How to make a bad horror movie: The rite of Michael Hasfrom

One evening, surrounded by my friends, I had the silly idea to propose a cinema trip to see the latest horror film released in movie theatres : The rite of Michael Hasfrom. Only two adventurous accepted my invitation. I’m never very popular when I submit a horror movie.

This Sunday, we dealt with the umpteenth exorcism movie, but with Anthony Hopkins as an interpretation bonus. I went with low expectations, only the hope of tiny horror entertainment. The director has already did a pleasant horror movie with his third project: Room 1408,  an adaptation of Stephen King, release directly onto DVD in France. 

In fact, The rite was a waste of time, so boring, I moved every five minutes in my seat with and gave many huge yawns. But this torture have an advantage, to inspire this article: 

How to make a bad horror movie !

You will need :

•    A scenario with no plot, no tension and it does not matter to insert scenes which might create fear. And if your characters are very unpleasant, it’s always a plus.
•   To hide this terrible story, use the marketing effect: “inspired by real events”.
•  A lead actor with no charisma worthy of a peanut forgotten at the bottom of the bowl. But he has to look like a underwear model.
•   An Anthony Hopkins who needs some cash to pay his taxes or a new pair of boobs for his new and young wife. Thus, you can use his name, face, reputation on every poster, to attract gullible viewers, like me. However, Anthony Hopkins ‘s performance has to be poor and ridiculous.
• Create grotesque exorcism scenes, inspire you more laugh than fear.
• Make sure that anything happen for more than half of the movie.
• Do not give importance to music and sound effects.
•  A lack of staging.
• Use bad and old clichés from other exorcism movies.
• Put in the trailer scary images that doesn’t exist on film.
•  Lengths, lengths and even more lengths.
• Very few and outdated visual effects.
• Write ridiculous dialogues. 

Incorporate all these elements in one movie and you will get The rite, a very horrible horror movie. If like me you made the mistake of going there, I can prescribe The Exorcist of William Friedkin, a classic, in my  opinion the best film on this topic. It’s from it that I learned the meaning of fear.

 Sarah.

Small guide about zombies

Dear potential victims, I salute you

After writing my first article about the comic book Walking Dead, I had a bright idea to write a little manual “how to survive during a zombies infection”.  I watched and red so many zombie stories that I can nominate myself as zombie expert. Maybe, one day, these few lines  will save you from a bad time in the teeth of several hungry monsters. 

Foremost , I have to clarify two or three little things. It’s important to know the difference between zombie and infected.

Basically a zombie is a dead buddy who comes back from  the dead world with a huge appetite.  The reason for this comeback remains obscure, it’s often attributed to a religious cause as a divine punishment. So zombie attack you or me because we look tasty, and when we are dead, we become zombie if we still have a body. An undead’s bite is fatal.  In terms of zombie there is a master, the American movie director George Romero, who has done six movies, including the very cult Dawn of the Dead. In my opinion, in many ways G. Romero founded a huge part of the contemporary zombies culture. Yes, I can talk about Zombie culture.

Infected are dead or living people who want to eat us, but reasons are scientific. Basically , a virus infects living people who die and come back to life with the goal to eat us. The very famous American author Stephen King talks about infected with true originality in a book named Cell. The infection touches people by their cellular. If you prefer watch a good movie, I recommend you a Danny Boyle’s movies named 28 Days later, a story where zombies invade London.

A key issue divides the specialists community : Zombie or infected are they able to run ? For the Master G. Romero it’s just impossible (reason of the rotting flesh)n while for a young directors such as Zack Snyder, zombies are very good sprinter. I hope we never know the answer.

How to survive during a zombies infection: 15 rules

1: You are no longer safe anywhere

2: Beware to anyone. Even your best friend.

3: Avoid places the crowd is concentrated (it’s not a good idea to go to Disney World)

4: Form a small group, but trust anyone. 

5: Abandon the lowest, even if it’s your mum or your dog: You want to survive !

6: Steal a huge with gasoline and take the road soon is possible.

7: Go to isolate places. I recommend mountains or the middle of nowhere of the countryside.

8: Find Weapons and shoot the head.

9: Promptly make food stocks. 

10: If your group had a stroke, make sure that anyone was bight. 

11: If you meet someone or if one of you team was bight, it’s time to shoot the head. He is not a human anymore.

12: You should to be able to kill your father, sister, step mother (it’s easy), even the love of your life if they are infected. 

13: Never be alone, never lost the team. If everyone is an undead it’s a different story.

14: Beware of the living who are not part of your team, human people are steal the first menace. In this new world, they are no more rules and laws.

15: After living the city, find a safe place, close all the opening and never go out even if you listen someone screaming. 

If you want to explore the subject, recommend you many links and videos.

The federal Vampire and Zombie Agency: http://www.fvza.org/index.html 

A shop 

http://www.shopzombie.com/brains/

 Web games

The Last Stand: http://armorgames.com/play/269/the-last-stand

De-animator: http://www.de-animator.com/

Sarah.

Walking Dead

The world as we knew it 

has disappeared

finally

I love zombies. In fact I love movies, novels, books or comic books about zombies. If I am crazy about zombies stories, it’s not about their jerky walk, rotting skin or their ferocious appetite. It’s the human reaction facing this danger constantly that I find very interesting. In fact I am fascinated when I am watching or reading something about zombie. 

There is a master of the relationship between human confronting zombies, its Robert Kirkman the creator and the writher of Walking Dead, a series of comic books, published by Images comics since 2003. 

Robert Kirkman immerses us in North America infested by the undead.  We don’t know how the undead arrived; we discover a world full of zombies. The protagonist is Rick Grimes, he wakes up alone after a long coma in a hospital and decides to looking for his family. So, we follow Rick during his adventure in a new world where survival is the priority. Fear is everywhere because every protagonist will lose their humanity, even children. 

On the artistic side, Tony Moore is the comic strip writher for the first episode and Charlie Adlard has been drawing the others. It’s a black and white drawing with a lot of emotion through character’s faces. Charlie Adlard’s landscapes are very realistic, we can really feel the end of the world atmosphere.

Now what makes Walking Dead

the cream of the crop in terms of Zombie?

First, the choice of a zombie ‘s comic books is very judicious when you want to tell a long-term story. With thirteen volumes published in France, we really can follow all the protagonists during a long period and notice how they change, react  and face all their enemies. Because in this new world we can thing that enemies are all the zombies, but in fact the first predator has still a human face. When you are losing your humanity, and when they are no more rules, a man, a woman, even a child can be a menace. 

Listen to my buddy Rick who is giving an advice to his son: “No matter how many people are close to you…Or if the area seems to be clean…no matter what other say…or what you think…You are never in a safe place…A second and it’s over for you. “

Walking Dead is a huge success, every volume received many good reviews and for several journalists Walking dead is one of the best comic books of the decade. Last year the movie director Franck Darabont adapted Walking dead on TV with the series The Walking Dead on AMC.  Even if the first episode had the biggest audience of the channel and the series received many very good reviews, I dislike it. In my opinion the first season is very weak, the story of the characters is boring.   We don’t find the atmosphere of the end of the world, the fear and the tension. I hope the next season will be better, the director and the writer Robert Kirkman engaged many new co-writers to improve the story. If you are a video game player, you will be pleased because a Walking dead game is adapting by telltale game studio. 

But before watching the series or playing on your xbox 360, I invite you to read the comic and step in a world of undead and fear. 

Sarah