A lone drifter stumbles through the desert of the old west. Ragged and sun-beaten, Solomon (Owen Conway) looks ready to keel over and die at any moment.
Movie Reviews Movies & TVA lone drifter stumbles through the desert of the old west. Ragged and sun-beaten, Solomon (Owen Conway) looks ready to keel over and die at any moment. Upon discovering a town, he cackles with joy, believing his salvation has finally come.
But life on the frontier is hard. Explosive violence can break out at any moment. The weary townsfolk don’t seem to be interested in making life easy for Solomon. His employer, the barkeep Hagan (Robert Sprayberry), barks orders and listens little. Strange noises threaten Solomon whenever he’s alone. An unseen malevolent force seems to stalk him wherever he goes. Solomon’s salvation quickly turns to damnation as he struggles to keep his sanity in Ghost Town.
The older I get, the more I find myself attracted to the Western genre. Are they historically accurate? Rarely. Are they formulaic? Usually. And are they full of tropes and character archetypes that make a modern viewer roll their eyes? Almost always. But still, I just can’t help myself. Give me some dusty towns, six-shooters, and surly drunkards in cowboy hats and we can call that a party. Throw some horror into the mix and we can call that a genuine hootenanny.
Despite my newfound attraction to them, the horror-western is not always an easy one to pull off. While recontextualizing a well-worn horror trope within the old west can often yield some fantastic results, all too often the final product can come across as the worst of both worlds. Too redundant to be a satisfying horror movie, and too unfocused to be a satisfying western.
I hate to say it, but Ghost Town falls right into that category. As much as I was rooting for it, it just didn’t come through in the end. The biggest issue at hand is that there’s just not enough meat on these bones for a full movie. The story could maybe work as a short, but as a feature the plot is so thin you can see right through it. Based on the trailer alone you can get a pretty good idea of where this story is headed. You may not be exactly right in your prediction, but you’ll probably be in the general vicinity.
The frustrating thing is that individually, no single element of the movie is particularly bad. In addition to acting in the lead role, the film is written and directed by Owen Conway, and he does a good job of bringing the story to the screen. The setting is suitably bleak, the costumes are fantastic, and the characters are interesting. The main cast all put in strong performances, and aside from a few forays into the melodramatic, the actors do a good job of bringing their characters to life and making them feel unique.
Where the movie falters is in the script itself. The story is just too predictable, and not particularly engaging. The interesting characters tend to be pushed to the side in order to shoehorn some horror into the mix.
If anything, the horror elements are the movie’s biggest weakness. When Solomon isn’t besieged by supernatural threats, his misadventures with the locals have a peculiar, off-kilter charm. Between the drunk Ezekiel (Nathaniel Burns) continually sleeping in the outhouse, and the cantankerous Hagan admonishing Solomon for speaking rudely around “the whores”, there’s an awkward, almost David-Lynch-like sense of humor that is never truly taken advantage of.
The sequences that are genuinely unnerving are introduced for only a moment and then quickly abandoned. A brief flashback presents a moment in Solomon’s life when he made ends meet as a photographer of the recently deceased. The imagery of the dead with eyes painted on their shut lids is suitably macabre, but for all the power that the moment could have, the movie never does anything with it.
In the end, Ghost Town would be better suited if it didn’t try to be horror at all. There’s a wide range of unsettling and darkly humorous moments presented throughout the course of the film, but its insistence on focusing on the scary noises and distorted faces completely undermines what would otherwise be an interesting study of life in the old west.
If you’re like me, and you just can’t get enough western horror, go ahead and give Ghost Town a watch. It’s decently shot and acted, and it has a couple of interesting moments. Just don’t expect it to blow your boots off.
Ghost Town is currently available on DVD and VOD.
What do you get when you take Get Out (2017) and mix it with Frankenstein (1931) and toss in a bit of The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996)—yeah, that one?
Movie Reviews Movies & TVHere’s a question for you: What do you get when you take Get Out (2017) and mix it with Frankenstein (1931) and toss in a bit of The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996)—yeah, that one? The answer would be The Welder co-written by David Liz and Manuel Delgadillo and directed by Liz. This weird story takes place in the middle of nowhere, which is the perfect setting for the bizarre things that a troubled couple encounters while trying to find a bit of rest and relaxation.
Essentially, The Welder is about Eliza (Camila Rodriguez) and her boyfriend Roe (Roe Dunkley). Eliza is a former military nurse who suffers from PTSD and sleepwalking among other things that make her life difficult. So, being the loving boyfriend, Roe suggests they take a relaxing weekend out of town at a ranch (because he remembers that he used to like spending time with horses and whatnot when he was a kid).
Anyway, he finds a lovely ranch online and, surprisingly, he books it super easily. Within seconds he gets a reservation. Weird, right?
After Eliza tells Roe she wants to talk with her mom, he makes fun of her for always wanting to talk to her mother about everything, and blah, blah, blah. You’ll find these characters’ relationship annoying because Eliza seems a bit too clingy, and Roe seems to enjoy it. We see more of how unhealthy and unstable their relationship is as the movie goes on.
