George A. Romero was the first man to put flesh eating hordes of the undead onto celluloid in 1968 with Night of the Living Dead. Since then the pasty looking ones have taken on a life of their own (sic), with an endless army of the great exhumed hitting the big screen for our enjoyment and delectation.

Romero set the trend for the super low budget style of the zombie films we know and love today, creating the film on a budget of $114,000 and using a simple narrative, snappy writing, smart camera tricks and clever design and make-up to work with the constraints of his budget rather than against it. The end result was a film that took in a total of $30million worldwide.

Obviously, this seemed like the perfect amateur money making formula. But what the thousands of copy-cats failed to notice was that it was the immaculately constructed script and mythology that went into making Night of the Living Dead such an iconic, subversive piece of cinema, not just gratuitous brain-munching.

And so a new genre was born, the ultra-low budget, mainly god awful and predominantly straight-to-video zombie film. Here lies one of the greatest creations in cinema history, a place where you can enjoy a good 80 minutes of attention grabbing, nonsensical, cinematic bliss – with the most sublimely absurd titles known to man.

For the uninformed, here are some of my favourites:

• Space Zombie Bingo!!! (Three explanation marks, three!)
• Zombie Holocaust (simple, concise, effective)
• Zombie Strippers (for raising the bar of absurdity)
• Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! (a personal favourite and proof repetition gets you noticed)
• Zombie Honeymoon (never a good way to start married life)
• The Zombie Diaries (criminally undermined in the Bridget Jones series)
• Stubbs the Zombie in ‘Rebel Without a Pulse’ (no more explanation needed)
• Wu long tian shi zhao ji gui AKA Kung-Fu Zombie (because we all dreamed that, one day, someone would)
• Gay Zombie (because zombies swing both ways)
• Z: A Zombie Musical (who says the undead can’t sing and dance?)
• Zombie Vegetarians (representing team veggie)
• Get Along Little Zombie (a heartwarming tale of flesh eating youngsters)
• No. My Other Possessed-Zombie Girlfriend. (if there’s a better title out there, I sure as hell don’t know it)

And finally… A few more top zombie facts, zombie-fact-fans:

Although Romero was first to put flesh eating zombies to screen, the first big screen appearance of the zombie was in the 1932 film White Zombie, starring man-god Bela Lugosi as the wonderfully named voodoo master, Murder Legendre.

In writing Night of the Living Dead, Romero openly’ admits to ripping off Richard Matheson’s superb 1954 book, I Am Legend, which everyone should have read.

Despite having no end of trouble finding a distributor for the film (many of whom wanted a re-shot ‘Happy’ ending), Romero refused to change the original print or make cuts to get his film into cinemas and insisted it should be shown in its entirety.

The cause of the zombie outbreak is never explained throughout the film’s duration. This might be obvious to some but it’s a subtlety that lots of people miss – another reason why it is so great. The closest we get to an explanation is offered by a scientist citing radiation from a space probe – another nod to militant cold war tactics in the film.

The film was made using chocolate sauce for blood and cooked ham as a substitute for human flesh, with mortician’s wax as make up for the zombies.

There are nine characters named ‘Zombie-with-gun’ in sequel, Day of the Dead.

It has been remade twice, made 3d and treated in 2004 to produce a colour version of the original. All of these are rubbish.

Everyone can do a good zombie impression, with sound effects. But mine is best.

Modern horror films are rubbish. There I’ve said it, it’s a fact.

The problem is, as with so much of Hollywood these days, a lack of imagination. Horror films in their giddy, slash-filled glory days were gloriously damaging; long, controlled lessons in  building tension and fear to such a point that you would willing stave your own face in on the chair in front just to save yourself from the thundering, inevitable crescendo.

Horror films fell out of favour in the 80s and 90s but have always been much of a hit and miss genre. But when they are done well there’s few other films that can affect you as much as a horror good enough to leave you checking the door three times and leaving the lights on ‘just to be sure’.

The point is that the time for peering at a film through iron clasped fingers has been and gone, so much so that it is now a cliche used in awful adverts for awful horror films which show the ‘terrified audience’ throwing their popcorn into the air whilst watching scenes far too startling to show on your whimpering, cowardly television.

Don’t get me wrong, I love horror films. But the reason I love them is the way they can get into your head like no other type of film. Modern horror has increasingly drifted away from this idea and opted to run away with shocking an audience rather than scaring them. Films like the never-ending Saw saga and the two Hostel films are uncomfortable to watch, but not because they make your mind play tricks on you and terrify you into imagining what could be there. These films are all about the sharp sudden shock of watching the face jolt up behind the window, or watching some squawking damsel lose an arm with a fountain of haemoglobin.

