awesome movie poster friday - the CELEBRATION edition!

"Celebration"? A celebration of what?

Hold on and I'll tell you, geez. One week from today marks the 5th birthday of Final Girl. I've got some shenanigans planned, don't worry- although you'll have to supply your own Riunite. I'm starting a bit early, though; this week I've posting my very favorite awesome movies posters from the Awesome Movie Poster Friday archives. I went allllll the way back to AMPF #1 (August 2007- holy crapping crap) and grabbed the various posters that give me a knee-jerk "ME LIKE" reaction.

It has nothing to do with the movies themselves- it's all about the poster art. As to why I chose these, well...some are enticing- you know, suiting their purpose and intriguing me enough to want to see the film. Some are a bit terrifying. Some of them have design that speaks to my brain on some satisfying, primal level. Some of them simply have beautiful art. And for some of them, I'm gonna bust out the style of critique that's stomped on the moment one walks into art school: I dunno, I just like it. I'd put any of these on my wall- actually, one of them is hanging up now.

By: Unknown On 10.32

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yeah, yeah- we are them and they are us

I think I understand the point that George Romero is trying to make with Survival of the Dead (2009)- you know, that maybe we (humanity, that is) are the real monsters. That's right. It's us, the jerks, and not necessarily the zombies. It's a point he's been making since 1985's Day of the Dead and at this point I just want to say: ALRIGHT. I GET IT.

With that out of the way, I hope that with his inevitable next zombie opus he can go back to his roots and do something he hasn't really done since Day of the Dead: make a scary zombie movie. If there's one thing Survival of the Dead is not, it's scary. I guess it's not meant to be, and for the millionth time: it's pointless to criticize a film for what it's not. However, I think it's well within reason to expect a horror movie to try...or, at the very least, to try to try.

The film begins a mere six days after the zombie outbreak, pitting it somewhere between Night of the Living Dead, Diary of the Dead, and Dawn of the Dead on the Romero Zombie Outbreak Timeline. A bunch of paramilitary types give us the quick rundown: the dead are returning to life, shoot 'em in the head to kill 'em. We are treated to some horrendous CGI bloodshed that will have even Stevie Wonder pining for the days of Tom Savini's latex and karo-drenched visuals.

There's a wee place off the coast of Delaware called Plum Island, and it's chock full of...Irish people. Irish-Americans? It's unclear. Their unexplainable thick brogue is something you simply need to immediately accept as a viewer and quickly move on. It's an island full of Irish folk. Fine.

Island inhabitants the O'Flynns and the Muldoons are locked in the grips of a decades-old Hatfield/McCoy-style feud, one that's come to a head in the midst of the outbreaks. Clan patriarchs have differing ideas regarding how to deal with the walking dead; O'Flynn says kill the dead dead, while Muldoon says rehabilitation is the way to go. The factions continue to disagree until Muldoon gains the upper hand and O'Flynn is cast off the island.

Three weeks later, O'Flynn and the paramilitary dudes meet up on the mainland and decide their best bet is to head back to Plum Island, to take on Muldoon and hang out in isolation until this zombie thing blows over.

They arrive at the island and discover that Muldoon's plan isn't quite working out the way he expected: when chained-up, zombies will continue to perform rudimentary, repetitive tasks like sticking mail in mailboxes. Unchained zombies enjoy horseback riding.

Above all else, the walking dead still crave the taste of human flesh. Muldoon seems to think that if zombies could be made to eat animals instead of people, everything would be both hunky and dory. Shootouts and a few more CGI zombie deaths ensue.

The thing that irks me the most, perhaps, is that the zombies are virtually unnecessary in Survival of the Dead. Human conflict in the face of a real, irrational threat, as approached in Romero efforts such as Night, Dawn, and Day of the Dead is a fine hook upon which to hang your movie. I mean really, what does happen when people stop being polite and start getting real? People get cornered in basements. People get ripped apart. People get eaten by dead people who have come back to life. That is a terrifying concept, and I don't care if the zombie genre has been kicking in earnest on and off since the late 1960s- dammit, it can still make for a terrifying movie.

