THE MUTILATOR (1985)

I tells ya, o reader mine, it is not often these days that I'm in the mood for a slasher movie. I know! They used to be my bread and butter, the very reason I started this here blog in the first place. But what can I say? That was nearly 15 years ago. I was only 13, of course I was into slasher movies! The slasher kingdom is ruled by teenagers. Since those long-lost days, sure, I'll put on a classic once in a great while. Many slashers–Black Christmas, My Bloody Valentine, Hell Night, and so on–have a special place in the hole where my heart should be. But new slasher films? No thank you, I say.

But last night, I don't know, a mood came over me. Maybe it's SHOCKtober, maybe it's the Spooky Season in general, who can say. But I had a hankerin' for a hunk o' slasher, and there was The Mutilator, trying desperately to get my attention with its "I'm from the mid-80s, when the slasher was past its prime! Look at my poster, it's so 80s video store lurid! Me! Pick me!" So finally I was like "Okay, The Mutilator, fine! Let's get to know one another." I mean, the poster does exemplify 80s video store luridness, does it not? That tagline! The bikini! The dead bodies! The bloody logo! It's great.

The film begins, as all good slashers must, with the inciting incident, that which gives motivation to the killer. As a birthday gift to his father, young Ed decides to clean his dad's numerous guns. A super great idea! Until Ed accidentally kills his mother. Dad celebrates The Worst Birthday in the History of Ever by getting angry at his son (understandable, but maybe do not keep the cabinet filled with your 465 loaded guns unlocked? Also why all the guns, DAD) and drinking with his wife's freshly-dead body.

I want to start storing all of my liquor in one of those old timey trick globes! The Mutilator is already proving aspirational.

Anyway. We jump into the future (don't get excited, we only go, like, 15 years into the future) and Ed is a college student...or a law school student? it's not entirely clear...and he and his friends are about to embark on their fall break. This fall break is so important that the movie's original title was Fall Break. It's also the name of the movie's theme song, which sounds like a sitcom theme song. It will play approximately 12 times over the course of the film. It's been stuck in my head for about 15 hours now. The Mutilator has changed me.


The "kids" can't decide what they're going to do for this fall break, but then a call comes from Deus Ex Dad–although he's largely ignored Ed since The Worst Birthday in the History of Ever, he desperately needs his son to come close up his beach condo before winter sets in. And so, just like that, Ed and the Gang have something to do.

They arrive at the pigged out condo and marvel at all that awaits within, from the empty booze bottles to a framed photo of a dead body hanging on the wall. Apparently dad ran over the person in the photo with a ski boat and killed him. What better way to show regret than taking a picture of the bloody body and hanging it up, I guess? No one seems to think this is too weird. Also not too weird: the shitton of taxidermied animals, the giant gaff hanging on the wall, the empty spot where dad's "battle axe" should hang.

We've got the gang where all slasher gangs need to go: an isolated location! That can only mean one thing...yes, it's time for sex and partying and murder. We kind of get all of those things. Look, this gang is the absolute squarest fucking gang you will ever encounter in a horror movie. From time to time they drink from a can of Natty Light, sure. One of them even burps one time! But oh my lawd are they square. I love them.

NERDS

Now then, about that murder I mentioned. It eventually arrives. There is no mystery whatsoever about who the killer is. Ed's dad has lured his son and his son's friends here to kill them. Dad does not wear a mask. We see him front and center all the time. We even watch him set up the requisite corpse party! It takes forever for the killings to start, and while they're not nearly as lurid as the poster might lead you to believe, they are pretty clever for the $0.50 budget this film had. Decapitations, bifurcations, guts and blood...it's got some fun gore. Yes, the battle axe comes into play, and so does the gaff, right through one poor nerd's vagina.

Is The Mutilator scary? Absolutely not. Is it "good"? Not particularly. It's roughly 84 minutes long, but it feels at least five times that. There are long stretches with no action that will likely turn off impatient horror fans. And when said "action" kicks into gear, it's about as scintillating as when the waitress refills your coffee at the diner.

