Film Review: Weekend at Bernie’s II (1993)

Release Date: July 9th, 1993
Directed by: Robert Klane
Written by: Robert Klane
Based on: characters by Robert Klane
Music by: Peter Wolf
Cast: Andrew McCarthy, Jonathan Silverman, Terry Kiser, Barry Bostwick, Troy Byer, Tom Wright, Steve James

Artimm, D&A Partnership, TriStar Pictures, 97 Minutes

Review:

“Why would you need to guard a dead man stuck in a two foot refrigerator?” – Richard Parker

Let me preface this by saying that this is a sequel that never needed to be made. Also, even though I love the first movie, I didn’t see this one when it came out and I actually never committed to watching it until maybe a decade ago.

Back when I first saw this, I thought it was a really weak sequel that jumped the shark almost immediately when Bernie’s corpse becomes a voodoo zombie and I pretty much dismissed it and never watched it again until now.

Having several years to marinate on it, I figured I’d give it a rewatch to review it. Besides, I just reviewed the original one, so why not follow it up with this?

Weekend at Bernie’s II takes a zany movie that was pretty much grounded in some sort of reality and turns it on its head, making a voodoo spell animate Bernie’s dead body. Although, the spell was done poorly, so Bernie only moves when he hears music and then it makes him raise up and walk in the direction of where his stolen millions were stashed. However, he doesn’t just walk, he dances and wiggles his head like a boomer at a Jimmy Buffett concert.

This is just a bad movie, through and through, yet I still found it kind of amusing and even more so, this time around. I think that’s because I was already disappointed by it and knew what to expect. Also, already knowing what parts of this I didn’t enjoy, allowed me to focus more on the positives.

The biggest positive is the return of Andrew McCarthy and Jonathan Silverman, who are a charismatic and amusing duo.

Also, Terry Kiser got to up the ante in this picture and they really allowed him to do his thing more. With the goofy added voodoo schtick, it did provide Kiser with the opportunity to move and be more active in a fresh way. It opened the film up to new gags, as opposed to rehashing the same things from the first flick. Looking at the voodoo plot twist that way, kind of salvages it.

This was also one of the last movie’s to have Steve James in it, as he died shortly after this was released. He has a fairly small role but I always loved the guy because of how cool and badass he was in the first three American Ninja movies.

Sadly, Weekend at Bernie’s II just doesn’t come close to what the original was. This is probably why this movie is mostly forgotten but the original still has its fans. While I liked this more on a second viewing, I doubt it’s something I’ll ever watch again unlike its predecessor.

Rating: 5.25/10

Vids I Dig 820: Whang!: Can You Find This Lost Zombie Movie With a $10k Reward? + 2 Lost Freddy Krueger Projects

Vids I Dig 818: RetroBlasting: ‘Night of the Comet’: Kelli Maroney & Catherine Mary Stewart

Film Review: White Zombie (1932)

Release Date: July 28th, 1932 (New York City premiere)
Directed by: Victor Halperin
Written by: Garnett Weston
Based on: The Magic Island by William Seabrook
Music by: Guy Bevier Williams, Hugo Riesenfeld, Xavier Cugat, Nathaniel Dett, Gaston Borch, Leo Kempenski, Hen Herkan, H. Maurice Jacquet
Cast: Bela Lugosi, Madge Bellamy

Victor & Edward Halperin Productions, United Artists, 69 Minutes

Review:

“I thought that beauty alone would satisfy. But the soul is gone. I can’t bear those empty, staring eyes.” – Charles Beaumont

Bela Lugosi is mainly known for his role as Dracula in the 1931 classic film by Universal. He’s also known for his work with schlock director Ed Wood and for generally being an old school icon of horror. I feel like many people don’t know about this movie, which is, in my opinion, one of his best.

White Zombie came out on the heels of Dracula and was immediately effected by distribution issues. It initially went through multiple studios before United Artists acquired it and got it out to the public in a wider release.

Critics, at the time, took issue with the ridiculous, over-the-top scenarios and the acting style that was more akin to silent films than the new talkies. Looking at it now, I just find it interesting, as it shows Hollywood productions trying to find their footing at the beginning of the sound era when they had been making silent pictures for so long. Also, the silent shooting style was still visually effective and the use of that style in this picture, created some of its more iconic moments.