Now this is all well and good, but I can get a sudden shock by slamming my foot in a door. And I get tired of that quickly too.

So this Halloween, rather than going to watch Saw VI or Rob Zombie’s horrendous looking Halloween II, why not hunt down one of these classic horror films.

The classic as good as everyone says it is:

Psycho

Alfred Hitchcock’s old school horror can still throw it’s weight around today. Rather than going for outright scares and violence, Hitchcock eeks out the suspense and keeps you guessing at what the hell is actually happening right up until the finalé. It’s easy to snub a film like this by today’s break-neck standards, but I dare you to go back to this monochrome gem and dive in without preconceptions or an adequate source of lighting. Steer clear of Gus Van Saints’ god awful 1998 remake mind, for christ’s sake…

The one that crossed the genres best:

Alien

Ridley Scott’s space horror brought a new lease of life to both horror films and sci-fi. It basically reinvented a dying genre by turning it into a new style of horror, where a fear of the vast unknown and utter, utter isolation could be utilised to scare the living crap out of you. The first film of the franchise, Alien took a slow, meticulously controlled pace from start to finish and re-set the benchmark for horror.

The one you might not have heard of:

À l’intérieur  (Inside)

This magnificently monstrous French horror from 2007 centres on a heavily pregnant mother-to-be who is involved a horrific car crash which kills her husband, leaving only her and her unborn child alive. The film picks up four months later at when, alone in her home at christmas,  the woman receives a knock at the door from an utter, utter, nutcase of a woman who attempts to steal her unborn child and kills anyone and everyone that might be able to offer help to our rotund protagonist. Relatively unknown, this is a magnificent piece of horror film-making and, at best, brutally unforgiving.

The one to make you lose your appetite:

Night of the living dead

George A Romero’s first film of his ongoing saga and the zombie film that fathered all zombie films. Romero’s iconic film is another masterclass in misdirection and suspense, distracting you from the real message of the film which only hammers home in the final sequence. Buckets of offal and chocolate sauce were used to create the eerily realistic effects on Romero’s super-tight budget, and it still makes for uneasy viewing today.

The British Benchmark:

The Wicker Man

Worth watching alone for Christopher Lee’s mightiest of performances, this post-Hammer horror Brit production is still one of the greatest and most unsettling horror films ever made. Robin Hardy’s trick here is the way he effortlessly eases the audience in to Edward Woodward’s shoes as Sgt Howie, gradually unveiling the unsettling reality of Howie’s predicament into the iconic final sequence.

Edit: Alternatively you could watch this, indefinitely.

Yes, I have completely stolen this from Empire, but sometimes the world needs to see something incredible.

Ten points go to whoever can tell me what the hell is so funny

In the past I may have sounded over-excited about the impending release of The Expendables next year. But now the evidence is here, in three-minutes of pure, ball kicking glory. And it’s awesome.

There is always a place in my heart for mindless, shallow, thrill-seeking action films and from the looks of it The Expendables ticks all the boxes.

Make no mistake, there is more testosterone here than gym full of rhinos. But I think we should all take a gleeful delight in the fact that the majority of this trailer involves watching things get blown up, shot at, or beaten up.

The trailer first emerged last night at the movie blog and shows Stallone et al getting stuck in to a hefty glimpse of the final film. The banter between the cast looks good (Statham’s ‘I’m getting a text’ line and Jet Li’s small man complex stand-out here, as well as his ‘I would have winned’ line) and harks back to the glory days of muscle bound action one-liners that made the original 80s action films so amazing.

There’s a few interesting plot teases as well, why are Jet Li and Dolph Lundgren fighting at the end? Aren’t they both on the same side? Mickey Rourke looks ace as the group’s leader. The Stath and Li look great in the high kicking roles. Also interesting is Danny Trejo, conspicuous here by his absence, who many assumed would be the bad guy head honcho - we can just hope that the world’s baddest Mexican will be getting all the screen time he deserves.

Colour me excited.

Hollywood iron man Sylvester Stallone is all over the place at the moment. If he’s not drawing together the world’s most amazing cast of arse-kicking hard-as-nails I-drink-beer-while-I’m-smashing-things-to-pieces action stars for upcoming super-actioner The Expendables, or working out how to be the meanest looking 63-year-old on the planet in the next Rambo film, he’s deciding whether or not remake 1974 Charles Bronson classic, Death Wish.