All that said, I love it when the waitress refills my coffee, and so it stands to reason that I love The Mutilator. It 100% has that certain charm that can be found only in some vintage off-brand slashers. I'm talking Don't Go in the Woods...Alone! or The Nail Gun Massacre, you know? They don't always succeed, but they often try to have some inventive kills. For the majority of the cast and crew, the movie in question comprises the entirety of their resume. Some "actors" simply came along with the shooting location; just like Nail Gun Massacre, The Mutilator has a pair of shopkeepers who awkwardly deliver some lines and then look at the camera. (I love them.) The dialogue throughout the film is often a delight, such as this exchange between two nerds about to get hot-n-heavy at the pool:

"What's wrong with the water?"
"Looks like it's been loaded down with chlorine."
"Will that hurt you?"
"No. In fact, it probably prevents herpes."

It's always just this side of completely nonsensical and/or inept, like this sequence, where the room is supposedly so dark the character can't see two inches in front of her:

Either you will succumb to this weirdo slasher charms and you will love The Mutilator, or...well, I guess you won't. As for me, I'm going on a fall break!

SUSPIRIA Day 2: when did susie know?

In Suspiria (1977), Suzy Bannion (Jessica Harper) is essentially your good old-fashioned Final Girl. She slays the villain, Helena Markos, and Markos's cronies. She survives the ordeal and even laughs to herself as she walks away, leaving the Freiburg Dance Academy in flames behind her.

What a revelation it was for fans of the original film when the 2018 incarnation of Susie Bannion, as portrayed by Dakota Johnson, revealed herself to be a new kind of Final Girl. She's not only (gasp) spelling her name differently, she's Mother Suspiriorum herself. Like the OG Suzy, she kills Markos and her cronies. Instead of walking away, however, she rips herself open, showing off her brand new chest vagina, and claims power for herself. She only burns the Tanz Akademie to the ground metaphorically–this time, she's taking over.

After seeing Suspiria the first time, I wanted to immediately watch it again for a million reasons. That initial viewing was something of a religious experience, I'm telling you. I know how that sounds! It sounds, perhaps to you, a bit much. But that's the only way I can describe it. This movie somehow hit me where I live, giving me a touch of the ol' Stendhal syndrome–and no, I'm not talking about the 1996 Argento film. It was a visceral reaction, pure emotion, but I knew there were layers to it, mysteries to unravel (I'm still unraveling, obviously) that would require multiple viewings. The biggest mystery, initially, anyway, was: When did Susie know she's Mother Suspiriorum?

Did she always know? Was Suspiriorum always inside her, and thus it was a slow evolution to her chest vagina-laden final form? Or was she just a dancer who–fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your view–was possessed by Suspiriorum the way Markos wanted to possess her? How much of Susie is left inside?

Susie has always known, to some extent, that she is different. It's an idea I'll revisit in a later entry this month, just what Susie's "difference" means symbolically, but here I'm talking about the burgeoning Suspiriorum within. Susie may not have understood what her destiny held in store for her, but even as a child she knew she was meant for something–and somewhere–beyond that farmhouse. Berlin was calling to her, pulling her to itself. We see this shortly after Susie's first rehearsal, where she unwittingly destroys Olga. She thinks back on her time in Ohio, shirking her lessons on "America" in lieu of daydreaming about somewhere else, somewhere she doesn't know.

After their erotic chicken wing tête-à-tête, Madame Blanc begins to send dreams to Susie in the night. Oh yes, we'll get to those dreams later this month, too. They're sexual, violent, primal, artistic, and gross glimpses of the past and the future. Hey, kinda like Suspiria itself!

During the second dream, Susie wakes, screaming "I know who I am!" This is a moment viewers often point to as the moment Susie...well, knows who she is. That she knows her destiny, that she knows she's the Mother of Sighs. It's as if she's suddenly got it all figured out.

