Category Archives: Undead

31 Days of Horror: Outside (2024; TV-MA; 142 mins.)

Posted on October 19, 2024 | Leave a comment

I was excited to find a new zombie movie, but wary when I saw the length of this one. As it turns out, this was only about 10% zombies tops, and 90% family dynamics, so yeah, the 144 minutes length was waaaay too long for a “nice” zombie movie.

The story begins with the family of Francis, Iris, Josh, and Lucas in a bloodied van, arriving at Francis’s family’s countryside mansion after seemingly escaping a zombie apocalypse. Already we realize the parents are not getting along/lovey-dovey, and that the boys are traumatized from whatever they’ve been through. After finding his father already dead, and helping his zombified mother out of her misery, the four move into the house, find a fresh well, discover chickens, and settle in a bit. Francis likes this life and wants to stay put, but Iris wants to follow rumors to head north where some say there’s a camp with food, medicine, regular folks, etc. This dispute will take up about 25% of the rest of the movie, along with flashbacks Francis has of his horrible father (10%), a secret Iris holds about one of the children (10%), Iris being unhappy and/or mad and/or pouty (20%), Francis becoming more and more weird (20%), and a frenzied final stretch of madness with both zombies and family (10%).

So, if you’re looking for some great zombie thrills and chills, you’re not going to find it here. If, however, you’re looking for the story of how one already-falling-apart family gets through a zombie apocalypse while slowly losing their minds, this one more than fits the bill.

  • Top Scare: Kitchen
  • Heartbeats: 1 3/4 out of 5
  • Gore Factor: 3 1/2 out of 5
  • Scare Factor: 2 1/4 out of 5
  • Recommended for: 16 or 17 and up

Leave a comment

Posted in 31 Days of Horror, Entertainment, Halloween, horror, Horror Movie, Movies, Reviews, scary movies, Streaming, Thriller, Undead, Zombies

Tagged , , , , , ,

31 Days of Horror: Day Shift (2022; R; 113 mins.)

Posted on October 30, 2023 | Leave a comment

Day Shift

I love a funny horror movie interspersed with my scares each October, so I decided to check out this Chris Rock/Dave Franco/Snoop Dog vampire comedy. While it wasn’t a laugh a minute, it was light enough and had some incredible acrobatic feats throughout adding to the cool special effects. Plus, come on…vampires!

Chris Rock is hard-working dad Bud, trying to do right by his ten-year-old daughter and her mom by pretending to be a pool cleaner while really hunting vampires to make a living (certain teeth are worth different amounts of money). Thing is, he needs $10,000 fast, and he can only do that with a Union vampire hunting job, which he had been kicked out of. So he calls on his buddy Big John (Snoop Dog), top vampire dude in the Union, to help him get back in. He gets one more chance, but the deal is, he has to have a Union rep with him (enter uptight Franco as Seth) to make sure he doesn’t break any rules again. 

Meanwhile, a local Realtor named Audrey (who is really a top sunscreen-wearing vampire looking to take over “the day”) is out for revenge when she discovers a vampire she was close with has been decapitated (the only true way to kill them) and her tooth removed. Soon, Audrey, along with her vampire minions, is on Bud’s trail, and she has her sight set on Bud’s family. While Bud and Seth team up to destroy the town’s influx of vampires, they must also fight Audrey and work to keep Bud’s family safe.

  • Top Scare: Vampire Attack
  • Heartbeats: 1 3/4 out of 5
  • Gore Factor: 3 1/2 out of 5
  • Scare Factor: 2 out of 5
  • Recommended For: 16 or 17 and up, due to violence, gore, and profanity

Leave a comment

Posted in 31 Days of Horror, Comedy, Entertainment, Halloween, horror, Horror Movie, Humor, Movies, Reviews, scary movies, Streaming, Undead, Vampires

Tagged , , , , , , ,

31 Days of Horror: Train to Busan (NR; 2016; 118 min.)

Posted on October 18, 2022 | Leave a comment

With a 94% score on Rotten Tomatoes, I was eager to give this South Korean zombie-fest a go despite my laziness with subtitles of late. I am so glad I did! Train to Busan is a bullet-train of a ride–with fabulous acting by Gong Yoo, Jung Yu-mi, the young Su-an Kim, and many, many others–as well as great suspense and special effects all combining to make a top-notch zombie movie I rank right up there with World War Z.