Once Roe and Eliza make it to their getaway destination, things really take a wrong turn. For one, the destination is really out in the middle of nowhere and nothing looks like it did online. But these two just stupidly ignore all the red flags that are so obviously waving right in front of their faces. Once they meet their host and landlord of the property, William Godwin (Vincent DePaul), things get even more bizarre. For instance, the electricity in their room goes out, so they can’t charge their phones. Also, Eliza and Roe notice that William isn’t fond of the fact that they’re a mixed-race couple….
[Spoilers Ahead]
While the first half of The Welder is slow, Eliza and Roe eventually discover that Mr. Godwin is indeed The Welder and his reason for doing the horrible things he’s done—and continues to do—is to end racism. I mean, right on! It’s a noble cause. But his way of going about it is a bit…extreme? Anyway, after the big reveal there’s a gory climax that goes on for a good while between Eliza, “Dr. Godenstein” and a couple…things? I won’t ruin it for you, but I will let you know that the ending of The Welder is predictable.
[/Spoilers]
So, is this movie worth a watch? I obviously didn’t care for it, but if you want to give it a chance, The Welder is currently streaming on Tubi and other platforms.
Everyone knows any good Dracula-esque story requires a shoulder-crushing weight of loneliness and loss. Blood Daughter delivers in that regard.
Movie Reviews Movies & TVAs a fan of Bryan Enk’s work for nearly fifteen years, I’ve grown accustomed to a certain atmosphere and aesthetic with his works. A master of making every penny count, Enk’s filmography is an immersive experience that has won over fans for good reason. An aficionado of the genre we all love, Enk rarely will shock you with a jump scare, and gratuitous gore is never on the shot-list. It’s all about the paranoia, dread, and heartache that comes with facing horror.
Enter Blood Daughter, Enk’s latest project and another entry of his into the Dracula pantheon. Written, produced, and directed by Mr. Enk, it’s the filmmaker’s reverence for the genre that gives this project its heartbeat. Everyone knows any good Dracula-esque story requires a shoulder-crushing weight of loneliness and loss. Blood Daughter delivers in that regard.
In Blood Daughter, Jonathan Harker and Dracula are both pushing forward after the monumental loss they suffered in previous iterations of both Enk’s films and the Dracula story, determined to keep Mina’s memory alive. Here, Harker finds himself hiring women for his law firm who physically resemble his lost love. Dracula, on the other hand, has the daughter Abby (Alexandria Johnson) he shares with Mina locked away in a tower in the hope that he can protect her from what has proven to be a treacherous existence as a threat to humanity.
The movie isn’t a simple telling of Dracula’s bloodline and the carnage that ensues, rather there’s quite a bit of time spent on the village that has seen its residents plucked and brought to the blood castle to quell Abby’s thirst.
We also meet a cult called The Blood Sisters, a group consisting of both men and women, who work for the ‘Master’ (Jeff Miller) in providing Abby with her nourishment. We also get to know Inspector Claudius (Andy Hunsaker), who has lost his daughter and believes she has joined the cult.
Abby isn’t your stereotypical starving vamp, though. She’s struggling mentally, and that is portrayed nicely in the film as inner dialogue. It’s easy to feel for a child born into a vicious cycle of bloodshed and torture and I feel like the film ends strongly from a story-telling standpoint.
Overall, the film is about the curse that Dracula has befallen a whole new generation of victims. It can be difficult to tell a story under the shadow of the classic horror character without leaning on crutches and nods to previously done fanfare, but Enk does a good job of constructing a story that stands up on its own.
What I like most about this film is the fever dream quality it has. That’s pretty typical with independent films, all things considered, but it’s not a pitfall here for Enk. It’s a turbine engine that keeps things moving forward. Most importantly, it keeps the spirit of the Dracula terror intact.
Another aspect I really loved about the film is something I learned after viewing. The two images that played such a big visual part in Blood Daughter are shots from two college films Enk made back in the early 1990s. Appropriately titled Dracula and Dracula Returns, the nostalgia is a great personal nod from Enk. Most importantly, it works great here and isn’t simply self-indulgence. Enk has dipped his wooden stake into the Dracula mythos numerous times in between those first VHS college films and his latest.
Enk takes the connections with his previous films to another level by employing Chuck Johnson as Van Helsing, some thirty years after he originally played the character in those Bowling Green flicks. Keeping things in the family, Abby is played by Johnson’s real-life daughter.
All of Enk’s films hit the mark visually, and Blood Daughter’s use of color is a major character in this storytelling experience. The black and white sequences and shots shrouded in endless shadow respect the mood of the source material.
For all the positives that Enk brings behind the scenes to the forefront, I was fairly disappointed in the quality of acting here. Storytelling being such a strength of Enk’s, it’s imperative that his films relay that story effectively and I didn’t feel like this one hit the mark. A rare miss but a glaring one, unfortunately. That’s no personal knock on anyone cast in the film—it’s extremely difficult to cast an indie film and everyone here did their best work. But at the end of the day, a film is tasked with telling a story and this one would have hit harder and left a lasting effect on audiences more if there was a bit more firepower in front of the camera. Honestly, I think this project would have made for a great novella considering the strengths of the story.
All in all, Blood Daughter is a satisfying installment in Enk’s vampiric canon.
