Hello fellow critics, gamers, moviesbuffs, and geeks in general. My name is Will Neeley aka Nyarlathotep.I pickedNyarlathotep as my blog title and screen name because I am a huge H.P.Lovecraft fan and love the Nyarlathotep character. I will mostly be reviewingmovies on this site as well as a few games. I hope you find these reviews funnyand I really wish I could say more but I don’t like talking about myself thatmuch. So without further ado, let’s dive right into a review that I know willearn me no friends. This is one that got me flamed right the hell off the TGWTGboards and I have no illusions of it earning me any new friends here. I wrotethis one a few months ago but it fits perfectly with this month’s theme.

Hereis “A grim overview of the increasingly inaccurately titled Dead Trilogy” or “GeorgeA. Romero can go fuck a moving truck.”

I generally hate most “genre” movieswith a passion. Ok, maybe “hate with a passion” is too strong, but it doesannoy me when good stories get bogged down in preconceived expectations. It ishard for characters to develop well, or at least in any realistic sense if heor she is preoccupied fulfilling some hollow character archetype that is aboutas interesting as a cardboard cutout. The Hero must win, Good must prevail, andthe male lead must get some action from the outrageously hot actress regardlessof his social and/or financial inferiority.To me it makes for lazy writing and a weak story. Kind of like a novelthat stopped working out and devolved a taste for malt beer and calzone. No onehas the balls to mix things up any more, or when they do it is poorly receivedbecause most movie watchers are just content with the beige colored mediocritythat is modern story telling. No film series is a better example of hacky, lazystory telling than George A. Romero’s Dead Series. I am not just referring tothe latest installments to his series either, I mean all of them.

Night of The Living Dead was the mosttolerable of the bunch and honestly was not half bad for Romero’s freshmanfilm. It was creepy, atmospheric, and had this “doomed from the start” feelingI love in stories. It also was not afraid to touch on social ills of the time,or at least that is what you drooling fan boys of his would say. Truth be toldRomero did not mean for any political message to be read into his movie, he wasjust making a straight gory horror show that was very good for its time yet hasnot aged well. These claims of its “gripping social commentary” are just aprime example of his fans giving him more credit than he deserves. Yeah, it hada black lead and a white female protagonist, so what? You people act like thisfilm was “Look Who’s Coming to Dinner” only with zombies when it was nothingmore than what it claimed to be. Also, is it just me or are all the sidecharacters in a Romero zombie flick so nails-on-chalkboard irritating that youfind yourself rooting for the zombies to have a little picnic on their largeintestine? Seriously, the character Cooper was a balding walking excuse forlegalized murder. The guy was an insufferable prick, so much so that he wasn’teven that believable. And the rest of his family was just as bad. His wife didmost of the movie wandering around gasping at anything looking remotely like azombie while the daughter laded in the basement slowly turning into a zombieherself. One thing I thought was funny was that as much as I hated Cooper, hewas right about it being a stupid idea to try and barricade the house withironing boards and plywood. He insists over and over that it is safer in the basementthat he was going down there and he wasn’t letting anyone up.

A few zombie fights, a car explosion anda laz-e-boy recliner Molotov cocktail later and the barricade plan crumbles tonothing, the zombies break through and eat everyone but Ben (charismatic blackguy), Cooper, and Cooper’s wife. She runs down to the basement and is quicklystabbed and ate by her newly undead daughter. Cooper meanwhile is trying to getthe only remaining gun away from Ben but is quickly thrown to the ground andshot. Ben goes down stairs to the basement and kills zombie girl and zombiewife. He locks the basement door and chills till that morning when he getsaccidently gunned down after being mistaken for a zombie. Moral of the story, “racistasshats like Cooper can be right sometimes, they were safer in the basement.”The film ends with a bunch of sepia still shoots of rednecks burning bodies andstriking semi-menacing poses at the camera. Yeah, nothing spells out groundbreaking horror like sepia still shots. But remember folks, this was the bestof his dead series, the rest get exponentially worse in every conceivable way.

