During March, I will be reprinting select horror movie reviews from Conditional Axe as that blog nears the end of its lifespan.  A best-of collection that will extol the virtues of the genre as well as excoriate Tom Sizemore, Nicolas Cage and Uwe Boll.  Today’s post is originally from January 2007, and was originally entitled “Your Haunted House and You.”

Jonathan Maberry’s Marvel Comics event Doomwar won me over so hard that I wanted to check out one of his novels.  I opted for Patient Zero, the first Joe Ledger book (the second, The Dragon Factory, comes out this month), a military thriller about a zombie outbreak.

There is a part of me that enjoys the genre that Patient Zero belongs to a great deal.  I tired of Tom Clancy when I was a teenager, but I’ve still got a yen for Greg Rucka’s excellent Atticus Kodiak books.  Like Kodiak, Ledger’s a battle-hardened badass that’s smarter than he should be and possessed of a heart of gold and the hands of a killer.  At the outset of the book, I worried that Ledger would be one of those action heroes who’s too perfect at everything, but that preconception vanishes pretty early on.  That said, Ledger does end up taking down zombies barehanded; in fact, he does it a lot.  He also solves the villains’ master plan about 3/4 of the way through the book. He’s like the Mara Jade of federal agents, honestly, and the question that you have to ask when approaching Patient Zero is ‘Am I okay with that?’

If you are, Patient Zero is a hell of a ride.  It’s tense, it’s violent and it’s one of those reads that grabs you by the front of the shirt and won’t let go until you finish. It is not the best zombie fiction that’s dropped this decade – that’s still World War Z or Stephen King’s Cell – but it’s a solid action thriller and those are three words that you typically can’t string together.  Definitely recommended.  If you think it’s going to be in your wheelhouse, it probably is.

In order to pad its already voluminous runtime and find an excuse to trot out Taylor Lautner and Kristen Stewart in a shameless act of pandering to the devoted Twihard audience, The Academy Awards featured an incredibly half-assed and unsubtle montage of horror movie moments that ranged from iconic (the shower scene from Psycho) to head-scratching (the remake of The Blob, but not the vastly superior original).  It was like being hit with a hammer, so in that sense, I suppose it was a success.

If you’re serious about giving a nod to the genre, perhaps making the tribute a bit more like a horror film structurally would have been a good idea. A slow and atmospheric burn up until the final minute or 45 seconds, which I’d have made into a nonstop cascade of violence, ending with Michael Myers getting shot at the end of Halloween.  I’d also have included more foreign horror and recognized the horror work of some Oscar winning filmmakers (like, oh, I don’t know – Kathryn Bigelow, James Cameron and Peter Jackson spring to mind). And, I’d have included Shadow of the Vampire.

1. When Big is in Thailand closing an important deal somehow related to his nebulous yet lucrative job, Carrie and Charlotte are detained in a Thai prison for violating several laws related to footwear.  Miranda is forced to fly to their friends’ aid, while Samantha keeps trying to find scenarios in which she can be publicly caned.

2. When Carrie is brutally murdered, her three best friends gather at her ancestral country estate to reminisce about their sexy adventures, search for her missing will, and attempt to seduce Carrie’s steamy butler.

3. Charlotte marries the ruler of a Middle Eastern nation to have unfettered access to his collection of sub-Saharan pottery; the other girls devolve into bitter rivalry over who will be her Maid of Honor.

4. Carrie Bradshaw is stranded in an airport on Christmas Eve and must fight terrorists to get home to her friends and family in New York. Reginald Veljohnson is involved.

5. A la Wes Craven’s New Nightmare or Adaptation, a film about fictionalized versions of Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Catrall, Kristen Davis and Cynthia Nixon – played by Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Catrall, Kristen Davis and Cynthia Nixon – making a Sex and the City movie. [It should be noted that frequent (and also lovely) commenter C did all of the heavy lifting on this one. She is a genius, folks.]

Never see this movie.