But there's another, subtly different way to look at that outburst. Rather than simply a revelation, it's a determined declaration. Did the dreams reveal to her anything she didn't already know?

I know who I am.

Susie Bannion has always known just who Susie Bannion is–not the power she wields as the Mother of Sighs, but the power she wields as Susie motherfucking Bannion.

I adore this character, not simply for the boss she becomes, but for the boss she already is, the boss she always has been, defiantly daydreaming about Berlin no matter the cost of doing so. I think maybe Susie Bannion deserves her own entry later this month. She certainly deserves to be revered.

This entry is about the moment, and on my most recent viewing (for the recent Gaylords of Darkness Suspiria episode–our third about it!) I think I figured out that exact moment, when Susie knows what's coming and what she has to do. It's a subtle one, no shouting or waking nightmares.

It comes at the end of the Volk performance. Sara...poor, lovely Sara...has collapsed and lies howling on the floor. Susie rushes to her side–she is the only one to do so, initially, and throughout this scene she's the only one to try to provide Sara with any comfort. Tanner, in fact, is rough with the injured girl. Susie looks to Blanc for some kind of...assistance? Confirmation? Something. But Blanc gives her nothing, not even eye contact. Sara writhes and moans, and Susie sheds a tear.

When Sara is finally taken away–not to a hospital or to aid, but to the even greater horrors that await her–that's when Susie knows. Her demeanor changes. The tears are gone. She does not look to Blanc. She does not follow her dear friend out of the room. Susie has always been confident, but this is new for her. That slight downward tilt of her head, the hint of a smirk–it's determined. It's powerful. She's about to stake her claim, and she knows what's about to happen, what must be done. Mother Suspiriorum is here.

She knows who she is.

NIGHTMARES (1983)

I know I don't need to tell you how much I love horror anthologies, for I've said it around these parts time and time again. But guess what? I'll say it again. I love horror anthologies! Finding a nearly-new to me anthology flick (I'd only seen one of its four segments before this viewing)–especially one that hails from the early 80s–is just the thing to kick this SHOCKtober season into high gear.

Chapter 1: Terror in Topanga

Nightmares does away with the portmanteau/wraparound story conceit and gets right to the goods: someone in nice shoes brutally stabs a cop to death during a traffic stop on a lonesome, dark road. News reports inform us that the suspect is an escaped patient from the local insane asylum (isn't it always?) and everyone should stay alert–he could be anywhere.

Neither this warning nor the late hour nor the protestations of her husband are enough to keep Lisa (Cristina Raines) (that's right, I said Cristina Raines, aka Alison Parker of The Sentinel!) (I love The Sentinel) at home, for you see, she is out of milk and, more importantly, cigarettes. She simply must score another pack, lest she fall victim to a nicotine rage! There are menacing men everywhere in the night–will Lisa's addiction ultimately lead her to becoming the next victim of the maniac in the nice shoes? It is possible!

"Terror in Topanga" gives us a slight twist on a favorite old urban legend, but I'm not going to tell you which one. I will say, however, that it's not the one with the spiders.

Chapter 2: The Bishop of Battle

Man, "The Bishop of Battle" is corny as all heck but also it is the actual shit, mostly because it practically screams 1983. It largely takes place in an arcade that's in a mall. It's got Emilio Estevez with a Walkman belted to his hip. It's got Billy Jacoby of Bloody Birthday and Superstition, and as everyone knows you can't go wrong with a Jacoby. It's got Moon (Unit) Zappa in a small role, imploring her friend JJ (Estevez) to leave the arcade cabinets behind and "get a pizza and talk, like we used to."

"I'm not into that crap anymore," he responds. And he means it! JJ only has eyes for the Bishop of Battle, you see, and he's determined to reach the game's fabled 13th level, no matter how many quarters and friends he must lose along the way.