In Survival of the Dead, however, no one is much afraid of the walking corpses. They're on the periphery, treated with a casualness that renders them oversized, over-bitey children. Their offed in creative ways, too be sure- but it's all too cavalier. For all the bluster and shouting of the military dickheads in Day of the Dead, they were all still damn afraid of the zombies. Therefore, I was afraid of the zombies. If they're portrayed as more nuisance than threat- this, less than a month since the outbreak!- then why bother? Why bother, George Romero? Just make a movie about how awful livng human beings can be to each other. Just have your weird Irish islanders kill each other. Zombies deserve better than to be all but ignored by characters and, by extension, you. And us.


Characters have never truly been the strong suit of Romero's. In general, one or two are marginally interesting and the rest are mostly fodder of one type or another. At this point, they all feel like caricatures; in fact, a good portion of them don't even have proper names- they're just called by type. The lesbian is "Tomboy", the boy is..."Boy", the one who smokes is "Nicotine", and so on. I expect the next film in the series will feature characters named "Wig", "Glasses", and "Nunchucks".

Wait, that kind of sounds awesome.

My point is, if you want to make this a horror film about humans more than about monsters, then at least give your humans some real humanity. And for fuck's sake, please try to work in some horror.

I tried on Survival of the Dead, really I did. I wanted to enjoy it. I did enjoy it more than the abysmal Diary of the Dead. To be honest, it's not so much that I disliked it as it is that I simply didn't care...and I certainly wasn't scared. To me, that's much more sad.

Oh yeah, and then there was that time the moon 1) swelled to a worrisome size or 2) was about to collide with the Earth.

By: Unknown On 18.56

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another thing on my other thing

Yesterday I told you all about how being on Final Girl meant you were just one click away from Episode 2 of Space Girls. Well, friends, that's still true! Now you're in luck- today you're also but one click away from a wee little space-centric Q & A with Episode 2's special guest star Lena Headey. You might remember her from something called The Cave, wherein she portrayed a scienceologist.

Speaking of special guest stars, if I ever get to put the words

SPECIAL GUEST STAR
HEATHER LOCKLEAR
AS AMANDA

on an episode of Space Girls, I will just die. DIE. Yes, I would name her character Amanda. Everyone- wish it for your birthdays!

I don't mean the me dying part. I mean...ehh.

By: Unknown On 09.22

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Sora Ma Yi Xuan 马艺瑄 from Malaysia - Lenglui #63

Name: Sora Ma Yi Xuan 马艺瑄
Date of Birth: 22 Jan, 1984
Height: 171 cm
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Sora.Ma.Official.Page
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soramayx
Weibo: http://www.weibo.com/soramayixuan
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/beerbeary9
About: In April 2010, out of no where, this hot looking girl, Sharon or better known as BeerBeary appeared in YouTube. Ever since, she has posted several short videos mainly about beers. You can tell that she's a Malaysian from her Malaysian Cantonese accent, I gotta admit, she's pretty hot with the sweet cute personality!


Why is her video popular? I don't think it's the beer topic that most guys are interested at, more of the sweet looking face and the low cut cleavage showing dress. Indeed, those elements probably made her an instant fame in YouTube with hundreds of subscribers within a short period of time. An example of viral marketing, use a hot looking girl that shows cleavage + YouTube, good work Jaz Beer!


Initially, there isn't any information about "Sharon" till recently, we got to know her real identity. Sora Ma Yi Xuan 马艺瑄 is a slender and tall Malaysian model who is signed as a MediaCorp artiste in Singapore. A graduate in commerce, Sora is proficient in both English, Cantonese and Mandarin. Sora joined MediaCorp's Star Search 2010 and was in the final Top 5. Her journey did not stop there and she was eventually offered a contract. Ever since joining MediaCorp, Sora has acted in "四个门牌一个梦" Love Thy Neighbor and currently filming "最火搭档 2" Unriddle 2.