…[T]he Hales have raised the horror anthology to a new level with the way they’ve added some new twists and turns to the formula that we’re used to.
Movie Reviews Movies & TVHappy belated New Year! It’s been a little while since you’ve heard from me, but I’m back! So, without further ado, I’m just going to jump into it. As I’ve mentioned before, if you’re a reader of my reviews, you know I’m a fan of a good horror anthology. Lucky me! I just finished watching Free to A Bad Home, which is the latest offering from the writing/directing team of Kameron and Scott Hale (Entropy). As always, grab a goody, sit back and get comfy while I tell you if this film is worthy of being given to a bad home or if it should be forgotten altogether.
Overall, Free to A Bad Home is a weird, trippy, slow burn of a watch. However, it’s darkly twisted enough to keep your attention, which is appreciated as this film has a runtime of two hours.
Essentially, this movie is about a found box of cursed items and the effect that the objects have on the people who are unfortunate enough to encounter them. This doesn’t sound like anything new, but I have to say that the Hales have raised the horror anthology to a new level with the way they’ve added some new twists and turns to the formula that we’re used to.
For instance, the three tales are each uniquely presented rather than obviously connected to one another. You must pay attention to every little detail or else you might miss the one thing that makes sense in order to link to the next tale. The pacing of each story is up and down and it’s easy to miss important aspects that figure into the big picture of things. This might sound annoying, but it really is kind of cool how it works, and I think it’s why it comes together as well as it does. Now, at some points, it does become kind of frustrating and turn into a “what-the-fuck-am-I watching?” experience but stick with it.
The first story is called, “Amy”, and it has to do with a young woman (Miranda Nieman) who’s dealing with grief after losing her husband. She tries to cope by hanging out with her bestie and booze. So, what could go wrong, right? Naturally…or unnaturally, someone winds up dead because of reasons or things. Oops?
The second tale is called, “Ryan”. Ryan (Jake C. Young) is a thief who’s going about his business of breaking and entering when he comes upon a safe. He wants it open, of course, but how’s he going to make that happen? Well, the answer lies in the chained-up woman who’s across the room from him. She says that if he frees her, she’ll open the safe for him. But is it just that simple?
The final tale is called, “Julia”. Julia (Olivia Dennis) and her druggie friends go to a rogue Halloween party in the middle of nowhere where they really don’t know anyone. To make matters even more strange, the few people there are all in masks, and there’s a big coffin for some reason. It also seems Julia and her friends are unknowingly the guests of honor for a special summoning.
In wrapping this up, the Hales have done a great job of bringing the art of dark storytelling up several notches. Free To a Bad Home was a good time with a solid cast, beautiful cinematography, satisfying gore and kills, and a great score to help bring an original idea to light. All in all, I recommend you guys give Free to A Bad Home a watch when it’s released on digital February 17.
Haunting the graveyards of Spain, Sr Fettes, better known as Vampus (Saturnino García) is a grave robber, murderer, fine chef, and connoisseur of horror comics.
Movie Reviews Movies & TVHaunting the graveyards of Spain, Sr. Fettes, better known as Vampus (Saturnino García) is a grave robber, murderer, fine chef, and connoisseur of horror comics. When he’s not dispatching annoying people who refuse to refer to him as Vampus, he spends his time making sure that his pet is well fed. As we are welcomed into Vampus’s home he regales us with four of his favorite horror stories. Thus, we enter the world of Vampus Horror Tales.
The anthology film format can be a mixed bag. There’s been a handful of great anthology flicks released over the years which makes it easy to forget just how bad some of them can be. For every bona fide classic we get, there’s a couple dozen absolute stinkers out there. Sometimes they feel like an afterthought. When a creative team doesn’t have an idea strong enough to stretch out to a feature length movie, they just take all their half-baked ideas and throw them in a blender. Why come up with one good idea when you can come up with four or five mediocre ones?
I approach each new anthology film I come across with a healthy dose of cautious optimism. I go in hoping for some fun, bite-sized horror, but more often than not I get a series of disappointments whose short running time is the only saving grace.
Bucking the trend of the typical anthology, Vampus Horror Tales is a fun, creepy, and entertaining ride. It takes the time to establish distinct plots with interesting characters, and never fails to be interesting. Despite the short runtime for each segment, it puts in the effort to ensure each part tells its own complete story.
Each short is helmed by a first-time director, and while that may be a good way to court disaster, each director does a fantastic job of bringing the eclectic collection of horror stories to life. Shot in stark black & white, the movie looks fantastic. While clearly a modern film, the aura it exudes is that of an old-fashioned fright fest. If not for the modern dialogue, generous gore, and the occasional piece of technology, one might think Vampus Horror Tales was a long-lost horror classic from decades past.
Between each short, Vampus plays the role of your classic horror host. Equal parts silly, threatening and homicidally insane, Saturnino García plays the part with gusto. He’s fun to watch and seems to be enjoying himself as he hams it up for his segments.
While each story is stellar in its own right, the movie does run into a problem with tonal consistency. The types of stories range from the surreal to the mysterious, to the artsy to the genuinely disturbing. The tonal inconsistency leads to some emotional whiplash as the film progresses. The Vampus segments and the first two shorts are somewhat tongue-in-cheek, sitting perfectly within the Tales from the Crypt style it’s clearly influenced by.