1978George A. Romero made Dawn of The Dead, a film that many still to this dayconsider to be the “Greatest Horror Film In History.” The film starred a castof unknown yet talented performers such as Ken Foree, David Emge, Gaylen Ross,and Scott Reiniger. It also featured Tom Savini in a small role as a biker gangleader. The social commentary in this film was, unlike in Night of the LivingDead, was both intentional and well done. It used the idea of zombies to touchon the slow decay in our society caused by corporate greed and blindconsumerism. It was symbolic of a true capitalistic apocalypse where theconsumers consume each other. I actually just got done watching it and I mustsay that I was utterly and completely full of crap when I said in my last blogthat Night was the best of his series. Despite all of what was good andentertaining about this film, it was not devoid of weaknesses. The weak partsof this film are almost so bad that it cancels out all that made this film arespected classic.

            My first problem was with thedialogue, or at least what Romero passes off as dialogue. This is a consistentweakness in most of his work in that he seems to be unable to write speech thatsounds like an actual human would say it. The actors do their best to make someof these atrocious lines sound good but most attempts are in vain. I hadtrouble taking these characters seriously at some points. Luckily, the shittydialogue was only in certain parts and not really consistent. Some of myfavorite lines in the film are delivered by Ken Foree, who played the SWATofficer Peter Washington. In fact he was really the only character that I wasnot hoping would be turned into zombie chow.

            Another weakness in this film isthat it runs out of gas around the middle of act two. The film starts off greatwith the scene in the TV studio. The frantic pace the scene, the screamingpeople, and the crew members slow walking off was a very cool way of showingthe societal impact of the zombie apocalypse. It was subtle yet twice aseffective if they had shown some wide panoramic shot of zombies marching up anddown the town square eating everyone in arms reach. It then takes us to a raidon a housing project. The raid is being conducted by SWAT in order to enforce thePresident’s new law stating that “all private home, no matter how well stockedor secure, are no longer safe to dwell in.” He basically declared martial lawand the members of this housing project seem to not have gotten that memo. Thisis where we meet Peter and Roger. Long story short the tenants were hidingundead loved ones in the basement and there is a very creepy part were Rogerand Peter are executing all the restrained zombies in the basement. Later Rogeroffers Peter a chance to escape the city in a helicopter because as he put it,“lot of people running out there right now.” Peter accepts the invite and theymeet with Francine and Stephen who have recently barrowed the local newschannel’s helicopter in order to more safely GTFO. Again, everything so far isexcellent. They get into small fights with some zombies at a refueling centerending with one zombie getting his head cleaved half off by helicopter blades.Shit doesn’t really start getting bad until they get to the mall.

            This is where everything goes toshit. Seriously, the sudden shift in quality was so surprising that left me inawe. I am not exaggerating when I say that this film has no second act, it justfucking hits the breaks and stops.  Thefilm was better while they were on the run, maybe the helicopter should havedied at that air field and they are forced to steal a truck and drive throughthe zombie apocalypse. That would have been so much better in that shit wouldactually happen. Anything would be an acceptable alternative to what actually wentdown. Once they get to the mall the story just starts to get tedious to watch.Yeah they had to secure the mall but that sequence was over far too quickly andleft us with almost an hour of these three assholes dicking around in a mall.It was so boring that part of the “we’re safe, woot!!” montage is themshopping. That’s right folks a montage of motherfuckers shopping like this isMr. Mom of some similar bullshit. Realizing that he can’t just end the filmwith them doing nothing in a mall Romero decided to introduce a new threat toour main characters, Biker Pirates of the Wasteland. They scope out the malland after seeing the helicopter they decide to drop in for some tea andrape.  They get in and the whole partfeels forced. Steven goes nuts and starts sniping the biker pirates, Peter letsthe zombies in, and Tom Savini character is racist for no reason other than tomake him more unlikable. It’s all corny bullshit and a lot of the scenesdemonstrate how non-threatening the slow moving classic zombies are. The bikerspie a zombie in the face at one part, I guess Romero wanted to pay homage toTex Avery? Isn’t a bad idea to make a horror movie, expect people to be afraidof the situation and monsters presented in the film, yet then go and have scenesshowing how completely ludicrous the monsters in question are? The film endswith the zombies eating a few of the bikers, causing them to retreat. Peterflees to the safety room where he and Francine decide to vacate the mall withall due haste. They escape unharmed to the cheesiest music I have ever heard.As the helicopter disappeared into the distance the film faded to black.

            This was the best of the Dead filmsas far as overall quality goes but honestly it is only good when compared tothe other movies in Romero’s Dead series. Saying it is the best out of thatseries is means about as much as being the fastest guy with Huntington’s Disease.