Nightgaunt

The reason why I actually saw this movie is cause a girlfriend of mine is a die-hard Harry Potter fan, loves the movies and will look every movie the cast of HP has a part in. So watching this one with her, I had no expectations cause I didn't know what this film was about and to be honest, when it was over I still had no clue whatsoever what this was supposed to be. A drama, a comedy, a vehicle to boost some young talents careers? I had no clue. So after 90 minutes of twists and turns, unlikely coincidences and a kind of rushed happy end I was sitting there uttering the words "now this is bogus!". It's not that it was a bad movie per se, we have a very unlikely story, a very good but also very very stereotypically cast set of actors that act over the top, a weird storyline and lots of dancing. So I didn't have the feeling that it was a bad movie, but I still had no idea what this was supposed to be. The only thing I really took from it was that whoever is to direct the next film starring Emma Watson has to botox her forehead back to the stoneage cause her eyebrows have to stop moving when she is acting. I mean I ended up staring at them cause even though there is lots of dancing in the film her eyebrows are the things that move the most. On the other hand, it has been worse in the HP movies. However, it wasn't until I spoke with another friend of mine - another Harry Potter fan and mom of 4 kids - and complained about this film that I was told that this is an adaption of a child book classic. I suppose this was the godmother of all "duuuuh" moments someone can have, especially after I was lectured for a solid 15 minutes about how great the book is how her kids love it how much they can learn about the importance of hard work and taking care of each other and yadda yadda yadda plus just cause I'm a guy and not into the Harry Potter stuff I still have no right to badmouth the girl playing Hermione cause it's her fave character in the books. So, knowing that it's a kids book the stereotypical characters make sense and with that in mind the actors casted for the roles actually fit perfect. Richard Griffiths is befuddled and funny as always, Marc Warren can be the shy guy once more just to name a few. And so finally, the twist and turns and the happy end make sense too, so does the fact that I couldn't understand the story, cause it's made for little girls in the 1930s. I guess I really dodged a bullet there, for a few days I thought I was just stupid.

Say what you want about the genre of sword and sandal films. Without any historical credibility whatsoever or any similarities with the historical/mythical characters that give the heroes their names some muscle men, mostly American bodybuilders fight for freedom and glory somewhere in the ancient world. This time around it's Gordon Scott as prince Nippur (name taken from an ancient Summerian city located in modern day Iraq) returning from exile after calls from the oppressed people of Babylon, tormented by their usurper with slavery and human sacrifices. In the tradition of Samson and Hercules prince Nippur has superhuman strength, hence overpowering the evil forces to bring freedom and justice back to the empire. Sounds a bit like Anakin Skywalkers/Darth Vaders monologue before the climatic battle at the end of Star Wars Episode 3, though the story is a little too interlaced for film of that length. I like this cheesy flicks on a lazy Saturday morning like today, especially as I', down with a cold, the downside of this movie is that there are way too many characters, both good and evil,too long scenes of sacrifices and random violence against the slaved populace - I mean we get it, the bad guy is REALLY bad - and stereotypical scenes where the trapped or chained hero overcomes all odds in a heroic display of his power to jump in for the rescue at the end. It is entertaining, no doubts there, but with a dozen women wearing same or similar wigs all guys wearing fake beards and armor it's kinda hard to follow the story in detail. You leave for 5 minutes and you don't know what happened cause all throughout the flick new characters are introduced - or killed. The story itself is very interchangeable, so if you'd put in Hercules and a Greek polis where this stuff had happened, it would have worked just as well. For situations like mine atm, where I can't do anything else anyways this film is good, would have been perfect if the storyline was more simple, but other than that it has most things that makes a cheesy sword and sandal flick so entertaining. Silly costumes, bad acting, bad fake beards, bad wigs, random backdrops from obviously various other productions and lots of scenes where a muscle man can show his biceps. 4 or 10 points, however quite entertaining.

When it comes to zombie films we're used to flicks that are below standard, as most of its companions of that era Virus has become quite notorious. So in general, if you like horror and zombie films, check it out and judge yourself if it earns that reputation. I say no, and there are many reasons, mostly the goofs that continue throughout the picture, but also the technical flaws of it. The cast, as in all films of that kind, sucks. The acting is so wooden, I was wondering if Pinoccio would show up. Some of the Zombies struggle to keep a straight face. A major abominations are the scenes where one member of the special forces taunts the walking dead face to face and they do nothing. Zilch. Nada. Speaking about special forces, we are to believe that a special force of just 4 people in blue overalls and plain street shoes is sent to Papua New Guinea, armed with 40 year old Thompson MPs and similar old gunnery. Despite knowing that a headshot kills the zombies from the first engagement they unload their ammunition into the bodies of them over and over again with no effect. Not a smart bunch of people. But it gets worse than that. Owls and hawks fly through the air making the noises of apes, apes leaping through landscapes that look completely different to the setting the actors are in and the most ridiculous geographical good: A herd of African elephants stampeding through the savanna though it was said clearly that were in New Guinea! Hilarious. Well, when the special team storms the embassy we read "policia urbana" on a police car and something with "espanol" on the ambulance, so at least we know where it was shot. Explains also why the natives in Papua don't look like asians. Speaking about hilarious, this flick brings you the most ridiculous excuse for a boob scene ever, I don't want to ruin that "no they didn't!!!" experience for anyone who hasn't watched it, see for yourselves. Cause you wouldn't believe me anyways. There are lots of other goofs here and there, like the rat in the facility being the only animal affected by the virus in the whole film, that Geiger counter substitute whose indicator curiously goes to the right when you turn a rotary knob to the right, "zombies" pressing a piece of meat to another actors leg and pulling it through their fingers with their teeth to get the effect of ripping flesh off the bone. Another low point is the scenes ripped from a documentary of an actual funeral ceremony of a tribe, showing a real corpse with an already bloated body, needless to say when that man rises from the dead neither he, the rest of the tribe nor their village looks anything like the stock footage. Of course, we're not spared of footage of a tribe gutting and eating a real animal, in this case a Crocodile. Another example of clever but unconvincing editing is stock footage of an old tribe woman eating something, cut together with new shots of a hand picking maggots from a rotten human head. Counting up all those things you might think there is actually something happening in this film, but it isn't. Most of the time the group slides from one engagement with zombies to another location where the same thing happens again and the story fizzles out rather quickly. So when they finally, after almost 100 minutes reach the research facility and get finished off rather quickly after having survived for so long you ask yourself why on earth those ugly mutts weren't killed after 15 minutes so we wouldn't have to watch it. Seriously, we know that people like Mattei or his colleague D'Amato never did this for artistic reasons but for the money, and this kind of films were made cheap and quick to mooch of the success of Romero and Fulci. Still, there are so many moment ins this film that you wonder if there wasn't anyone in the crew or the casts who told their director "Dude, this isn't right no one will buy it". If I hadn't read that Mattei died this Monday (two days ago on the day I write this) I wouldn't have watched it, but it was the first of his films I found when I searched my collection.