t going to pass up the chance of trumpeting Santa Clarita Diet just because it wasn’t full-on horror. (Here’s hoping Netflix renews it for a second season.)

I dubbed I Am a Hero “the perfect antidote for those all-too-relentlessly grim soap opera zombie titles.”

I was wrong.

Santa Clarita Diet is the perfect antidote for those all-too-relentlessly grim soap opera zombie titles.

Boom.

“I really don’t think I bit him.”

“But what if you did? And what if that makes him turn, and then he bites someone, and they bite someone and pretty soon, we’re like the biggest a$$holes ever!”

(Santa Clarita Diet OS’ courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com & impawards.com.)

A Rundown of the 13 (plus) Best Horror Movies I've Seen in the Past Year
[9 of 13]

JUAN DE LOS MUERTOS

(JUAN OF THE DEAD)

(September 2011)

I think the last time I encountered a horror-comedy that worked this well was, appropriately enough, Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead.

Alejandro Brugués’ Juan de los Muertos sees the zombie apocalypse explode on the streets of Havana. It’s rude and satirical and funny and yes, actually moving in a couple of spots. It also says a lot about living in a country that’s so distant and removed from the First World Western living experience that it may as well be on another planet instead of 228 miles away from Miami.

It’s also got a killer end title sequence, some nods to Jaws, [REC], and Braindead/Dead Alive (to name a few), and a noteworthy use of the Sex Pistols. And, like ¡Qué Horror! 2012 candidate, Kalevet, Juan de los Muertos is touted as the first horror movie from its country of origin (though strictly speaking, this is a co-production between Cuba, Mexico, and Spain, and, unlike Kalevet, there's a whole lot of funny here).

You really shouldn’t need any more recommendation than that…

(Juan de los Muertos OS courtesy of cineol.net.)

¡Qué horror! 2012

Candidate # 22

JUAN DE LOS MUERTOS

(JUAN OF THE DEAD)

(September 2011)

I think the last time I encountered a horror-comedy that worked this well was, appropriately enough, Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead.

Alejandro Brugués’ Juan de los Muertos sees the zombie apocalypse explode on the streets of Havana. It’s rude and satirical and funny and yes, actually moving in a couple of spots. It also says a lot about living in a country that’s so distant and removed from the First World Western living experience that it may as well be on another planet instead of 228 miles away from Miami.

It’s also got a killer end title sequence, some nods to Jaws, [REC], and Braindead/Dead Alive (to name a few), and a noteworthy use of the Sex Pistols. And, like fellow ¡Qué Horror! 2012 candidate, Kalevet, Juan de los Muertos is touted as the first horror movie from its country of origin (though strictly speaking, this is a co-production between Cuba, Mexico, and Spain, and, unlike Kalevet, there's a whole lot of funny here).

You really shouldn’t need any more recommendation than that…

(Juan de los Muertos OS courtesy of cineol.net.)

THE COTTAGE
(Review)

Paired up with mottephobic Peter (The League of Gentlemen’s Reece Shearsmith), David (Andy Serkis) finds himself in the middle of a raging storm of ineptitude as a criminal get-rich-quick scheme goes terribly awry in Paul Andrew Williams’ horror/comedy, The Cottage.
Now, as I’ve mentioned ‘round these parts before, horror/comedies are a tricky bunch, as both aspects—usually regarded as disparate—have to harmonize properly for the work as a whole to succeed.
Sadly, in The Cottage’s case, it’s in the comedy where things get wonky.


The humour in Williams’ script is brutally laboured and distinctly unfunny, and the decision to introduce the horror elements of the narrative rather late in the game puts even more pressure on an aspect of the film that’s already a hobbled mess.
It doesn’t help that Peter comes off as a horribly annoying, spineless twat, which isn’t so much Shearsmith’s fault, but rather that this is what the role asks of him.
It’s to Serkis’ credit that The Cottage is even remotely watchable, as he brings a brooding air to the ‘ard c*nt that David is.
And in those all-too-brief moments when he brings genuine emotion and a welcome humanity to David, Serkis emerges as the indispensable cog that keeps the film’s sputtering engine running.
As for the horror elements, they range from familiar (the threat) to commendable (the gruesome gore and splatter; watch out for that nasty bit of spadework).


What’s all the more curious about this is that The Cottage is Williams’ follow-up to his critically-acclaimed feature debut, London to Brighton.
It’s odd that London to Brighton seemed a much more assured and effective piece. And while the script for The Cottage was reportedly written years ago, even before London to Brighton, I’d like to think Williams would have done some revisions on it before finally bringing it before the cameras.
As it is, The Cottage doesn’t really work very well, and if you’re on the hunt for a British horror/comedy that does its job (and really, who isn’t?), you’d be better served to turn to Christopher Smith’s Severance (review in Archive) or Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead (where, incidentally, Shearsmith also appears).
But if you’re a Serkis fan, or can endure lame humour for some brief, bloody bits, then by all means, have at it.
There’s a lot worse out there than what’s in The Cottage.

Parting shot: Hellraiser fans should also note, there’s a Doug Bradley cameo in this, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s pretty negligible. (And please note, it isn’t Mr. Bradley’s fault, either.)

(The Cottage UK quad and images courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (14)
“The Attack of the Living Dead Afterthought”
(A Companion Piece to “Revelations”)

If you haven’t read “Revelations” (Archive: July 2007), please do so, so as to give this installment of Afterthoughts a proper context.