This is a short but viscerally effective movie. It’s also damn cool and I love that even though the film has sound, music and dialogue it still resembles a silent picture in how it’s shot and how the actors react to the horror before them.

Speaking of the music, I love this film’s score from the voodoo chanting during the opening credits to the classical tune that makes Lugosi’s hand magic tricks work with added intensity and mysteriousness.

The acting itself is pretty middle of the road when looking at the entire cast’s performance, as a whole. However, Lugosi takes that same onscreen magic that he employed in Dracula and makes it work just as well, here.

White Zombie is a better old school horror film than the critics of its era would want you to believe. Frankly, I think it’s one of Lugosi’s best performances and one of his better films, overall. 

Rating: 7.75/10

Film Review: 28 Weeks Later (2007)

Release Date: April 26th, 2007 (London premiere)
Directed by: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Written by: Rowan Joffe, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, E. L. Lavigne, Jesus Olmo
Music by: John Murphy
Cast: Robert Carlyle, Rose Byrne, Jeremy Renner, Harold Perrineau, Catherine McCormack, Imogen Poots, Idris Elba, Mackintosh Muggleton, Amanda Walker

UK Film Council, DNA Films, Fox Atomic, 100 Minutes

Review:

“It all makes sense. They’re executing code red. Step 1: Kill the infected. Step 2: Containment. If containment fails, then Step 3: Extermination.” – Scarlet

I haven’t seen this since the theater and I never had much urge to revisit it. However, I did revisit and review its predecessor 28 Days Later, so I figured this deserved a rewatch while that movie was still fresh in my head.

Strangely, until rewatching this, I didn’t know that Jeremy Renner and Idris Elba were in this. It came out before I really knew who they were, so their appearances here must’ve just flushed down the memory hole.

For the most part, the performances in this movie are pretty great from Renner, Robert Carlyle, Rose Byrne, Harold Perrineau and others. Even the kids were okay and didn’t annoy the shit out of me. They were pretty mature and played their parts very solidly.

There are a few highpoints in this movie.

The opening is pretty fucking incredible while being both parts heartbreaking and infuriating. Then the middle part that sees the zombies overrun the “safe” streets where the military literally starts killing innocent people to neutralize the threat is scary, effective and well done. Everything after that moment is decent too.

My biggest issue with this movie, though, is that the pacing was all over the place and the first half of the film, after the opening, is so slow I was bored to tears. I also, for whatever reason, couldn’t connect to the characters or their stories. I just didn’t give a shit about anything happening in this film until shit really hit the fan. But even then, I wasn’t anywhere near as invested in the characters as I should’ve been.

Overall, this isn’t a bad film but it’s not a particularly good one or a movie that I’ll probably ever have the urge to watch again.

Also, I’m still waiting on that third movie that never came but unless Danny Boyle, himself, directs it, I’m probably not going to care much at this point.

Rating: 6/10

Comic Review: The Simon & Kirby Library: Horror!

Published: March 4th, 2014
Written by: Joe Simon
Art by: Jack Kirby

Titan Books, 320 Pages

Review:

While Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, as a creative tandem, are probably most known for their Captain America work, they also did a lot of other comics for other companies that spanned just about every genre you can think of. This is a collection of their collaborations in horror.

With that, this is my favorite collection out of the many hardcover editions of their old work that has come out.

This is a thick anthology with dozens of tales that utilize just about every type of classic monster or horror trope that you can think of.

The writing is good for the time and I always liked Simon’s style and pacing. I especially like his dialogue and how he can convey a good deal of plot and information in limited space.

More than anything else, I love this for Kirby’s art. Before superheroes became his norm, the man was known for creating some of the coolest monsters that ever graced the pages of ’40s and ’50s comics.

I get that this may be a really outdated piece of work for modern sensibilities. However, for those that actually appreciate what modern things evolved from and who have a soft spot for history, especially in pop culture, this is a really cool hardcover comic book collection to own and read.