The Italian Stallion has been speaking to Empire about how he hopes to put together a remake of the brutal exploitation flick, but at least he seems fairly grounded about the whole idea and is fully aware of just how much he could mess up, and just how much Charles Bronson would come back from the dead just to kick his arse if he did.

“It’s a classic morality tale, where you take a civilised man and take away everything that matters to him so he becomes primitive again,” he said, speaking in the interview.  “The story’s been done many times, and when it’s done well, it’s an emotionally engaging film. The trouble with remakes is that people fall in love with the original. It’s like peanut butter. If you try to change the taste of peanut butter, you’re in trouble.”

The more I hear from the Slyster these days the more I like him. At least he’s fully aware of how carefully he would have to tread about such a loved piece of cinema. Not only does he blatently know what he’s good at and what people want from him (ie smashing people’s heads in and killing generic South Americans with a machine gun the size of a cow) - but he does it exceptionally well. And how could you not love a man who can make peanut butter analogies and bring together Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Steve Austin, Sly himself and Arnold Schwarzenegger for at least an hour and a half of gun fights and explosions?

But I digress, here is a chance to see Bronson in all of his Death Wish, no-nonsense ass-kickery. If there’s a better way to get a seat on the subway I don’t know about it.

James Cameron’s hype machine has been whirring frenetically for what seems like several decades in anticipation of his upcoming film Avatar, which – according to Cameron at least – will revolutionise cinema and the way we watch films.

For those not in the know, Avatar is Cameron’s come-back superhit (his first feature film since 1997’s record destroying Titanic) and is set to change all of our lives forever on its release this Christmas.

The trick here is the new 3d cameras Cameron has spent the past decade developing, promising an unparallelled depth of field and a type of 3D which is not possible using current techniques.

Unfortunately for Cameron decades of developments and around 12 months worth of clever marketing may have worked on Hollywood’s production gurus  – with production firms including Disney and Pixar, as well as directors like Guillermo Del Toro pledging their allegiance to his new system – but the fans seem yet to be convinced.

After the release of the first official teaser trailer for the film - which came initially at the cringingly titled ‘Avatar Day’ where selected cinemas around the world screened 15 minutes of 3D tit-bits for the film – floodgates opened, and the torrent of hate for Cameron’s latest began – with many claiming the promised 3D revolution was nothing more than a mediocre, video-game like cut-scene.

The problem Cameron now faces is to find a way to win back his fickle fans. And with the internet churning out more and more hate propaganda like this by the day, it’s hard to see how that will turn around.

Luckily for Cameron his ‘future of cinema’ idea which was such a hit with panicky studio bosses also happens to be a rather superb business model. Despite the resentment of fans, Cameron has the luxury of insisting he is right, and that his new 3D system, unlike the one currently being utilised by an increasingly large number of new releases, is as breathtaking as he claims. The problem here for the haters is that, for the time being at least, no one can prove him wrong. Slating Avatar for it’s video-game like look on a computer screen is easy, and can be just as easily defended by claiming the true image is only revealed in the cinema.

I’m also certain that the only victor of this stand-off will be curiosity. Fans who berate the trailer will be the first in line come the film’s release, just to be certain that they were right. And anyone who wants to decide for themselves will have  to fork out at the big screen.

And here we come back to those panicky studio bosses. The Hollywood big cheeses have been fighting a losing battle against piracy for years now. And with films now commonly leaking out and spreading almost instantly through internet in higher and higher quality before they even hit the cinemas, the studios are running out of options to stamp the problem out. Cameron’s vision of the future is, therefore, particularly appetising to the powerful people – his revolutionary technique is one which can only be leaked in an inferior quality, and one which punters will have to fork out for to see properly.

The money recouped from salvaging hollywood’s nose-diving box office receipts would more than outweigh the cost of Cameron’s Avatar (rumoured to have smashed its $200m budget way back) flopping. So a 3D film future is more appealing than ever to those who hold the purse strings tightly, making Avatar’s popular and critical success all but irrelevant to the impact of Cameron’s jazzy technology.

So no wonder Cameron is confident, the future of cinema looks all but decided already.