If you look carefully at “Revelations (Getting at the Truths of Apocalypse Cinema),” the article is more a focus on then-current zombie cinema than of apocalypse cinema in general. I took that tack (and chose that title) though, since I thought it would be an easier sell to my editor, as the mainstream movie-going audience at that time (2004) would most likely have known the doomsday scenarios of Armageddon and Deep Impact more readily than they would George Romero’s Dead films.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised though, if an out-and-out article on zombie cinema would get the greenlight today without much trouble.
And that’s because a lot’s happened since 2004, events that have brought the rotting, flesh-hungry hordes into the bright spotlight of media attention. Zombies are one of the hot trends of horror du jour, and our recently-returned dearly departed are making the most of their Moment in the sun.

With the box-office success of Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later and Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead remake, studios big and small hopped on the zombie bandwagon and brought us such excellent entries in zombie cinema as Edgar Wright‘s hilarious Shaun of the Dead and Andrew Currie‘s interesting boy-and-his-zombie tale, Fido. On the downside, we’ve also been saddled with the dead on arrival attempts at zomcoms, Dead and Breakfast, Boy Eats Girl, and Plane Dead.
Undisputed Zombie King George Romero returned to the apocalyptic world that made his career with Land of the Dead, Robert Rodriguez brought us to Planet Terror as his half of Grindhouse, and the French gave us Robin Campillo‘s Les Revenants (They Came Back), the only arthouse zombie film I’ve ever come across. Boyle also made his own return trip by producing the lacerating and explosive follow-up, 28 Weeks Later.

Meanwhile, trudging towards us from the horizon are Steve Miner’s remake of Romero’s Day of the Dead (with Mena Suvari and Ving Rhames as Capt. Rhodes, the brother that Rhames’ Kenneth from the Dawn of the Dead remake refers to; I’m going to have to assume they’re supposed to be twins), as well as Romero’s Diary of the Dead, where some college students shooting a horror movie encounter some real zombies and decide to go cinema verite.
There’s also Zack Snyder’s zombie epic, Army of the Dead (though this may not come at us for quite a while, as Snyder’s currently knee-deep in his Watchmen adaptation). In it, a father struggles to save his daughter’s life from the ravenous zombie hordes in a quarantined Las Vegas.

But what was perhaps the most intriguing zombie development didn’t quite get out the gate: CBS got a pilot together for something called Babylon Fields, a “sardonic, apocalyptic American comedy-drama where the dead are rising and, as a result, lives are regained, families restored and old wounds reopened.” Michael Cuesta (of Six Feet Under and Dexter) was set as executive producer, and directed the pilot.
Sounding like a blackly comic spin on Les Revenants, I was pretty stoked about this, but sadly, CBS chose not to pick Babylon Fields up as a series.*
I mean, am I the only one who wanted to see zombies represent themselves on the small screen? There are vampires aplenty: on the lamentable Blood Ties, and the upcoming Moonlight (yet another vampire PI) and from Alan Ball, True Blood, based on Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire books, so why not zombies?

But I guess the networks aren’t ready to release them onto the TV screen on a weekly basis just yet. Oh well…
I suppose we’ll just have to content ourselves with seeing them mill about the multiplexes. Don’t forget to buy extra buckets of popcorn. You never know. They could be persuaded to eat something else other than your brain…

* Then again, who knows? Maybe Cuesta can pull a Mulholland Drive and turn Babylon Fields into a feature film. Here’s hoping…

Parting shot: There are also “vampire zombies” (whatever those are exactly) on the way in John Moore’s upcoming Virulents, based on the Virgin Comics title.

Parting shot 2: Reviews of Boy Eats Girl, Plane Dead, 28 Weeks Later, Dexter, and Blood Ties can be found in the Archive.

(Shaun of the Dead, Fido, Land of the Dead, and Day of the Dead OS’s courtesy of impawards.com; Les Revenants DVD cover art courtesy of amazon.com.)

BOY EATS GIRL (Review)

The misguided love of a mother (Deirdre O’Kane) for her son Nathan (David Leon) causes a zombie outbreak in the suburbs of Dublin, even as Nathan is doing his best to profess his love for his long-time friend Jessica (Samantha Mumba, who was in the horrid remake of The Time Machine).
Yes, in the tradition of Shaun of the Dead, Boy Eats Girl is another zom-rom-com, though sadly, it doesn’t quite have the bite of its much funnier predecessor.

The I Was A Teen-Age Zombie gambit isn’t firing on all cylinders here, as the hilarious bits aren’t all that hilarious, and the grue doesn’t really start flying till the all-out gorefest towards film’s end.
So it isn’t a laughing-in-stitches comedy and it isn’t a gorehound’s wet dream either. Nor is the romance part of the equation sparkling with originality.
Even as a teen film Boy Eats Girl doesn’t really achieve anything distinctive. The usual teen archetypes are represented, as are the well-meaning though reviled teacher types, but these aren’t really characters so much as they are stereotypes: the Slut, the Bully, the Sleazebag. There’s the Best Friend Who Wants to Be Something More, the Best Female Friend Who Is Actually The Object of Desire, and the Sidekicks.
There seems to be no effort whatsoever on the part of the script to actually mold these types into characters. They may as well be zombies for all the individuality they show.

All in all, this is a lukewarm entry in the burgeoning genre of zombie cinema, which is a shame. Just as George Romero takes aim at culture and society in his Dead films, Boy Eats Girl director Stephen Bradley and scriptwriter Derek Landy could have taken the opportunity to take some digs at the educational system and the insular, stratified society that is high school, but instead go for the bland, low road, in a particularly ho-hum fashion. Horror is always so much better when it’s about something more than just the monster and the screaming victim; comedy, when it’s making you think, as well as laugh.

If Boy Eats Girl had at least been as funny as Shaun of the Dead, then it may have been worth watching, with or without any satirical content. But it isn’t.
And no amount of post-28 Days Later no-longer-lethargic zombies can change that.

(Boy Eats Girl DVD cover art courtesy of amazon.com.)