Rating: 9/10

Film Review: The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988)

Release Date: February 5th, 1988
Directed by: Wes Craven
Written by: Adam Rodman, Richard Maxwell
Based on: The Serpent and the Rainbow by Wade Davis
Music by: Brad Fiedel
Cast: Bill Pullman, Cathy Tyson, Zakes Mokae, Paul Winfield, Badja Djola, Michael Gough

Universal Pictures, 98 Minutes

Review:

“By the way, Doctor Alan. What did you dream about this afternoon? A woman in your arms? The sea at your doorstep? Nooooo! You dreamt of me and of the grave. I know because I was there. And I can be there every time you close your eyes. The pain I cause you, in the room upstairs, is nothing to the pain I can cause in your own mind. Remember that… Doctor Alan.” – Dargent Peytraud

This is my favorite Wes Craven movie after the original A Nightmare On Elm Street. And honestly, it’s the only Craven film that I actually love after Elm Street 1. 

I think that my love of this is because of two things. One, I love voodoo horror. Two, due to the black magic in this film, Craven employed some of the same filmmaking special effects techniques that he did in A Nightmare On Elm Street, as the protagonist here, had several nightmares he had to progress through in an effort to conquer the story’s force of evil. So in some ways, it makes evil voodoo lord Dargent Peytraud somewhat like Freddy Krueger in how he fucks with his victims’ minds.

Speaking of Dargent Peytraud, Zakes Mokae is so fucking chilling as this character it’s impossible not to believe him, even when you know you’re a watching a movie. I mean, man… what a performance! It truly makes the picture and while I love Bill Pullman (who doesn’t?), Mokae completely takes over every scene he is in.

Also, this doesn’t take anything away from Pullman, this is one of my favorite roles he’s ever played. Honestly, it’s probably second behind his role as the president in Independence Day and tied with his performance in Lost Highway, as that one and this, are exceedingly good.

I love this story though, as it sees a doctor go down to Haiti in an effort to find this mythic powder that can revolutionize medicine for the pharmaceutical industry. I don’t want to spoil too much other than to point out that there’s a lot of voodoo in this movie, crazy mindfuck experiences and zombification of the magical kind.

The thing I love most about this film is how imaginative and creative the effects heavy sequences are ala A Nightmare On Elm Street. Wes Craven retrofit that successful formula he built a franchise off of and presented it in a new, cool way that worked exceptionally well. The final sequence of this film which leads to the showdown between Pullman’s Dr. Alan and Mokae’s Peytraud is visually astonishing.

I wish I had discovered this film when it was somewhat current but honestly, it would’ve scared the shit out of me, as a kid. Regardless, of having already seen and loved the first three Elm Steet movies by that point. I think I saw it at the perfect age, around fifteen or sixteen, and it kind of became a movie I obsessed over for a few weeks, as I watched it at least a half dozen times within a month or less.

The Serpent and the Rainbow is creepy, cool, imaginative and just a unique and kind of terrifying experience.

Rating: 8/10

Comic Review: Marvel Zombies

Published: October 1st, 2008
Written by: Robert Kirkman
Art by: Sean Phillips, Arthur Suydam (cover)

Marvel Comics, 123 Pages

Review:

The recent What If?… episode that featured a Marvel Zombies storyline made me want to go back and pick up the original comic, which I’ve always considered to be the best version of that concept. But since it had been so long since I read it, I wanted to see how well it held up and whether or not I was seeing it through rose-colored glasses.

Well, this was just as fun and as crazy as I remembered it. I think that I also have a much stronger appreciation for Robert Kirkman’s writing now and honestly, who was better at tapping for this concept than the creator and writer of The Walking Dead?

I also loved Sean Phillips art and I wasn’t as appreciative of him back in 2008, either. I’ve since enjoyed a lot of his work, especially the stuff he’s done in Ed Brubaker’s noir and crime comics.

The story is pretty simple, almost the entire Marvel universe has been infected with a zombie virus. So the few survivors are tasked with fighting off famous heroes and villains while trying to find a cure or just flat out escape. Ultimately, this aligns with the coming of Galactus and that leaves the door open for more stories, which we already know were made.

While this plays out like you’d expect, there is still enough story here to make it more than a simple, “run from the zombies” tale. It’s also cool seeing how zombification effects certain characters’ powers. Additionally, as gruesome and hopeless as his fate seems, this story gave us the most badass version of Black Panther that probably ever existed.