Gong Yoo is Seok-woo, a business-driven father in Seoul whose has custody of–but little time for–his daughter, Soo-an. All Soo-an wants for her birthday is to spend it with her mother in Busan. Reluctanly, Seok-woo agrees to accompany her on the bullet-train for her birthday visit. The timing is both very good and very bad: outside, a new infection causing people to turn into white-eyed/pop-locking/blood-sucking/fast-running zombies is spreading like wildfire; inside, an infected woman has managed to board at the last second. Both occurences are unbeknownst to those on the train.

But soon, word spreads via media outlets about the zombie apocalypse in Busan, and the train riders are both shocked and relieved they are safe. We get to know many of the key passengers: a pregnant woman and her snide husband, a teenage baseball team and a young woman who is infatuated with one of the players, two elderly sisters, a homeless man who has made it onto the train, an older, egocentric businessman, and three of the train’s crew. But, of course, the riders aren’t really safe: the infected woman on the train only needs to infect one more before the train cars become crazed blood baths. Father and daughter are soon fighting for their lives along with their fellow passengers…some of which are new friends; some, new enemies.

With plenty of twists and turns, suspense, non-stop action, full-on emotion, and an ending that is both heartbreaking and hopeful, this movie was a fantastic addition to my 31 Days of Horror. Don’t let the subtitles scare you away!

  • Top Scare: Fellow Passengers
  • Heartbeats: 3 1/2 out of 5
  • Gore Factor: 3 1/2 out of 5
  • Scare Factor: 2 3/4 out of 5
  • Recommended for: 15 and up, mostly for gore

Leave a comment

Posted in 31 Days of Horror, Entertainment, Halloween, horror, Horror Movie, Movies, Reviews, scary movies, Streaming, Thriller, Undead, Zombies

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

31 Days of Horror: The Cabin in the Woods (R; 2012; 95 min)

Posted on October 28, 2013 | Leave a comment

the cabin in the woods

Okay, stop me if you’ve heard this one before: five college friends head for a remote cabin in the woods. When strange things begin happening, and they are soon dying one by one, they realize they are not alone.

What? Stop? Are you sure?

But if I do, you’ll never discover the mind-bending secrets you can only discover if you watch this unique version of the story. Secrets too big and, um, different, to reveal here! Suffice it to say, you won’t want to miss this cult classic brought to you by Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard, if only so you know the secret(s) and can yuck it up a bit in the process at not only the storyline, but the acting too. And maybe enjoy a few small scares here and there as well.

  • Top Scare: Undead
  • Heartbeats: 2 out of 5
  • Gore Factor: 4 out of 5
  • Suspense Factor: 1 1/2 out of 5
  • Recommended for: 15 and up

Leave a comment

Posted in 31 Days of Horror, horror, Horror Movie, Movies, scary movies, Undead

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Horror Movie: The Orphanage (R; 2007; 105 min.)

Posted on October 16, 2010 | Leave a comment

This spanish movie with English subtitles was actually better than I anticipated, creepy and well-told, with a satisfying ending. Very suspenseful too!

Laura and her husband Carlos, along with their adopted son Simon, have moved into what used to be the orphanage where Laura lived before being adopted as a young girl. They have plans to care for several disabled children there and are preparing for their arrival. After a walk on the nearby beach, Laura and Simon enter into a cave where Simon “meets” several young children who tell him that he is adopted and ill as well (he is HIV positive, which his parents have kept from him along with the fact he is adopted). They invite him to come play with them, and to join their group. Laura and Carlos think it normal that a young boy would have these imaginary friends and play along as well.

On the day of their Open House for the disabled children’s families, Simon disappears. Laura soon comes to believe that these imaginary friends are not so imaginary after all, but are the ghosts of her childhood friends from the orphanage who have somehow taken Simon to live with them. She calls in a medium to help her reach these children to find out about Simon.

The medium tells her that “when something terrible happens sometimes it leaves a trace…a wound that acts as a knot between two time lines. It’s like an echo repeated over and over, waiting to be heard. Like a scar…or a pinch that begs for a caress to relieve it.” Cool.