The trend in remaking 70s horror has been one of beautification, like reclaiming a neglected park except for movies where people get stabbed.  Sometimes, it can help by making the movie more accessible. Sometimes, it paints over the gritty or moody, evocative stuff that was the most effect part of the film in the first place.  The latter is the fate of the 2005 remake of The Amityville Horror.  Ryan Reynolds and two girls from Alias (Melissa George – who is probably more known these days as a Grey’s Anatomy guest star or as James T. Kirk’s mother (wanting to believe Melissa George was in Trek 09 does not make it so; as Bill wisely points out in the comments, mama Kirk is actually Jennifer “House” Morrison)- and Rachel Nichols – now better known as Scarlett from last summer’s G.I. Joe or Uhura’s hot Orion girl roommate) star in a highly polished and unfun snoozefest that manages to keep the barebones summary of the original but ditches all of the tension and creeping fear, both because of the limited range of the actors involved and the high-gloss polish on what should be a creepy locale.

The Crazies is going to get completely overlooked, and it’s a damn shame.  Though not as charismatic and revivifying as Dawn of the Dead 2k4, the remake of George Romero’s 1973 faux-zombie obscurity is entertaining, scary and hits the same thematic notes as the original, albeit with a little bit less impact as a sacrifice to its Hollywood polish.  The hardcore will bitch that David’s not a fireman and that the movie is set in Iowa and not western Pennsylvania. The clueless will skip it because the ad campaign looks a bit generic.  Beneath that exterior shell of preconception, though, The Crazies is one of the better mainstream horror movies I’ve seen in a long time.

It’s almost an accident, though. We’re looking at a screenplay from some chancy remake veterans – the guy who wrote the Amityville remake and the guy who wrote the Pulse remake.  It’s directed by the guy who directed Sahara. It’s not asupicious.

The acting goes a long way, though.  The same understated stoic quality that made Timothy Olyphant a good choice for the lead in Hitman shines through here, too, and his David Dutton is reliably cool under fire and as heroic as he should be in a quiet, anchoring way.  Radha Mitchell elevates female lead role beyond screaming and being imperiled.  Joe Anderson, who I barely recognize from Across the Universe, is a standout, going back and forth from gee-shucks deputy to raging badass.  Anderson does an excellent job of making the audience question whether he’s sick or just losing his shit; that knife’s edge between coping poorly and turning into a ravening murder machine is the key source of tension in the latter half of the film.

If you’re horror-inclined, go and see The Crazies.  It’s the best genre thrill ride this year, at least so far.

Gorillaz next album drops on Tuesday, and in its honor here’s an all-Gorillaz edition of Friday Cover Songs, including “Feel Good Inc.” from Editors and a really catchy version of “Dare” from Swedish indie rockers Melpo Mene.

Editors – Feel Good Inc. (Gorillaz cover)

Melpo Mene – Dare (Gorillaz cover)

Ti West is starting to make a name for himself as a purveyor of retro horror.  I really didn’t like The Roost, but I know it’s got a following.  I get it.  I mean, I like The Woods.

The House of the Devil, though, is something different.  Its limited theatrical run started at roughly the same time that Parnormal Activity went wide, and it’s noteworthy that two quality indie horror flicks hit theaters in October and generated buzz.  It didn’t hurt, of course, that Saw VI was as enjoyable as a persistent foot cramp.

Like yesterday’s Dead Snow, The House of the Devil isn’t a particularly resonant movie but it is a movie that is captivating in the moment you watch it.  It’s a 70s throwback slasher in the vein of When A Killer Calls, and is heavily informed by 80s cult hysteria.   It’s an appealing mix.

I’ve accused Ti West of being dull in the past, but really, he’s masterful at letting a movie breathe. Like a teacher’s wait time, it’s a surprisingly difficult skill to cultivate because the natural impulse is simply to hit beat after beat without luxuriating.  The audience inhabits the movie a bit more, empathizes with the characters a bit more deeply, and then, at that appropriate moment, the other shoe drops and there is blood everywhere. Recommended viewing.

Dead Snow is a Norwegian film about a group of vacationing medical students who get attacked by Nazi Zombies.  It swims in cliche’  like Scrooge McDuck swims in money, has atrocious make-up and practical effects and never seems sure whether it wants to play it all for laughs or not, but it is awesome, you guys.  I mean, you heard me say Nazi Zombies, yes?  There is snowmobile violence, chainsaw violence and one character goes crazy on several zombies while dual-wielding a hammer and sickle in what may be the strongest political sentiment expressed in zombie cinema.  One character, Vegard, literally pulls a machine gun out of nowhere and uses it to mow down zombies.  When another character incredulously asks where he got a machine gun from, Vegard completely ignores him.  It’s all fire and death and blood and subtitles and Nazi gold and it is awesome, like I said..