Things change as we get into the third story, Segunda Cita, which eschews the fun, schlocky atmosphere in favor of a much creepier kind of horror. When Vampus returns to lead us into the final segment, his Horror Host shtick feels almost offensive in contrast to the story which had just reached its dark conclusion. It comes across as crass (and not in the fun way) to return to the silly atmosphere after what we had just witnessed.
Perhaps a rearrangement of the showing order could benefit the whole. However even then, you’ll still run into the same issue. There’s fun horror and there’s disturbing horror. Both are great but mixing them together is a bit like putting a candy bar in your meat loaf. It’s not the worst thing in the world, but generally I’d say it’s best to keep those two things separate.
Despite that, Vampus Horror Tales is a definite winner. It captures the fun horror vibe that so many others seem to struggle with. Maintaining a balance of funny, creepy, and entertaining is a real juggling act. It takes a skilled showman to pull it off. Lucky for us, Vampus is nothing if not a consummate showman.
Vampus Horror Tales is available on digital and on demand February 14, 2023.
Director David Liz’s The Welder is set to mutilate your sensibilities on digital this February by way of Terror Films, and we have the trailer!
Movies & TV NewsDirector David Liz’s The Welder is set to mutilate your sensibilities on digital this February by way of Terror Films, and we have the trailer!
Starring Vincent De Paul, Camila Rodriguez, and Roe Dunkley, The Welder looks at the very real issue of racism through a fictional horror lens, spinning a terrifying and timely tale. Eliza, a young Latina is spun out by a bad experience she’s had in the military. Eliza’s African American boyfriend takes her to a ranch to help alleviate her crippling anxiety. However, rather than finding a soothing sanctuary, they soon realize they must escape a mad doctor bent on conducting grotesque racial experiments.
Written by Liz and Manny Degadillo, The Welder comes out February 24 from Terror Films. Watch the trailer below, Horror Fans….
Directors Scott and Kameron Hale (Entropy) are set to unleash a horror anthology in the vein of Creepshow and V/H/S/ this February by way of Terror Films….
Movies & TV NewsDirectors Scott and Kameron Hale (Entropy) are set to unleash a horror anthology in the vein of Creepshow and V/H/S/ this February by way of Terror Films and we have the trailer.
So states the press release:
“The lives of three strangers – a widow, a thief, and an addict – are terrorized by cursed objects and those that spread them in Free to A Bad Home starring Miranda Nieman, Jake C. Young, Olivia Dennis, Hayley Sunshine, and Roni Locke.”
Having been raised on a steady diet of horror classics like Night of the Living Dead and Halloween, the Hales firmly believe the genre presents the most honest opportunity to tell stories about the human condition, and as budding filmmakers who now have the experience of a feature under their belts, they’re in the position to do just that.
Free to a Bad Home began as a short film about grief and possession and quickly became one chapter of a larger narrative about cursed objects passed down through the generations. Telling the story as an anthology allowed the Hales to explore the concept and the format more thoroughly, regardless of any budget limitations. According to the Hales, “…Free to a Bad Home, like the cursed objects in the film, found us and changed us, and now we’re ready to unleash it onto an unsuspecting world.”
Watch for it on digital February 17, but first continue below to watch the trailer, Horror Fans….
The season of giving is upon us. The Leech, written and directed by Eric Pennycoff, tells the story of how sometimes such acts of giving can go horribly awry.
Movie Reviews Movies & TVThe season of giving is upon us. The time when we should lookout for those less fortunate than us and be willing to share. To lift one another’s spirits and spread just a little bit of that fabled Christmas Cheer. The Leech, written and directed by Eric Pennycoff, tells the story of how sometimes such acts of giving can go horribly awry.
As Father David (Graham Skipper) leads a sermon in his largely empty church, he also preaches the virtues of giving to one’s fellow man. As he’s closing up for the night, he discovers a man sleeping in one of the pews. Terry (Jeremy Gardner) is a slovenly fellow who attempts to fine-talk his way into sleeping in the church. When that doesn’t work, he hovers around the property making unanswered phone calls to his girlfriend, begging her to pick him up. Witnessing the man’s desperation, David reluctantly follows his own teachings and offers Terry a ride home.
Realizing that Terry seems to be completely homeless, David invites him to stay under his own roof, until Terry can get back on his feet. Despite some friction with personalities, the two seem to get along okay. As the differences between the two men grow wider, David finds himself unable to extricate himself from his act of kindness. Upon the arrival of Terry’s girlfriend Lexi (Taylor Zaudtke), David’s life spirals further out of control, as he descends deeper into chaos and a seemingly inevitable catastrophe.
The Leech is an unnervingly funny dark comedy. Not so much a horror film, it falls into that unclassifiable category of disturbing, perverse, and utterly hilarious. If it were available back in the tape rental days, it would show up in the Weird section. If your store didn’t have a Weird section, then the next best home for it would be the Horror section. Whatever you want to call it, The Leech is a fantastic addition to the Christmas movie watchlist.