But enough with these nonsense conspiracy theories, it might be alright. Take a look and tell me what you think…

There has been a string of particularly good looking trailers since my last post, spilling over the internet like shiny goodies, showering down from a  beautiful celluloid pinata.  I would like to think of myself as the agitated, dangerous, bat wielding 10-year-old in this blossoming metaphor, and so - itching to share these e-number riddled, cinematic treats with you all – let the swinging begin…

Shutter Island

I wasn’t sure about Martin Scorsese wandering down the eerie road of horror, but trailer for his upcoming psycho-thriller has dispelled most all of the doubts in my mind. If it was ever going to work it would have to incorporate the taught, tense atmosphere the eye-browed one built in the superbly paced The Departed (although it still angers me to see the lack of recognition for the incredible Infernal Affairs on which the film was based/ripped off). Scorsese has clearly found his kindred spirit in Di Caprio, who looks to be putting in another fine performance after an overly long dry spell, while Ben Kingsley does the honours on creepy Brit duty.

Giallo

Sticking to the horror vibe, Italian horror aficionado Dario Argento will be making his return to the genre that made him when Giallo gets its release later this year. The film follows Adrien Brody as a detective prowling the streets of milan for an unknown killer, picking of models one by one. This may sound very same old, same old but Argento is THE man to turn to for innovative horror cinema. Tenebrae is still, in my opinion, one of the greatest horror films ever to be made and with any luck this old hand will be back to the tricks we all know and love when Giallo hits the big screens.

Dead Snow

Dead Snow was a huge hit when it arrived at Sundance earlier this year. This sophisticated documentary focuses on a group of Norwegian holidaymakers who encounter an army of undead Nazi zombies in the wilderness and are forced to fight for their survival. Quite what more you would need to know to be sold on this is beyond me.

District 9

This Peter Jackson produced sci-fi is out to grab attention. Ok the effects aren’t amazing, and the handicam filmography has been done to death a hundred times now, but put aside the budget constraints clamped on this South African offering and there’s the promise for a very interesting, innovative looking story behind it all. Say what you want about Peter Jackson, but he’s an ambitious director who goes 100 per cent into all of his projects, and I highly doubt he would have tagged his name onto this without it showing signs of something special.

Flame and Citron

Flame and Citron has slipped in under the radar this year and has all the makings of becoming the most acclaimed foreign language film of 2009. The film follows two infamous resistance leaders in this relentless espionage thriller set in nazi Germany. Based on true events, the film stars Casino Royale’s Mads  Mikkelsen and has been written and directed by Ole Christian Madsen with ‘Award Winner’ written all over it.

Inglourious Basterds

After the first trailer emerged for Quentin Tarantino’s latest snippet of madness I was utterly opposed to the idea of a Dirty Dozen style, star-driven, ultra-violent WW2 adventure, but this second trailer has reinstated a little of the hope I always hold for a Tarantino film. Although the outspoken one may well be on his last chance to shine after a slurry of abysmally disappointing films.

The Informant!

Following on from the hugely popular, if much maligned, Ocean’s 11 trilogy, and his ambitious two part Che Guevara biopic, Che, Steven Soderbergh returns to top form with the utterly brilliant looking The Informant! Not only is it exciting because it has an exclamation in the title, but it also has Matt Damon in his funniest form since this Youtube gem.

More news has emerged on Russel Crowe and Ridley Scott’s much troubled Robin Hood Film.

After being known as Nottingham since day one angry Aussie Crowe has revealed in a radio interview that the film will now be released under the startlingly innovative moniker of Robin Hood. Quite how they came up at that off-the-wall idea I doubt we will ever know.

Director Scott has also binned his original idea of focussing the story on the Sheriff of Nottingham as the hero, and having Robin Hood as the film’s villain. Clearly this was interesting, so Scott has decided to ditch the plan in favor of a more familiar platform – with Robin Hood stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.

Last month a few more photos were leaked of angry men in armour running about in fields after this shot of Crowe in action, so it would seem that hugely delayed production is now up and running.

You can listen to the ten minute interview with Crowe on the film’s set courtesy of livenews.com.au here.

Let me know what you think of Robin Hood by leaving a comment below, is this project back on target or just far wide of the mark?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO…

Seemingly not satisfied with smashing a train wreck of remakes through some of cinemas most treasured franchises, the powers that be in Hollywood have now decided to bastardise the Alien films furthermore with that dirtiest of words – a prequel.

News broke out last weekthat Ridley Scott’s 1979 horror classic, Alien, will be stained with a prequel – supposedly focusing this time on the crashed space ship which landed John Hurt with a severe abdominal blight in the first film. Although this time around the plot will feature a different kind of alien to the Aliens we know and love.