Look, man, horror movies about video games tend to end one of two ways: either the game world enters our real world, or people from the real world get sucked into the game. Ultimately "The Bishop of Battle" is something of a melding of those two endings. We never find out exactly who or what the sinister Bishop is–an advanced AI? An alien?–but we do learn some lessons. The most important: when a cute girl asks you to go get a pizza, go get a damn pizza!

Also noteworthy: Mariclare Costello, who portrayed Emily in Let's Scare Jessica to Death, makes an appearance as JJ's hapless mom. It's too bad she's now a "hapless mom" instead of the alluring ghost-vampire (or vampire-ghost) she was in Jessica, but then I suppose suburbia comes for us all in the end.

Chapter 3: The Benediction

...or, "Satan Drives a Chevy."

Lance Henriksen (yes, that Lance Henriksen. Nightmares is positively full of stars, baby!) is MacLeod, a priest going through your bog standard "How can God exist when so many people suffer? Are GOOD and EVIL actually a thing, or, like, do people just suck?" crisis of faith after the violent death of a child in his parish. When his apathy causes him to blow the eulogy at the child's funeral, MacLeod decides to take off his priest collar and hit the road, going as far as he can on his meager savings.

Before long, someone or something in an eeeeevil-looking black pickup truck starts harassing him...it harasses him right off the road, even! Take some Duel this and some The Car that and throw a jug of holy water at it (literally) and you get "The Benediction." This eeeeevil-looking black pickup truck is the literally sign from God that MacLeod was waiting for, you see, and it might just be enough to get him back behind the pulpit. I'm not gonna complain about an eeeeevil-looking black pickup truck harassing someone–in fact, there's a pretty cool sequence where the truck burrows through the ground and flies outta the earth like a Graboid from Tremors or something. That said, this is definitely the weakest segment out of the bunch. Sorry, Lance. We'll always have Pumpkinhead.

Chapter 4: Night of the Rat

Listen, I would like to tell you that "Night of the Rat" features Veronica GD Cartwright doing battle with a giant rat, but if I'm perfectly honest, Veronica Cartwright does here what Veronica Cartwright does best: she frets.

It is a tale as old as time: there's a big rat in the walls, and Steven (The Thing's Richard Masur) insists that no exterminator is needed, he and this family will pull themselves up by their rodent-killing bootstraps and take care of it. (Side note: the wee cadre of "man vs rat" films are interesting, as they always concern an alpha male type who will destroy everything–his home, his family, himself–rather than admit there is a problem he cannot handle.) 

As expected, the battle between the two escalates, and then there is a sort of...feel-good ending of the type that plagues nearly all of these Nightmares. 3/4 of them wrap up so nicely, with essentially a "Phew! Glad that's over!" and while I'm not saying I want everyone to die or anything, it sets a very strange, decidedly PG tone to a Rated R film. Know what I mean? Perhaps this is due to the fact that Nightmares was originally conceived as the pilot episode of a TV anthology show. It definitely feels it.

Which is not so say that it's a bad time, or even an unenjoyable one! That cast is a delightful who's who of horror movie faves. There is an evil truck, and some of the best kitty acting I have ever seen in a film. No segment outstays its welcome; if anything, I wanted more. More violence! (I'm not a sociopath, I promise. You know what I mean.) More scares! More man vs rat! But even so, you can't go wrong with a horror anthology, especially one from the early 80s. Don't worry, I'm sure I'll remind you of that again real soon.

FEAR NO EVIL (1981)

...or, Satan is a Homo.

I've been jonesin' to see this one forever, thanks to fond memories of its yearbook exploded to heck box art and the fact that it hails from horror's finest year. Seriously, those two points were enough to sell me–I had no idea what the film was about (possession, maybe?) until I fired it up last night. That's right, I didn't even read the back of the box! As you know we (me) at Final Girl live life on the edge, always but especially during SHOCKtober, and what is more daring, on the edge, and, if I may say so, thrill-seeking than watching a movie that you don't know shit about? Nothing! Except maybe doing that whilst eating a hot pepper. I did not eat a hot pepper whilst watching it, but my adrenaline was pumping as if I did!