Look, this doesn’t tie directly to the main Marvel continuity but it’s a hell of a fun read and was a cool experiment that worked exceptionally well before the concept was milked to death.

Rating: 8/10

Film Review: 28 Days Later (2002)

Release Date: November 1st, 2002 (UK)
Directed by: Danny Boyle
Written by: Alex Garland
Music by: John Murphy
Cast: Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Christopher Eccleston, Megan Burns, Brendan Gleeson

British Film Council, DNA Films, Fox Searchlight Pictures, 113 Minutes

Review:

“Have you got any plans, Jim? Do you want us to find a cure and save the world or just fall in love and fuck? Plans are pointless. Staying alive is as good as it gets.” – Selena

28 Days Later is a zombie movie, even though most of the people I say that to start yelling, “No, it’s not you fucking idiot! People were just infected with rage!” Calm down, juice box drinking basement dwellers, it’s a fucking zombie movie and the monsters might as well be undead, as the “rage” works like a virus, which is what causes the zombie outbreak in a fuck ton of zombie flicks anyway.

This is a movie that sort of blew my mind back in 2003, when I first saw it, as it made zombies fast and therefore, a hell of a lot more dangerous. With that take on the genre, this would inspire a lot of zombie films that came after, most notably Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead remake, as well as World War Z.

As far as zombie movies go, this is one of the best acted. But it’s also well cast between Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson and Christopher Eccleston. It’s also got a future Academy Award winning director, Danny Boyle, who does some pretty solid work in the horror genre between this and an underrated gem, Sunshine.

Boyle got the very best out of his cast, here, and this led to them becoming pretty busy actors in the future.

I like the style and look of the film, and was especially impressed with the sequence that saw Jim walking through London, completely devoid of life.

The movie also moves at a good pace but it does fall apart somewhat once the survivors get to the military stronghold and discover that it’s just a compound to attract and rape women in an effort to “repopulate the Earth”, which seemed like a hell of a stretch just a month into this zombie crisis. Although, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t happy as hell to see those scumbags get eaten and ripped apart.

The movie apparently had multiple endings but I’m glad that they chose the ending that gives off a sense of hope, as it would’ve probably been a bit too much seeing any of these characters die or suffer more than they already had.

Rating: 7.5/10

TV Review: What If…? (2021- )

Original Run: August 11th, 2021 – current
Created by: A.C. Bradley
Directed by: Bryan Andrews
Written by: A.C. Bradley, Matthew Chauncey
Based on: Marvel Comics
Music by: Laura Karpman
Cast: Jeffrey Wright, various

Marvel Studios, Disney+, 6 Episodes (so far), 31-37 Minutes (per episode)

Review:

Marvel’s What If…? is like all things MCU since Avengers: Endgame, a mixed bag of good and stupid.

So let me start by saying that I did enjoy some episodes of this show, while others were absolute shit like the one that sees Black Panther become Star Lord, which doesn’t make a lick of sense and also had a side plot about Thanos not committing universal genocide because T’Challa simply talked him out of it. That episode made me facepalm, repeatedly, so hard that I broke my nose about seven times.

Anyway, it’s clear that Disney is using this show to push certain social narratives without really caring about what that does to the continuity of the second greatest franchise they’ve ever had. But just like the once greatest franchise, Star Wars, Disney is out to wreck this one too.

So for the positives, I mostly liked the Peggy Carter episode, as well as the Doctor Strange one. While the T’Challa one was, hands down the worst, the others weren’t too bad, they just didn’t do much for me.

I was most excited to see that they would do with the Marvel Zombies concept, as some of those comics were fun as hell. Well, I’m glad that they tried something original with it, story-wise. However, it just didn’t hold my attention and was really underwhelming.

Also, I’m not big on the animation style. I really didn’t like it at first but my brain did adjust to it fairly quickly. The main problem with it, is that it looks almost too generic and in the Marvel Zombies episodes, for instance, I had a hard time telling some characters apart because they looked too similar.

When Disney first announced all the Marvel shows that would be coming to Disney+, this is one of the ones I was most excited for. I have loved the What If? comics since I started reading comics. Out of all of the issues that exist with great premises and alterations to continuity, I found it really disappointing that these were the stories they went with to kick off this series. But I guess I just shouldn’t expect much from Disney, at this point.

Rating: 6/10