Now, to me, that sounds like cack, and a complete mar on the franchise – especially if the alien in the new Alien film isn’t an Alien but an alien, because this is a franchise built around H R Giger’s Alien, and fans will be expecting Aliens not aliens. The concept of an alien in an Alien film is, well, just alien. You heard.

Tony Scott will be producing, while advert director Carl Rinsch will take up the directors chair. Slashfilm have put together a compilation of Rinsch’s work here. Call me cynic but as pretty and clever as these ads all are, time has proved that plenty of  shiny effects and flashing lights definitely do not make certain of a good film.

The news comes shortly after Robert Rodriguez announced he would be taking on the Predator franchise, and is currently stuck in to writing Predators – a project I also have my ample share of reservations about.

I’m rapidly running out of patience with vacuous, dull Hollywood remakes and prequels. People with pockets of cash don’t seem to realise that the reason these classic films are still loved so much today is because creative ideas and innovation doesn’t get boring over time – remodelling a great idea and trying to force it into a money making mould does. Very quickly. Sadly, detritus like X-men Origins: Wolverine is looking increasingly safe for guaranteeing box office cash so there doesn’t seem to be any quick road out on the horizon. But really now, Hollywood if you’re listening – start making good films again.

It’s been a while since there has been a round-up of what’s in production on this fine film blog. And with an abundance of sequels, prequels and sequel prequel prequels on the horizon, I’ve decided to focus on the more interesting and innovative offerings currently in development – just to remind Hollywood that people actually CAN cope with a new story/character/franchise every now and again without weeping uncontrollably for hours and shaking in a corner, afraid and lonely.

First is news that filming of the latest Martin Scorsese/Leonardo Di Caprio shindig, Shutter Island, is well under way, with Empire unveiling a gripping set shot of the great man and his cast shooting away merrily. The film’s premise follows Di Caprio and fellow US Marshall Mark Ruffalo as they travel to the eponymous location in search of a vanished murderess who has recently escaped from a psychiatric hospital. By all accounts the plot is truly mental and twists and turns in just about every direction imaginable. Scorsese is apparently going all out with this one, following on from the Departed’s Oscar success and going for all kinds of weird, crazy-man techniques to get this made. The film is due for release early October over here.

Hot on the heels of Napoleon Dynamite comes the equally exlposive Black Dynamite. Offensive, rude, crude and brutal, this spoof blaxploitation flick looks like it could sneak in under the radar to become this year’s hit cult comedy. You can check out the fully-offensive red band trailer here, but it contains naughty words and rude bits, so it’s brilliant.

Neil Marshall is an excellent director. Dog Soldiers was fun, The Descent was the first horror film to really blow me away for a good five years and his upcoming historical-thriller-come-creepy-cool film, Centurion, looks just as promising. The premise is ace: Michael Fassbender (300, Hunger) stars as part of the mysterious Roman Ninth Legion, who ventured over Hadrian’s Wall into Scotland to fight the Scots and vanished forever… Although Wikipedia (where I do none of my research) laughs in the face of this historical nonsense it still makes for a cool pitch, with Marshall going down the line of the Romans being picked off by a mysterious presence in the woods. I’ve got faith in Marshall, keep your eye on this one

More historical tomfoolery is also in the pipeline with Outlander, a sci-fi Viking story starring Jesus. The film, directed by newcomer American, Howard McCain, will stand back and watch the madness as a humanoid from the future played by James Caviezel (the guy with the beard from The Passion of The Christ) falls from space and is taken prisoner by Vikings. According to the Guardian, McCain is a big Beowulf fan and you can expect plenty of mythical undertones as our misplaced alien attempts to warn his captors of a monster called Moorwen and all the terrible things that lie in wait for them. Interestingly though, there’s promise of a back story in which the alien’s race have a long, bitter history of persecuting the monster and it really has good reason to be annoyed. I promise none of that was made up.

Finally there’s Zombieland, a horror-comedy starring Woody Harrelson as a zombie fighter named Albuquerque fighting for survival in a world overrun by the pesky living dead. Harrelson makes up one half of a pair of mismatched survivors in this tale of friendship and redemption. There’s some cool set pictures on Flickr here which look pretty interesting. I like Woody Harrelson, mainly because he is absolutely mental. My fondness of him has increased ten fold after reading this story of him attacking a photographer who he claimed he mistook for a zombie. The good folk at filmjunk have it all here along with the most fantastic PR statement ever released and the following video of the whole affair. Enjoy.