The small cast does an impressive job of keeping the film moving. Just as things start to get uncomfortable, the movie ups the ante and plunges even further into the dark depths. Gardner and Zaudtke are outstanding as the wild bohemian couple. Even as they grow progressively debauched, they never become cartoonishly villainous. Their boundary pushing is always just slightly more egregious than before, but it never feels outright aggressive or mean-spirited. In their own twisted way, they almost come across as wholesome.
Pennycoff’s script skillfully eases us into the depths of The Leech’s absurdity one inch at a time. Each action leads naturally to the next, and by the time it becomes clear that the situation is out of control, it’s too far gone to be remedied. We feel as helpless as David as he continually devolves into a nightmare of depravity within his own home.
But far from being a simple story about a pious man pushed to the brink of madness, Pennycoff’s script pulls double-duty in both empathizing and maligning all parties involved. Terry may be a bit of a slob, but he is kindhearted and even offers to provide handyman services on more than one occasion. Lexi is a free-spirit, and a fiery foil to Terry’s goofy stoner vibe, but within her sometimes-crass behavior is a desire to make sure everyone is having a good time. Meanwhile, David continually martyrs himself for the sake of pleasing his guests, rather than setting friendly, yet firm, boundaries.
It raises the question of who really is responsible for David’s misery. While the film never explicitly heads in that philosophical direction, it’s something the viewer can’t help but wonder. Wisely, the film never truly resolves that question.
As The Leech heads into its third act, the plot does take a turn into the somewhat fantastical. It becomes rather murky with regard to how much of what we’re seeing is actually happening, versus how much is being seen through the lens of David’s growing insanity. The turn in style makes sense for the story, however it undermines its own tension. If we can’t tell what’s really happening versus what may or may not be hallucinatory, it becomes difficult to maintain emotional investment in the events unfolding.
Fortunately, the movie doesn’t push too far in that direction and never completely loses itself. However, a little more clarity could have been used in the last quarter or so to keep things better grounded in reality.
Rounding out the cast of characters is Rigo (Rigo Garay), one of the few parishioners of David’s struggling church. Though a smaller and less spectacular role, Garay performs fantastically, nonetheless. As the voice of reason and an observer removed from the growing maelstrom, Rigo witnesses the devolution of David’s psyche and tries to pull him back from the brink.
Will he succeed in bringing David back to his senses? Will David find a way to peaceably resolve his relationship with Terry and Lexi? One might say it would take a Christmas miracle to pull that off.
The Leech is great fun and a welcome addition to the library of holiday horror. Don’t expect a scary movie, as that’s not what it’s going for. Pitch black, dark comedy is what The Leech brings to the table. And it brings enough for everyone to share.
The Leech is currently available on VOD exclusively at Arrow.
So, if you’re like me, you aren’t exactly thrilled about this time of the year. I don’t particularly care for the twinkly lights and the mad dashes to the….
Movie Reviews Movies & TVSo, if you’re like me, you aren’t exactly thrilled about this time of the year. I don’t particularly care for the twinkly lights and the mad dashes to the stores to find the best deals on the biggest trends of the season. I’m more about looking forward to the ho-ho-holiday hibernation. After all, home is where the heart and the horror are, right? That’s all you truly need during these times of comfort and joy.
Speaking of holiday joy, have I got a special something to tell you about. If you’ve been following me for a time now, you know how much I enjoy a horror anthology, especially a holiday-themed one. Well, it seems that jolly ol’ Satan Claws has come through. The brilliant minds of writers/directors Robert Livings and Randy Nundlall Jr. have given us the gift that is…The Christmas Tapes.
The Christmas Tapes starts off as any other typical holiday film. We have a seemingly happy family excitedly celebrating the holiday and having a good time opening gifts, one of these being a camcorder which is immediately put to use.
The celebration is soon disrupted by a knock on the door. Naturally, they open it and immediately the trouble begins. There stands Greg Sestero (The Room, Best F(r)iends), holding a festively wrapped box and giving a sob story about how both his car and his phone have died. He asks if he can come in and use the family’s phone to call for help. Being in the holiday spirit, the family lets him in.
Once the intruder is in the house, things get rolling. It turns out the guy isn’t so nice. Uh oh! He winds up binding and gagging most of the family, leaving the budding cinematographer free to film his evil doings, because he essentially wants to make his own kind of Christmas movie.
As he taunts and teases the bound family, he opens his mystery box to reveal that he’s brought the holiday entertainment, which winds up being several VHS tapes of various “found” footage holiday tales. Each story is supposedly more horrific than the next.
The Christmas Tapes is an anthology made up of four stories. I don’t want to give too much away about any of them, but I’ll give you a little taste of what to expect. Just as in a Halloween anthology, a couple of the stories have to do with summoning the spirit of the holiday. The other two have to do with delivering of gifts, so to speak. As I mentioned before, they’re all filmed in a “found” footage format. In particular, the first story we see is very similar to The Blair Witch Project, which is fun. Also, not all of the stories are straight-up grim and dire horror. Comedic bits are thrown in to lighten the load. There are cameos by a familiar face or two in each entry as well, including Dave Sheridan, Jason Kuykendall and Vernon Wells which add to the viewing pleasure.