I tells ya, SHOCKtober is a time of thrills and enlightenment. Here it is, but Day 1, and already I have solved The Ancient Riddle of What is Fear No Evil About. Sorry, I know, that sounds like the worst, most disappointing Nancy Drew book of all time, a one-paragraph book where she just...reads the copy on the back of the Fear No Evil Blu-ray and solves the mystery, the end. Also I realize this whole entry so far is the worst, most disappointing movie intro to a movie review of all time, but that's par for the course around here so you only have yourself to blame for reading it.

ANYWAY. You know how it goes: a baby is born, he's a baby of means. Then along come two, they got nothin' but their jeans. No wait! That's the Diff'rent Strokes theme song. What I meant to say is that a baby is born, he's the Antichrist! Lucifer has been reborn, you see, in wee little Andrew Williams (Stefan Arngrim), and somewhere out there the Archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, also reborn, are waiting for Lucifer to show his dumb Lucifer face so they can kill him good. It's a cycle, you see, an eternal holy battle of good and evil and all that.

18 years later, Andrew is a weird, smart, shy, creepy, gangly high schooler who seems largely unaware of his true nature and/or powers, although his parents are absolutely terrified of him. Mostly Andrew spends his days glaring at his unruly classmates–and when I say they're unruly...boy, do I mean it.

Everyone in this school is 45 years old, horny, surly, and dumb. It's great! There's a girl gang–The Queen B's–replete with satin jackets à la One Dark Night. There are ne'er-do-wells who decide to bully Andrew in the locker room shower by...kissing him? Uh, sure, that's a thing, I guess.

Listen, there's a lot of gay in this movie, and I'm still trying to figure out what it all means and what it's trying to say. (See photo exhibit #1, of a very fabulous Andrew-Gone-Lucifer up at the top of this post.) Andrew is very obviously gay. There is copious fella nudity here, basements both front and rear (so many butts). The ne'er-do-well, Tony (Daniel Eden) is a real misogynist tough guy who smacks his girlfriends around, fucks her with a gun barrel (!! this movie!), and as I noted, kisses the kid he's bullying. Late in the film, when Andrew fully comes into his Satantastic powers (and dons lipstick, natch), he summons some oatmeal-faced zombies to rise out of the dirt, and they mostly shuffle around and hassle all the hetero couples that are scattered around. Andrew also...uh...gives Tony a pair of breasts (!! this movie!), which causes Tony to promptly kill himself. The Archangels Michael and Gabriel, in this cycle, are women.

Is Fear No Evil homophobic, making the evil Lucifer a homosexual? After all, the gay devil is killed by holy light beams at the end. Good wins the day. Or is the message the opposite of that, showing that religion is oppressive and repressive, snuffing out Lucifer's effeminate, flamboyant gayness? I suppose that's up to you to decide. I've decided it's the latter. Religion ruins everything, of course those drab Archangels wanted to squash Andrew's self-actualization. They're so boring.

Unfortunately, so is this movie! It's definitely a worthy curiosity to add to the queer horror canon, but aye yi yi it's mostly a slog and a mess. It's all over the place tonally, and there are serious pacing issues as it cuts between Andrew's journey and that of the Archangels. There's a disjointed feel to it, like writer/director Frank LaLoggia was trying to cram too much in; plot threads are underdeveloped and there's no build to the overarching story. The hints of The Omen, Carrie, and Rosemary's Baby throughout make you wish Fear No Evil went as nutso as any one of those. Still, for the budget there are some nice effects (I do so love an oatmeal-faced zombie), gothic-lite touches, and the soundtrack–which includes The B-52s, The Ramones, Sex Pistols, Patti Smith, and much much more–fuckin' rules. If only those Archangels and filmmakers alike would have let Andrew be his fabulous self!

