All Souls Day: Dia de los Muertos

EXCELLENCE is what you should have expected.

I mean why wouldn't you? With such mavericks of creativity like Mark A. Altman (forget Clerks, Free Enterprise is where it's at. Kevin Smith who?) and Jeremy Kasten (director of the musical short Gayosity, which one crafty IMDb contributor reminds us that the five songs, all elaborate production numbers, were written, shot, scored and laid into the film in less than 24 hours), how could this project have gone wrong? Well, worry not. It didn't! Everyone is in great form here. The cast is pitch perfect. Travis Wester reminds me of a young Matthew Perry but the real winner here is Marisa Ramirez who hits it home with a perfectly layered, nuanced performance that had me on the verge of tears not once but twice. I only hope that their heads don't get TOO big on the success of this picture that they won't return for the sequel. Don't you hate it when that happens? I don't want to say too much more because its hard to really say anything at all without giving everything away. If you thought House of the Dead was good, you're SERIOUSLY in for the shock of your life (which is a good thing!).

If you're serious about cinema, go to your local videostore and demand they get you copy of All Souls Day: Dia de los Muertos post haste! If that fails, call up your local cable or satellite provider and ask them when it might air on one of their channels. If they have no idea what you're talking about, just refer them to this review and read it for them (they will totally get it after that).

To the producers: Bravo! Hats off to all ten of you producers, you are all truly inspiring. If you would like to get in contact with me about sending a film crew to my house to film a commercial about how much I love the movie, my contact details are available in my IMDb profile.

OK so the only reason I even considered seeing this film was because I discovered Ellie Cornell was in it. I love her in Halloween 4 and 5 and than she took a very long break and came back with a very monotone performance in ultra trashy camp fest House of the dead. So I fgured she was in it and could ensure the film some laughs. Sadly, she's only in the first ten minutes though. but the film manages to be unintentionally funny on it's own and in some respects just not that bad. Besides the fact that the characters are dumb as doornails the film features a decent premise, an attractive cast and some good makeup. The direction is pretty bad, but the cinematography and score are surprisingly confident. A young couple on the way to a family gathering get into a small accident in a small town in Mexico. They become stranded there when they find a tortured young woman and their car won't start. they are instructed to stay at the town's hotel for the night while the day of the dead celebration commences. yada-yada- yada. Their friends come and the dead come to life. Nothing to original with a decent crypt- esquire twist. But You've gotta love the hammy dialogue and acting especially between the women in this film, or the old woman with a crazy axe. For the film's biggest laugh check out the blonde girl's escape from the house. Pure camp here people, love it or hate. It is what it is.

I saw this movie at the hole in the Head horror Festival and thought it was cool. The writer and the director came and talked after and said that they were making a different zombie movie - like from before Romero and that is definitely what it is. There are a bunch of good scares, nice action and the acting is good and the zombies are really cool but the best part is that it is in Mexico and that all the spookieness comes from that. Also there is a mystery going on in the town from when it started that the couple who get trapped there have to figure out to leave - which is well done and not lame or phony.

The makeup is good and there's also some naked girls all painted up to be killed in a ritual. Danny Trayo is excellent as the bad guy and he does a real exorcist scene that stole the movie.

I have to be honest. I only watched this because of Danny Trejo. I would watch paint dry if he was the one painting. He only has a small part of the film, even though he was the primary star.

For a zombie film, it was a disappointment.

There were several beauties in the film like Nichole Hiltz, Laura Harring, Marisa Ramirez, and Ellie Cornell. Unfortunately, we didn't get any titillation as we would expect in a B horror film.

The zombie action was pretty lame for the most part. There was very little blood except at the end. I would have expected more. It just seemed that it was basically a story about revenge.

You know, you have to work hard to turn out a "movie" (and I use the term loosely) this bad. And the Sci-Fi Channel has managed to do it a number of times, raising again the question of whether they are farming out their writing and directing duties to family members...or perhaps family pets.

This particular stinker was advertised as a zombie movie, and eventually they did have a few zombies bumbling around, albeit completely illogically and with the rules of their existence changing every 30 seconds as apparently a new hack writer (or perhaps Fluffy the family chihuahua) took over to further mangle this drivel. To say that it was a complete and utter mess, and a magnificently boring one at that, would be an understatement.

The plot, what there is of it, is completely nonsensical and bounces randomly around from one idea to the next blowing holes in itself left and right. Its as if they were making it up as they went along, and were very drunk through the whole process and kept on forgetting their train of thought. And that of course is what always bothers me the most about these turds the Sci-Fi channel turns out -- a lack of money can perhaps explain flat acting or laughable special effects, but the complete lack of coherence on some of these clunkers is just embarrassing.

The casting is bizarre as well, with a random collection of rookies, a veteran character actor, and one of Sci-Fi's wooden stock actors (David Keith) hilariously playing a man who would have to have been at least 60-65 (based on a completely pointless early flashback). The hilarious part? Keith is 50, and looks 40-45. But they randomly insert him in a pointless and nonsensical part apparently completely unaware of how old his character had to be based on their own "plot", and not even bothering with silly things like makeup. Or logic. They also feature an old woman, who again according to their own timeline would have to have been at least 130. And we won't even get into the complete forehead-slapping resolution of the bad guy's character. If the movie hadn't beaten me into my own drooling stupefied zombie-trance by that point, I might have found the whole mess hilarious. Maybe.

I still think this has to rank a half step behind "Skeleton Man" as the all-time worst clunker the Sci-Fi channel has turned out. But it gave it a good effort. Some movies are so bad they wrap around and become entertaining. Not this thing -- its just horrible and deadly boring to boot. Should not even qualify for moviedom at all, but just amateur hour. Bad amateurs too. So just a warning -- no matter how pathetic your life is, no matter if you are imprisoned for life in Siberia and your only other entertainment option is watching 24 hour reruns of transvestite midgets dancing the macarena, there is simply no conceivable way I can recommend ANYTHING in this movie to anyone. Do your brain a favor and save two hours of your life. Watch paint dry. Count the number of hair follicles on your dog's tail. Do SOMETHING, anything else but damage your eyes watching this garbage.