Night of the Living Dead (1968) Review

George A. Romero's original masterpiece that set the standard for all zombie films since. An entertaining film, with many twists and a lot of gore for its time.

While visiting a rural cemetery, Barbara (Judith O'Dea) is attacked by a mysterious stranger. She hides in an abandoned farmhouse, where she meets Ben (Duane Jones), who boards up the house to keep out the bloodthirsty zombies that lurk outside.

The pacing of this film is slow, and sometimes that's not a bad thing, because it enables character growth. Sometimes the pacing is a problem, though, because it eventually becomes tiring to watch a man board up windows for minutes on end.

The acting is good in most parts, although there were a few brief moments when it wasn't so great. But this only happened a few times with minor characters, and the main actors were good enough to make up for it. The cinematography is excellent for a film considered by most to be a b-movie. This film has good directing, especially for a low-budget zombie movie.

Thanks to its well-written script, Night of the Living Dead has just enough twists to keep you guessing, but still retains a concise, easy-to-follow story. A must-see if you plan on writing a zombie film--or any other type of horror film, for that matter.

Malcolm - short film

Just finished the first draft of a short script, currently titled Malcolm, though that's definitely subject to change. I collaborated on it, and it took a long time to write due to the many plot holes that arose. That, and my procrastination.

Anyway, we're currently in the pre-production stage: rewriting the script, getting some funding, and looking into assembling a cast and crew. It'll be a slow start, mainly because I'm new to many aspects of film making that were never relevant when I was making improvised slasher movies with my brothers.

I've decided to post a page of the script here, like a teaser trailer or something:

There you go. Hope it was okay. Again, it's a rough draft, so don't judge.

Hopefully it'll be done by the end of summer/early fall, so stay tuned.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) Review

The Day the Earth Stood Still is a classic sci-fi film that has good special effects for its time but is unfortunately plagued with its mediocre writing and sometimes almost cringe-worthy acting.

The first few minutes of the film is made up of scene after scene of people reacting to a mysterious flying saucer that lands in Washington D.C. Klaatu (Michael Rennie) emerges from the space craft and informs the spectators that he has come on a goodwill mission.

Soon we learn that Klaatu’s mission is to deliver an “urgent” message to all of the world leaders. Upon hearing this, I was intrigued, wondering what the message could be.  Unfortunately, the third act of this film just doesn’t deliver.

After a few narrow escapes, some sneaking around, and a car chase, Klaatu finally reveals his message, which is a lot less breathtaking than I had once hoped.

Sure, some scenes were decent. Some were even good. Sadly, the bad parts outweigh the decent, making this film much less than what I had anticipated. Not a personal favorite, but I can see why it's considered such a classic.