The Christmas Tapes is a solid holiday movie that you should add to your ‘to-watch’ list. The movie is an enjoyable scare to watch with family and friends (but not the little ones). While this isn’t an out and out gorefest, there are some pretty bloody and disturbing scenes scattered throughout. Kudos to the writing/directing team of Livings and Nundlall Jr. for bringing back a playful style of storytelling using both a dark sense of humor and fantastic plot twists. Adding a brilliant cast that can work to bring it all together flawlessly doesn’t hurt, either! My husband and I will be watching this one again for sure! Happy Horrorslays!
The Christmas Tapes will be released on December 12, 2022, so keep your eyes peeled!
“The Walking Dead is dead; long live The Walking Dead!”
That seems appropriate. I mean, The Walking Dead IS finally over, but with spinoffs and….
“The Walking Dead is dead; long live The Walking Dead!”
That seems appropriate. I mean, The Walking Dead IS finally over, but with spinoffs and miniseries waiting in the wings, the line of succession to the throne of TV’s most successful stab at horror is clear. So, this universe will soldier on. But this piece of it—the O.G. zombie horror franchise that redefined what genre television could be as it splattered our screens with unprecedented amounts of rotten, bloody viscera and later filled our earholes with gloriously cathartic F-bombs—has finally gotten a machete to the dome.
The Walking Dead premiered on Halloween night of 2010 on AMC. Almost exactly three weeks later Ravenous Monster lurched forth from the primordial ooze of the world wide web and onto your screens. So, it’s been a while. And although The Walking Dead has had its ups and downs, Ravenous Monster, horror TV, and the genre at large were all shaped to one extent or another by this smash hit series.
The biggest mark The Walking Dead will leave in its wake is the mainstreaming of true, explicit horror to the masses via their television sets. It was a proof-of-concept investment that succeeded to an almost unimaginable extent. As a result, it could be reasonably argued that the small screen is the superior medium to deliver large scale, long scope horror stories.
Look at what’s happened in that realm since the Fall of 2010. We’ve gotten American Horror Story, Ash vs Evil Dead, Chucky, The Terror, Penny Dreadful, Teen Wolf, Scream, Let the Right One In, Interview with a Vampire, Bates Motel, Hannibal, Sleepy Hollow, Stranger Things, The Mist, Mindhunter, Mr. Mercedes, NOS4A2, Castle Rock, What We Do in the Shadows, Lovecraft Country, and of course Fear the Walking Dead, The Walking Dead: World Beyond, and Tales of the Walking Dead. And that’s just a small, random sample of the absolute torrent of horror that’s arrived on our television sets since The Walking Dead premiered. No iconic fright franchise or master horror author’s canon was insulated from getting a small screen adaptation.
And it’s not like any of these series were sanitized for the masses. Many of them arrived by way of streamers like Netflix where anything goes, but even most of the shows on network television delivered gore and disturbing imagery that far surpassed that of even the most notorious golden age slasher flicks. The only thing missing was the gratuitous nudity, but if you’re really feeling that void, you have bigger problems than boob-free TV to worry about.
Not all these series were successful or even good, but when there’s this much material, a few duds are neither unexpected nor all that difficult to forgive. In short, The Walking Dead was the catalyst for the most prolific expansion of horror in the history of moving pictures, and that’s been wonderful, warts and all.
The Walking Dead’s importance to the horror genre is clear. But where does it rank based on its own merits? In other words, was it any good?
Well, that’s not a simple answer. I’m a firm believer that the ideal lifespan for a television series is five seasons. The Wire and Breaking Bad are two obvious examples of the ideal. However, examples of shows that overstayed their welcome are even more prolific.
It seems like anything beyond five years tends to be motivated by a show’s money-making ability/obligations and not by competent, compelling storytelling. Successful series often become industries unto themselves in which too many people’s wallets depend on pushing out content until the wheels fall off, and even then, attempts are made to drag the rusted-out carcass a few more feet come hell or highwater. It’s the enduring tale of Art being usurped by Commerce. Such is the case with The Walking Dead.
The first season was a good if not great look at the potential this adaptation had as a legitimately compelling drama set during the zombie apocalypse. It might not seem like it now, but back in 2010, that description was anathema to a sure thing. Season One was essentially a brief and exciting dip of the toe into the murky waters of modern genre TV.
Beginning in Season Two, The Walking Dead hit its stride as a gory and intense ensemble drama. It went about its business in earnest and quickly became can’t-miss viewing, inducing both gags and gossip on Monday mornings around the water coolers of offices the world over.
Impressively, The Walking Dead maintained an unlikely level of quality into its sixth season. Then came Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). The introduction of this fan favorite bad guy ironically began the show’s descent into a mediocre-at-best morass that eventually saw show runners, major cast members, and even fans jump ship. Remember the five-year rule?
The rise and fall of The Walking Dead is a fascinating artistic and pop cultural story that I’ve had the pleasure to write about at length here over the past decade plus, and I encourage you to go back and take a look at those reviews. But let’s get to the business at hand. What about the end? What about these final eight episodes?
Spoilers ahead!
When we left off, our heroes were hatching a plan to expose the Commonwealth’s dark underbelly and bring its leader Governor Pamela Milton (Laila Robbins) to justice. Governor Milton and the military/police apparatus had been “disappearing” citizens and using them for slave labor as they absorbed smaller communities in an attempt to extend the Commonwealth’s geopolitical reach and power.