We spotted her earlier on and our pick was indeed right! With a good headstart in her career, one can surely expect Sora to liven up our screens and the entertainment industry! Only the best of Sora Ma is available here, all filtered by http://dailylenglui.asia.
Contributed By: Rachel

By: Unknown On 01.42

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Splice

I kind of wanted to resort to some sensational New York Post-style headlinery and write "Splice...no dice!" up there for the post title, but I couldn't do it. Too lame; I can't lie about having the urge, though, so I'm probably still lame. Anyway.

I'm sure I'll say this plenty more times before Final Girl shuffles off to horror blog heaven (which will probably be very soon after I shuffle off to horror fan heaven) (yes, after), but thank goodness for Meg Wood. In particular, thank goodness for her...umm...less-than-stellar review of Vincenzo Natali's Splice. See, before I checked out her review, I felt very much alone. Most everyone seems to think Splice is the knees; reading all the praise, I had that distinct feeling of "Well then, what movie did I see?".

Clive Nicoli and Elsa Kast (Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley) are a pair of rock star genetic engineers. They've created new hybrid animals by splicing together DNA from different animals. Though their efforts don't look like much more than piles of living goo that resemble genitalia (well, they do), they're ready to throw some human DNA into the mix- not to create some super being, necessarily, but to aid in the eradication of disease. Somehow. Eh, shoddy cinematic science, I don't get it. The drug companies funding their research, however, aren't so quick to boldly go where no rock star genetic engineer has gone before.

Elsa and Clive, therefore, do what any good mad scientists would do: they conduct their experiments anyway. Late nights tucked away in the back of the lab pay off, for eventually the couple hit pay dirt. The DNA does its DNA thing and Dren is born of an artificial womb. Clive thinks things will go badly- the experiment was never meant to be taken this far!- and wants to destroy it; Elsa immediately has non-scientific maternal instincts- womenfolk can't help but feel feelings!- and insists that they do not destroy it.

It's not long before Elsa is dressing up little Dren in frilly things and teaching her how to read. After all, Dren is a human/other hybrid, and as you can expect from a human/other hybrid (see: Species, V: The (Original) TV Series), Dren grows and matures at an alarming rate. As you can also expect from a human/other hybrid (see: Species, V: The (Original) TV Series), Dren immediately stops maturing and growing when she hits the "hot" stage. Sure, she has the legs of a chicken and a barbed tail, but she's human wear it counts- from her exotic face (courtesy of actress Delphine Chaneac) to...oh, right about yon the ol' the vagina.

So, Clive and Elsa need to hide this creation of theirs, especially once that Dren shows signs of intelligence and curiosity. SPOILER ALERT: Clive was right, and bad things happen.

Here, however, is the rub: what happens is...well, it's all laugh-out-loud ridiculous, more Lifetime Movie Network than Cronenberg-ian horror. If you took out the strangely hot hybrid and replaced her with, say, a not-strangely hot blond babysitter, you'd have something along the lines of The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. Seriously, it's a classic made-for-TV plot: established female is threatened by new female, and SPOILER ALERT: men will fuck anything.

Yeah. You read that right.

By the time the horror actually happens, it's too late to care and you're ten minutes, maybe, from the predictable end. By the time the horror actually happens, I was deeply ensconced in disappointment, however. No, Splice isn't some mind-fuck of a rumination on science and playing God, as I was hoping it would be; in fact, you might be better off (as Meg also suggests) watching the original Clive and Elsa in Bride of Frankenstein. This film wants you to think there's something going on below the pretty surface, but there ain't much beyond some CGI-laden soap opera drama.

Let's put it this way: the film ends with Elsa asking, "What's the worst that can happen?", at which point the person sitting next to me turned and said, "A sequel."

By: Unknown On 19.29

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my other thing

Thought I'd let you know that a new episode of Space Girls has appeared from the blackest depths of...you know, space. Featuring guest star Lena Headey! Click to enjoy (or at least watch)!

By: Unknown On 11.08

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