SUSPIRIA Day 1: title talk

While I don't intend Suspiritober to be an ordered look at the film, I did want to open the month with...well, the opening. Well, not the opening opening, but the opening credits. Well well opening opening well opening she can see me opening–

Sorry! Boy that actual opening scene, though, right? With Patricia's visit to Dr. Klemperer. It sure sets a discomfiting tone from the get go, with shouts and running and violence as protestors whirl around Patricia. In Klemperer's dim, quiet office/home, she is subtly frenzied, wet with rain, singing to herself, all twitchy nerves. Before long, we're drawn into her seeming madness; there are eyes everywhere that can see her, and we, too, can hear the whispers. We don't know whether Patricia is simply a damaged young woman or there's actual evil afoot. But hey, this is a horror movie so, you know. It's probably the latter.

From this chaos, we cut to near silence, an expansive farm laid out before us.

It's dismal. Brown fields under grey skies. The bare trees of winter. No signs of civilization beyond the farmhouse and tractor–all that land and all that sky are isolating.

Thom Yorke's "Suspirium" kicks in and you know, if there were any justice in the world it would have at least been nominated for an Oscar but I suppose it's not bombastic enough for that and no I'm not bitter why do you ask?

Anyway. As that most gorgeous and perfect song plays we move into the farmhouse, where the first thing we see is a cross-stitch that OH I DON'T KNOW just might have some significance.

Perhaps if you'd never seen the 1977 Suspiria you might read that and think "Hmm, how quaint." But if you know the mythology of the Three Mothers, if you're waiting to see how the original story from Dario Argento and Daria Nicolodi is going to unfold under the care of Luca Guadagnino, chances are that shot made your heart beat a little faster. Have I ever been so excited by a handicraft? I don't think so. Oh wait! That Ziggy latch hook rug I made in 4th grade was cool as fuck.

As a series of exquisitely framed shots unfolds, we see that the inside of the farmhouse is as dismal as its outside.

Everything is worn out, run down, muted, dull. Quiet. But there's a beauty to it all as well, isn't there? There is no money in this home, but there is care. Everything is neatly arranged, hung, stacked, folded. The paint is chipped, the fabrics are coarse, and the wallpaper buckles and sags, but the tidiness speaks to cleanliness (and thus, of course, godliness). The house is run down and falling apart with life. How many hands have opened and closed that Bible, how many times over how many years? How many children were born there? How many people touched that molding, wearing down the paint, as someone passed through the doorway? It brings to mind part of a favorite quote of mine, by playwright Eugene O'Neill:

I love life. But I don't love life because it is pretty. Prettiness is only clothes-deep. I am a truer lover than that. I love it naked. There is beauty to me even in its ugliness. In fact, I deny the ugliness entirely, for its vices are often nobler than its virtues, and nearly always closer to a revelation. To me, the tragic alone has that significant beauty which is truth. It is the meaning of life–and the hope.

It's not simply the objects and the house itself that are worn out, however. So, too, are the people inside.

We see glimpses of silent young women tenderly taking care of another woman, sick in bed. Mother.

Notice how one shot is essentially repeated several times–a seated woman takes up the left side of the frame, her hands clasped. The women, all but interchangeable. And the hands! We'll get to hands at some point this month, oh yes indeed.

The people had might as well be objects in this space, as often they're nearly unmoving. The air is heavy and somber, for Death is nearby. Mind you, by the end of the film we know that's a quite literal notion. But for now, it simply lingers in the air, maybe just outside, waiting to come in.

One of these women, though, does move about the house. Though she's as silent as the others, her focus isn't singularly on the woman in the bed. She does not touch or take care of the Mother directly, as the others do.

This is Susie's twin sister. According to an interview with Guadagnino, her character was going to be expanded and included, but she didn't much make it into the final cut of the film. So we're not supposed to know who she is, not really, but if you know, you know. Her face is often obscured, but again, if you know, then you can see clearly that it's Dakota Johnson, who also plays Susie Bannion.