As Daryl (Norman Reedus), Maggie (Lauren Cohan), Aaron (Ross Marquand) and Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) met with Negan to come up with a battleplan against the Commonwealth forces, Deputy Governor Lance Hornsby (Lance Hamilton) giddily watched over his troops as they hung Commonwealth banners from the entrances to Hilltop, Alexandria, and Oceanside.
As Episode 17 begins our heroes are still on the lam from Lance’s troops inside a ghost town. They decide to have Negan infiltrate the Commonwealth as a spy. With Daryl’s help, he takes out a cadre of Lance’s soldiers, steals a vehicle, and heads off to the Commonwealth.
When Negan arrives, he divulges his identity to the head of security and secret rebellion sympathizer Mercer (Michael James Shaw) who reunites him with Carol (Melissa McBride). Because an angry, anti-Milton rebellion is already fomenting, some citizens go after the Governor’s son Sebastian (Teo Rapp-Olsson), who deserves all that smoke, incidentally. Governor Milton reluctantly strikes a deal with Carol to find Sebastian and safely deliver him back to her.
Meanwhile, Daryl and the others take out most of Lance’s soldiers before Daryl takes Lance hostage. Carol, Negan, Mercer, and Governor Milton show up just in time and try to deescalate the standoff. Daryl reluctantly frees Lance but not without a parting gift—a large knife through the hand (which I think is available at Amazon—the Commonwealth of the retail world).
With shifting circumstances, our heroes are forced to adjust tactics. Governor Milton’s assistant Max (Margot Bingham)—whom I should remind you is not only Mercer’s sister, but also a spy for the good guys, the lover of our favorite weird nerd Eugene (Josh McDermitt), and the catalyst for our heroes’ encounter with the Commonwealth in the first place—secretly records Sabastian ranting about the citizens of the Commonwealth and his mother’s true agenda. Max and Eugene plan to play the recording over the PA system during a planned speech by Sabastian at an anniversary celebration for the Commonwealth where most of its citizens are expected to be in attendance.
While the celebration is gearing up, the now incarcerated Lance makes a move from within his cell, having his allies murder two janitors, thus creating a pair of Walkers to roam the streets during the pending revelry. As Sebastian takes the stage, Eugene heads to the sound board and plays the secret recording. Upon hearing the truth, the crowd is incensed while the Walkers shamble among the commotion. Chaos ensues.
Sabastian is livid about Max’s betrayal and attempts to force feed her to one of the Walkers. However, Eugene comes to rescue like a blaze of nerdy lightning, pushing Max out of the way and redirecting the Walker toward Sebastian who’s immediately devoured in front of the simultaneously apathetic and horrified onlookers. Judith (Cailey Fleming) shoots the Walker, but Sabastian dies in horrified agony, anyway. Well-deserved horrified agony, at least.
Governor Milton orders Eugene’s arrest and promises to go easy on Max if Eugene turns himself in. Mercer, caught in the middle and concerned for his sister, searches high and low for Eugene, but once Max is arrested, Eugene turns himself in and claims he acted alone. Eugene is soon found guilty and sentenced to death.
And here we find out something that I’m sure will make the forthcoming spinoffs more interesting: Aaron discovers a variant of Walkers that can climb, open doors, and use tools and weapons…gulp!
Carol and Daryl break Lance out of jail as he’s the only one with knowledge about where to find the Commonwealth’s missing people, including the children. They’re being held in a labor camp called Outpost 22. Some of them, like Connie (Lauren Ridloff) have been separated out and classified as ‘Designation 2’ destined to be shipped far away, never to be seen again. Fortunately, there’s a train for them to follow that transports Designation 2s and supplies. They soon find it, rescue Connie, and learn that Outpost 22 is actually Alexandria. Game on….
Our heroes liberate Alexandria first. Then the rebel forces take the train back to the Commonwealth Capitol where Mercer plans to use testimony from the newly liberated prisoners to remove Governor Milton from power legally and peacefully. However, she catches on and has Mercer arrested. She draws the rebellion in and then orders her remaining loyal troops to direct a giant Walker herd to the city, triggering a lockdown. This proves disastrous when several variant Walkers in the herd are able to enter the city pretty much the way normal living people would: opening doors, climbing over walls, etc.
With a determined coalition of rebels inside the Commonwealth, a citizen uprising sympathetic to the rebels already underway, and advanced Walkers on the loose inside the walls, Governor Milton orders her troops to protect the gated Estates where she lives and abandons her citizens to the death and destruction that’s descended upon their city.
When it’s all said and done, Pamela Milton is arrested for her crimes and the Commonwealth is saved. Some of our beloved heroes don’t make it and some who do are forever scarred, both physically and emotionally. Our survivors will carry on just like they have at the conclusion of every other season of The Walking Dead. Only this time there’s a palpably hopeful epilogue. There’s no immediate threat teed up and ready to cause havoc in a few months. So, I guess we can envision them living out their days happily ever after if we want to.
But wait….