So Laura does discover that something terrible did happen to these children after she was adopted out, and asks them if they want to play one more time together. They do…

  • Top Scare: The medium’s visit
  • Heartbeats: 3 1/2 out of 5
  • Gore Factor: 2 1/4 out of 5
  • Suspense Factor: 3 3/4 out of 5
  • Recommended for: 13 and up

Next up: The Omen

Leave a comment

Posted in 31 Days of Horror, horror, Movies, Orphans, scary movies, Thriller, Undead

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

Horror Movie: Salem’s Lot (1979 TV Miniseries; 3 hours)

Posted on October 14, 2010 | Leave a comment

I found in my collection an old VHS tape of this movie which appeared on TV in 1979, and which used to terrify me. Based on a book by one of my favorite authors (Stephen King) and starring three of my favorite actors from the time period (David Soul, Lance Kerwin and James Mason), I just had to watch it again.

David Soul stars as a Ben Mears, a writer who returns to his hometown of Salem’s Lot, Maine, to discover some creepy, weird things are going on. Mears wants to write about the old Marston House in town, a purportedly haunted house where Mason (as Richard Straker) is living while preparing to open an antiques store with a colleague, an always-absent partner named Barlow.

Now, it seems young boys have been disappearing from Salem’s Lot for years, but people don’t seem to be too worked up about it. Weird. When a local boy once again goes missing, and other townsfolk begin dying off (or “not-dying” off), Mears and a local kid named Mark Petrie figure out that Barlow is really an ancient vampire and Straker is mixed up in helping him to “relocate” to Salem’s Lot.

Much killing and biting and mayhem ensue, plus we get to see what a Master Vampire looks like (picture this: white, glowing eyes, gray skin on an elongated skull, disgusting teeth and claw-like hands). Can Mark and Ben kill off the vampires and escape their evil clutches? Or will they too become one of the undead in Salem’s Lot? Only VHS can tell…

  • Top Scare: Vampire scene
  • Heartbeats: 3 1/4 out of 5
  • Gore Factor: 1 3/4 out of 5
  • Suspense Factor: 3 3/4 out of 5
  • Recommended for: 13 and up, due to the aftermath of a bedroom scene

Next up: The Orphanage

Leave a comment

Posted in 31 Days of Horror, horror, Movies, mystery, scary movies, Thriller, Undead, Vampires

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Horror Movie: The Abandoned (R; 2006; 98 min.)

Posted on October 7, 2010 | Leave a comment

Wow…now this is creepy stuff! I was tense and scared many times during this true horror film. The director did a fantastic job with quick-cuts, POV shots, interesting angles and great background noises and music.

The story is mainly about Marie, who is an almost-42-year-old American filmmaker. She was however born in Russia and adopted as a baby. She has received a summons from a lawyer in Russia following her birth mother’s death. It seems she has inherited a home in a very remote area of Russia, one which has stood abandoned for over 40 years. So, of course, she goes to see this remote and abandoned house in the middle of nowhere armed with only a purse.

Not only is this lawyer odd, but so are a few others Marie meets on her way to the house. Once she finally arrives, the creepiness factor goes up exponentially along with her “stupid” factor; Marie encounters a dead/undead version of herself in the house and while fleeing drops her only source of light and lands in a nearby river (of course, she can’t swim).

But wait, because she doesn’t die there. She is rescued by a man who claims to be her twin brother, who has also been summoned to return to the abandoned house in the remotest part of Russia.

Without giving too much away, let’s just say much creepiness ensues with both the house and the doppelgangers (yes, he has a dead/undead version too), as well as the dead/undead father, trying to reclaim them on their 42nd birthday, and with Marie insisting on exploring this or that portion of the house which is closed up or locked up in some way.

  • Top Scare: Hard to choose just one!
  • Heartbeats: 4 1/4 out of 5
  • Gore Factor: 4 out of 5
  • Suspense Factor: 4 1/2 out of 5
  • Recommended for: 15 or 16 and up. Rated R for language, intense violence, full female nudity and general theme.

Next up: The Last House on the Left

Leave a comment

Posted in 31 Days of Horror, Doppelganger, horror, Movies, Russia, scary movies, Undead

Tagged , , , , ,