Her name is Naomi. While ultimately we're not supposed to realize who she is and this is the entire extent of her appearance, I'm completely fascinated by her. There are so many questions we'll never have answers to! What is she thinking? I mean, obviously she's concerned with the here and now and Mother laying there dying. But is she thinking about Susie? Is she worried about her? Excited for her? Does she know where she is, and does she hate her for it? What was their relationship like? What can she sense, what does she feel? How much did she know? How much does she know?

The camera slowly zooms in on the face of the Mother, Susie's Mother, as we'll come to know. She is pallid, nearly as grey as the skies outside. Her breathing is heavy, like the air, and labored and sickly. (Oh shit, I thought the first time I saw this. Is she the Mother of Sighs? In a sense, I suppose she is, right?) She's clearly dying. Her eyes don't seem to register anything or anyone in the room. But again: Is she thinking about Susie?

The scene dissolves into another, halfway around the world, as we see motherfucking Susie Bannion heading down into the Metro. And that in-scene title text is just...I give it a thousand chef kisses UP.

It draws us in. We're in this film now, and oh, what a ride it's going to be.

Without a word of dialogue, we get some answers in this Metro station.

The envelope–Ohio Mennonite Church. Okay, the family we just saw, that dying woman, they must be related to Susie. Oh! There's money in the envelope! How nice, the Church raised money for her, to get her to Berlin. Of course, that theory will be later dispelled, but for now, Susie is just a wide-eyed, naive country girl all alone in the Big City. I mean, she even clutches her money tighter as she warily eyes the troublesome punks nearby.

You may have noticed earlier that Naomi is pregnant. So are other women in that farmhouse. It's expected of them, after all, these good, pious women in their nearly-identical clothes. Get married. Get pregnant. Hold that Bible, open it, close it, open it, close it. Fold the cloth into neat stacks, sew it, wash it, fold it again. A place for everything, and you in your place.

In this brief opening, we learn that for better or worse, Susie has left all of that–all that is expected of her–behind. At this point in the film, we only know that she's a dancer from Ohio...but her rejection of the Church and all the demands of a life within it has already branded her a witch.

She drops her Berlin travel guide and it's immediately apparent that she didn't buy it at the airport gift shop on arrival. It is worn and dogeared and peeling, its spine broken from the opening and closing and opening and closing. This, this is Susie's Bible. Her in her place.

Desperately Seeking Zombies

I recently finished a run-through of Resident Evil 2, the new remake of the classic 1998 game. It's a terrific update-ening, full of puzzles and action and gore, gore, gore, baby! Oh lawd the gore. The game is gross with a capital EWW.

Bodies are torn and chewed, heads explode in a fountain of the stuff inside heads, guts spill all over the place...it's not a game for the squeamish. As a devout lover of the original game and heroine Claire Redfield and, well, all things Resident Evil, I seriously dug it. Sure, the A/B scenario ("2nd Run" in the remake) is seriously janked, but we can't have it all, I guess. (I'm not going to explain the whole A/B scenario concept to those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about because one, do you care? And two, this isn't a full review of the game. And three! Resident Evil 2 isn't even really my point here, just hold on.)

One thing the game gets right (and I mean really, really right) is zombies. These are absolutely the best zombies I've seen in a zombie-flavored game, and likely the best zombies I've seen in any media. Their movements and postures vary greatly. They hiss and shriek when they spot you and shamble your way, arms outstretched. They're slow–no rage-y sprinters here–but if you get too close they'll snatch at you. They take a lot to put down, and if you don't dispatch them completely they will just. Keep. Coming. Blast off both arms and both legs and they'll still try to get you, worming their torsos around and snapping their teeth when you run by. You're not always safe behind closed doors, even less so behind windows, and they can climb stairs. They are slow, steady, relentless, and terrifying.