This series HAD a real protagonist. One who went from being a normal guy—a cop with marital struggles trying to raise his son the best he can—to a man thrust into the zombie apocalypse and depended on to lead, to the most bad-assed survivor the new world could possibly conceive, to a broken man, to a redeemed man, and back again. He’s also a protagonist who hasn’t been on the show since Episode 5 of Season Nine. Rick Grimes.
This series couldn’t possibly end without resolving his arc, right?
Well, yes. Yes, it could. It did, in fact. There is an obscure sort of denouement at the end of the finale depicting Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and Michonne (Danai Gurira) who are not together but are intercut narrating separate monologues. Rick is in the past writing in a journal that he hides in a boat for Michonne to find as he’s about to get recaptured by the CRM, and Michonne appears to be in the present or possibly the near future, writing in that same journal and gearing up for a large battle against an unknown force as she continues her quest to find Rick. Where and when this takes place on the timeline isn’t exactly clear, but its purpose is to set up 2023’s miniseries featuring these two characters and, in that regard, it succeeds, but it’s entirely disconnected from both the final episode and the series overall.
That void is one of the primary reasons The Walking Dead feels like it’s going out more like a lamb than a lion. Not resolving Rick’s arc during this series created obvious problems. It left the past two and a half seasons, unusually long seasons at that, with no structural ties to the initial series arc, and that made it inevitable the finale was going to be unsatisfying. Having already deviated from the source material by killing off Carl, once Andrew Lincoln wanted out, the writers were doomed, and the show proceeded as such. No Rick, no Carl, no true resolution.
The other major problem with these last eight episodes, and it’s something that’s plagued the show for several seasons now, is what I call the Negan Rehabilitation Project. It’s one of many byproducts of the writers deviating from the source material in seemingly small or manageable ways to service an immediate fan demand, without understanding the effect it will have on the overarching story.
In this case, the all-knowing people behind this money-making juggernaut decided the fans wanted as much Negan as possible. So, not only would he become a principal character for the last half of the show’s existence, but he’d be shoehorned into the role of protagonist. That’s right. The character that bashed in gentle Glenn’s skull while making his pregnant wife and all those who cared about him watch, who put our heroes in solitary confinement and beat them, who kept and abused multiple “wives”, who tortured and disfigured his own underlings, among many, many more sadistic, deranged, psychopathic atrocities…whelp, he’s a good guy, now!
It’s legitimately easier for me to buy the idea of zombies than it is to go along with the idea that a character rendered the way Negan had been—a sadistically violent, misogynistic, homicidal monster—is really just a poor, misguided fella who’s seen the error of his ways. At least these last eight episodes finally addressed that elephant in the room with scenes depicting conversations specifically addressing this irreconcilable reality between Negan and Ezekiel and Negan and Maggie. Ironically, by addressing it explicitly, the absurdity of it was made that much more apparent.
This last handful of episodes completed the arcs of several peripheral characters and of those, Eugene’s and Gabriel’s stories had the most emotional resonance. These characters arguably changed more than any of the others. Each of these men started out terrified and guilt-ridden, having been unable to rise to the occasion and find what the moment demanded of them when people’s lives were on the line. As a result, they loathed themselves and had resolved to live out the rest of their days alone until the end came. They were not worthy of being saved.
Along the way each man traversed the true darkness of rock bottom, Gabriel’s crisis of faith and Eugene’s alliance with the Saviors respectively, and each came out the other side having learned what heroism is and what it requires to embody that. They both found love. And yet, they both lost so much while remaining steadfast in the face of almost certain death so that they may fight for their friends. In the end, Eugene and Gabriel became indispensable, integral heroes without whom our beloved survivors would almost certainly have failed.
These were two well written characters brought to life by two fantastic performances, each a highlight of the final collection of episodes.
By the end, The Walking Dead wasn’t “about” zombies at all, but rather a postapocalyptic/near-future depiction of dystopian social and fascistic corruption. This dynamic would have worked well on its own, sans zombies, in some series in an alternant universe. And while the Commonwealth plot from the last couple seasons sometimes felt a little too far removed from what the series had delivered up to that point, it is the central conceit of all zombie stories, after all. The real monsters were always here. Being one is a choice.
Daryl says it best in the waning moments of the series as Governor Milton fights to keep the gates to the Estates locked, leaving her citizens to die at the rending, rotten teeth of the ravenous Walker herd.
Daryl: “What are you doing? We all deserve better than this. You built this place to be like the old world. That was the fucking problem.”
Governor Milton: “If I open the gates the dead will get in, not just the living.”
Daryl: “If you don’t, you’re gonna lose everything anyways. We got one enemy. We ain’t the walking dead.”
The Walking Dead TV series and Ravenous Monster came into the world together and it gave us a bona fide cultural horror phenomenon to talk about right out of the gate. And in that regard, I’m extremely fortunate to have been a part of it. Twelve years is a long time. To have a television series last that long and still go out on its own terms is an objectively remarkable feat. And while this series ended up giving us as much ham-handed nonsense as it did utter brilliance, it still feels a bit sad to see it shamble off into the darkness and fade to black.
To those of you who’ve read my thoughts on The Walking Dead over the years, thank you. I’m off, like Daryl on his dirt bike, looking for the next pop cultural monstrosity to write about. I’ll see you there, Horror Fans….