Horror Gore and More » TV

Zombieland TV show in the works at Amazon, headed for Instant

George — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 05:58:56 +0000

Before Jesse Eisenberg was known for playing Facebook’s quirky founder, he starred with Woody Harrelson in a delightfully campy film called Zombieland. That film is apparently being adapted for the little screen — well, perhaps not so little, but littler — by none other than Amazon Studios, the in-house team created to produce original content on Amazon’s Instant streaming service, reports Broadcast Now. It’s not clear just how far along the series is, but io9 did discover some casting pages which reveal the plot: “the show will center around the original group of post apocalyptic survivors.” Presumably that means more Twinkie references, more awkward romance, and a ton more comical zombie killing. That is, of course, if the early casting sheets are indicative of what the final show ends up being. Regardless, we’ve reached out to Amazon for more info, and we’ve dropped some of the film’s best parts just below the break.

Vampire Prosecutor (2011)

Bunni — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 19:25:59 +0000

The South Korean miniseries Vampire Prosecutor is about exactly that, a vampire who also serves as a prosecutor. Before you dismiss the series out of hand, remember that the premise of the show is no more ridiculous than one, say, about a vampire detective working in sunny LA or a 700 year old vampire working as a cop in Toronto. The show is a bit like someone threw Forever Knight, Dexter, and CSI into a blender and hit frappe. Prosecutor Min Tae Yeon is turned into a vampire by a mysterious cloaked vampire after a car accident. Rather than feed on the blood of the living, Min consumes the blood of the dead and uses his vampire abilities to help solve their murders. While Min works to get justice for the dead, he also tries to figure out the many mysteries surrounding his own existence from the unsolved murder of his little sister to the strange man who willed Min his house.

Unlike other vampire shows, Min is a young vampire, only 7 years turned and knows no other vampires. While his vampirism gives him several advantages including super strength and quick healing, he doesn’t have many of the normal vampire liabilities. While he can’t eat food and must consume blood, he can walk about in the sunlight, be photographed, and appear in mirrors. An unnamed club owner, a former doctor, keeps Min supplied with small amounts of fresh blood, which Min casually drinks unassumingly from a wine glass.

The episodes are self contained, much like CSI, and filled with science-y montages of the team hard at work figuring out who the killer is. In reality, the team mainly works to find evidence to corroborate what Min already knows from his vampiric powers, which include some sort of special vampiric blood spatter analysis and the ability to see through the victim’s eyes his or her last moments of life. Lee Won Jong as Hwang Soon Bum, a cop who knows Min’s secret, serves as comic relief much like Schanke in Forever Knight. He’s endearingly ridiculous, but fiercely loyal to Min. Kim Eung Soo as the naive but determined young Procesutor Yoo Won Kook is a predictable muted love interest for Min.

The cases themselves, while they often involve lots of surprising reveals, often strain credulity in order to keep the audience guessing. Still, you’re watching Vampire Prosecutor, not Law and Order. American audience members might have trouble with how the show slides quickly from wacky comedy (like Bum’s strange penchant for lecturing his informants while atop a plastic kiddie slide in the park) to gritty crime procedural as well as some of the differences between the American and the Korean legal system. Still, Yun Jung Hoon as the androgynous Min is absolutely hypnotic. His performance alone is worth watching and reminded me of Aidan Turner’s nuanced performance as Mitchell in the BBC original series Being Human. Fans of Korean cinema will enjoy the celebrity cameos from actresses like Jang Young Nam. Despite its weaknesses, this miniseries, which is only 12 episodes long, is gripping and entertaining.

The Walking Dead Grabs Golden Globe Nomination

George — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 05:15:14 +0000

This morning, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced the nominees for the 68th Golden Globe Awards, and The Walking Dead was honored with a nod in the category Best Television Series, Drama.

The nomination is one of five received by AMC. Breaking Bad‘s Bryan Cranston has picked up a nod for Best Performance by an Actor in a Drama Series, while Mad Men has received three nominations: Best Drama Series, Best Performance by an Actress for Elisabeth Moss, and a Best Actor nomination for Jon Hamm.

Competing with The Walking Dead and Mad Men for the Best Drama award are HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, Showtime’s Dexter, and CBS’s Good Wife.

The awards will be presented during a ceremony on Sun., Jan. 16, and will be telecast live on NBC at 8PM | 7C.

- Courtesy of AMCTV.com

“WALKING DEAD” Finale Sky Rocket ratings for AMC. (Ever!)

George — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 04:56:17 +0000

AMC’s zombie series THE WALKING DEAD has been setting ratings landmarks for the network in its premiere season, and it just kept chewing up the old records last night with its season finale.

That sixth and final episode, “TS-19,” garnered over six million viewers in its debut 10 p.m. airing, making it the most-watched episode of a season that became the most-viewed drama series in basic-cable history for the adults aged 18-49 demographic. Add in the 11 p.m. and 1 a.m. encore showings, and the finale landed 8.1 million pairs of eyeballs. THE WALKING DEAD has also been performing very well in overseas markets, and is set to return for a second season next year. You can see the show’s official website here.