From time to time I am gripped by Resident Evil Mania, wherein I just want to consume all things Resident Evil. They're the only games I want to play. Heck, I even (re)read the absolutely trashy novel series. (I can't believe I just admitted that.) Obviously the Mania set in after I finished RE2, but instead of starting a new game or something I found myself wanting to take in a bit of zombie cinema.

Now you might think a-DOY, so you watched some Resident Evil movies! I mean, that's like a guaranteed a-DOY. But no, my friend, I do not turn to the Resident Evil film series when I am in the throes of Resident Evil Mania, nor when I am in the throes of zombie mania, nor anytime ever. That franchise is its own thing, you know what I mean? And I'm not super interested in that thing. (However, Anthony and I will be covering the series at some point on Gaylords of Darkness, so I'll have to check out parts 3-936445 one day. I've seen 1 and 2 already, and that was enough! But I'm sure I'll embrace the cheesiness when the time comes, worry not.)

All of this got me to finally watch a film that's been lingering in my queue for well over a year now: the 2016 South Korean zombies on a train flick Train to Busan. Hey! It's as enjoyable as everyone says. It's about a father and daughter on a train (you know...a train to Busan) that quickly fills up with zombies. What's not to love?

Well, yes, fine, at times it's a little too computer for me, particularly when these insta-turn, speedy, rage-y zombies pile up and pour over each other à la World War Z. But it fits the tone of the film: this is action-flavored zombie cinema. Speedy train, speedy undead, it's all genuinely a nail-biter right up until the end.

The supporting characters are terrific and get you all, like, carin' about 'em and stuff. As I am strictly an EAT THE RICH kind of lady it's possible that I enjoyed the class warfare aspects of it the most. It ticks all the zombie cinema must dos: you lose some people you care about, you lose some people you are really psyched to lose, you wonder how you would fare in this situation. Well, I don't wonder. I know I would be toast in the first five minutes of the outbreak, if not sooner. I have come to accept the fact that I am not post-apocalyptic material, and that's fine. I just wanna leave a pretty corpse behind..yippee...ki-yo...ki-yaaaaaaaay!

I've had worse experiences on public transportation, tbh

But! As this is not a review of Resident Evil 2, this is also not a review of Train to Busan. So why am I wasting everyone's time? Well! It's because after I finished Train to Busan, I wanted more zombie cinema. I browsed Netflix and shuffled through Shudder looking for something to satisfy my flesh-eating urge for flesh-eaters. Something good I should say. And reader mine, it seems ridiculous to say, but say it I must, for it is how I feel: I feel like I've seem 'em all.

Now surely I haven't seen every zombie movie out there. I'm hoping that I haven't seen all the good ones, but...

I've seen all the Romero Whatever of the Deads, including all the ones I wish I hadn't.

I've seen the Italian gross-out gut-munchers. I love 'em even when they're not great! They're crazy. I mean...Peter Bark, amirite?

I'm not a huge horror-comedy fan, so Shaun of the Dead, Fido, Dead Alive, and Cemetery Man are enough for me.

I've seen enough alt-zombie / zombie-adjacent kind of stuff to get my fill. Pontypool is great, so is Deathdream. Night of the Creeps.

I've seen European art house stuff, Grapes of Death and whatnot.

Some films are dabbling in "what about if they can be cured / return to society" themes and while that's a fine idea, I'm not particularly interested at the moment.

I've indulged in Nazi zombies or zombie Nazis or whatever. Dead Snow, Shock Waves, and so on.

I've gone the traditional / voodoo route with, like, I Walked with a Zombie and The Serpent and the Rainbow, etc.

Look man, I just want zombies doing their zombie thing. Rise from the grave, eat people. There must be something out there I haven't seen yet, something that will satisfy this Resident Evil (tasty) itch. Right? What am I missing? Has there been a zombie movie that's eaten your face right off? Have I reviewed it already? Let me know. My Mania has not yet abated!