Masters of Horror: Pro-Life (2007)

George — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 17:20:40 +0000

Like Carpenters entry in the first season of Masters of Horror, this one is scripted by Drew McWeeny & Scott Swan. Again, like his first entry, this story takes an interesting premise and drains it of all interest and fills the empty void with mindless gore.

Carpenters direction is strictly run of the mill, and can do nothing to save this terrible script. Ron Perlman, an actor who needs good direction to give a good performance, flounders with nothing to work with, lacking even a touch of conviction that he is a man on Gods will. The siege premise makes no sense, and the actions of Perlman & his family are ludicrous. When raiding a clinic to save your daughter, would you delay for 10 minutes to torture a doctor? Would an abortion clinic have no fire exits? Would no one have a cell phone? Have these people even heard of the police?

The special effects, are boring, and one effect in particular is a tired re-tread of an effect from Carpenters classic, The Thing. But it really comes down to the writing. The viewpoints on abortion are so simplistic that no one really sounds like they believe anything they say.

The viewpoint of the movie is almost complete nihilism, with both the doctors and the fanatics reducing themselves very quickly to gun-toting maniacs. Like Cigarette Burns, this has a great premise that could be made into a fantastic horror film if the writers and directors put an ounce of subtly or depth into the story and characters.

Even gore-hounds will be disappointed by the mostly off-screen bloodshed, and a couple of CGI exploding heads.

– NOTE: I didn’t have time to write a review and since I saw this movie on Netflix, I found a review that I totally agreed with. Review from Jonnyflash. Thank you Jonny!

Sci Fi Movies

George — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 06:01:50 +0000

Are they worth your time?

Has anyone who has endured the consecutive horrors of Mansquito and Gargoyles: Wings of Darkness knows that the Sci Fi Channel has a proven formula for creating low-budget quasi-horror/fantasy/sci-fi/action flicks that ably insult the intelligence of the average science fiction/fantasy/horror fan. Absurd premise + Vancouver filming locations + has-been stars + five-year-old cheap CGI = Sunday movie marathon.

Why actors agree to appear in these celluloid atrocities is beyond me. It’s almost like the Hollywood sheriff’s department considers acting in a made-for-Sci-Fi movie a viable alternative to jail time for C-List celebs that get caught shoplifting a Costco. What agent would greenlight their client signing up for this crap, otherwise? The randomness of the movie loglines is almost too bizarre for human comprehension.

Take, for example, Ice Spiders, which has Vanessa Williams fighting giant mutant spiders at a ski resort. Clearly, the Eight Legged Freaks effects engine just went freeware, Vanessa chose the wrong followup to her Radio Shack commercial gig, and some ski lodge in British Columbia went bankrupt and chose to work off its debt as a film location. But seriously, ice spiders? Since when are spiders an arctic phenomenon, and since when do giant mutant monsters show up anywhere besides uncharted tropical islands, nuclear testing grounds, New York or Tokyo?

Somehow, Sci Fi pops out one of these gems every month! Its almost like somebody wrote a Perl script to throw up plot summaries for these flicks. And I think I found it…

The Cool Bits Story Generator, a snarky little online applet designed to cure the amateur writers’ dearth of ideas by cobbling together random tropes into a too-wild-to-not-write-it jumble of geeky goodness. Clearly, this is just the leaked version of the Sci Fi Channel’s internal tool, since my first few tries spit out:

“The story begins in a carnival during winter, when a beefy yet intelligent man and a tragic singer meet because of being stuck in a confined space with something trying to kill you. It is about the universe’s sense of time vs. human time.”
–Let’s see, we’ll have Dean Cain and Nicole Eggert get trapped in a sewer with a werewolf that escapes from a Russian carnival that has existed since the dawn of time, constantly replacing its exhibits with new victims cursed by the evil of the old (hint, Dean gets bitten saving Nicole). We’ll use old X-Files sets and American Werewolf in Paris CGI. I give you Midnight Carnival!
“The text starts as a noble hero who is immature on occasion encounters betraying one’s creators while in a ruined cathedral. The overall narrative is about the ability of ordinary people to make and do and change things.”
–This time, its a cyberpunk Frankenstein pastiche set in post-apocalyptic America, with cyborg Billy Zane rebelling against Lance Henriksen for the love of Jolene Blaylock, using leftover Borg makeup and Dresden Files sets. I give you, Frankendroid!
“The plot starts because of a misunderstanding about architecture that curves like the human body. The protagonist, a mutant who has wings, ends up in the mountains with a changeling.”
–Architect Corin Nemec is told by Julian Sands that his designs are inspired by God, but doesn’t believe it until he begins sprouting angel wings. Following Sands to his mountain retreat, Nemec learns he’s a child of a mutant cult ruled by Sands, and that Nemec is their prophesied savior. With the help of fellow mutant Kristanna Loken, Nemec must stop Sands from bringing about the end of the world. Dogma-level effects and makeup augment Stargate SG-1 location shoots. I give you, Curse of the Changeling!

One thing is certain, someone is watching them otherwise why there is a new movie every Saturday?

If you still want more sifi movies, you can check the SiFi Channel Listing 2009

LOL,

George