Daybreakers (2010)

Originally posted on Critical Malfunction on 10 August 2015.

Vampires have been a staple, through a few lulls, of cinema since the earliest days, from Nosferatu to Lugosi to Lee. Alas, there have been recent rumblings of the monsters’ complete collapse in credibility following their degeneration into self-loathing, vegetarian love interests. Whether or not this is true may only be determined by historians to come, but the throes of death can throw up some curiosities. Daybreakers is a vampire film unlike any other I have seen; a blend of science fiction, horror, and dystopia that embraces the traditional legend of the vampire and runs with it to an intriguing conclusion. Updating classic horror can go hideously wrong – urban fantasy has been unkind to the gothic classics – but this is not one of those cases.

It’s a tired cliché that the vengeful gods of old will go hungry and unappeased in our decadent modern age of sexual permissiveness, nubile virgins becoming rarer than dogs who speak Norwegian. However, this raises the pertinent point that the oddly specific requirements of magical creatures will tend to run into difficulties. In this case the vampires’ need for human blood in particular is a supply/demand nightmare waiting to happen. At best procuring your food source kills the supplier in no time at all, and at worst it merely creates another ravenous consumer. Therein lies the central problem of the world as run by vampires. Like oil, the rainforest, and the Creme Egg, blood isn’t going to last forever. Oddly there is no attempt to factory farm the human prey, side-stepping a potential ‘evils of the meat industry’ metaphor. The closest we get is a blood substitute experiment gone horribly awry; this sanguine tofu has explosively bad results. So while vampires may work well in isolation, with a ready supply of squishy victims, their specialised dietary needs turn them into the supernatural equivalent of pandas. Doomed by their own biology.

This is not to say that the vampiric civilisation is without its triumphs. Where Daybreakers really stands out is in the construction of a world that caters to the proclivities of the average nocturnal, haemophagic, violently photophobic citizen. Naturally the world has largely gone (more?) nocturnal, but between extensive tunnels of “Subwalks” and tinted car windows, the vampires’ most ubiquitous weakness has become a minor inconvenience. The largest corporation in the world is now no longer provides distracting electronic doodads or bargain toilet paper but life-giving plasma. Full credit must be given to Sam Neill’s Charles Bromley for hitting on an industry even more viscerally addicting than miscellaneous gadgetry. This is the most memorable aspect of the movie, a world in which the monsters have won, and reshape a recognisable metropolis in their own image. This may be grand and existentially terrifying, but the practical problems of life still need to be addressed. If you’re going to live forever, basic comforts are even more important than for us fleeting mortals.

Your classic movie vampire is not a mindless monstrosity but a better class of monster, masking his blood-lust behind a veil of suave urbanity. Bromley is a worthy addition to this heritage, partially due to Neill’s own screen presence, by equal measures charming, paternal and predatory. He is a man very comfortable in his station, both as an immortal and as a CEO taking advantage of a virtual monopoly on blood. Yet beneath this cold smugness is a strangely sympathetic core. Dying of cancer, his transformation was nothing short of a saving grace, instilling in him an unshakable sense of right and leaving him unable to fathom why anyone would resist the change. For him the advent of the vampire has been nothing but good. His privilege is showing, because this view would be loudly contested by the few surviving humans, and even the vast majority of the undead populace, slowly starving into madness beneath him. While Bromley is content to fund the much-needed blood substitute, this is mere expediency for the hoi polloi. For an elite like him, genuine human blood must remain as a delicacy.

Vampires tend to function as diabolical villains to be overcome, a manifestation of vaguely sexual violence to be overcome by the chaste and pious protagonist. In fewer instantiations, they are the tortured and tragic hero, trying to resist their dark impulses. Though Ethan Hawke’s Edward Dalton lacks both trenchcoat and katana, he is as much a hero as Bromley is a villain, putting his own welfare at great risk in adherence to his principles. Vampirism is separable, not without effort, from evil insofar as it is not a complete description of a character. Dalton aims to vitiate the horrendous corollaries of being a vampire through his scientific research, initially not even interested in a cure. Even when he discovers the remedy, his motive remains the same – to remove the need to feast on the sparse remnants of humankind. There is a comparison to be drawn with I Am Legend (the novel and not the execrable, focus-grouped film version), that the frightening or otherworldly nature of a character does not necessarily mean that they are not people, with entirely relatable and even laudable motives. Even in a world populated entirely by bloodthirsty children of the night, the good still do the best they can, and the bad do their worst.

Innovation in most of its forms ought to be respected even when it misses the mark. Daybreakers is not a great film – my impression upon seeing it on the big screen was of a B-movie that had somehow stumbled onto a budget – but is a solidly good one. It takes a concept that has been done to death, and takes it in a fresh and interesting direction that doesn’t involve smouldering pretty-boys or archaic sexual politics. If you want to see how the vampires rise and fall, or are fascinated by the potential quandaries of a world of the fussiest eaters imaginable, this is pretty much the only game in town.

War on Everyone (2016)

In an ideal world, every film would be judged purely on its own merits. Alas, every viewer comes with a cornucopia of past experiences and biases that inevitably colour how the movie plays with them. This was acutely felt during War on Everyone, the new film by John Michael McDonagh, because of his previous work Calvary. Calvary was a darkly humourous study of good and evil, and centred around a brilliantly humanistic performance by Brendan Gleeson. This point is mentioned only to put it back on the shelf and consider War on Everyone in its own right, because any comparison would be rather unfair.

The most immediately apparent feature of War on Everyone is the oddly bipolar nature of so many of the film's elements. This affects the setting, the characters, and even the plot itself. Taking these points in order, the setting is confused. This is McDonagh's first film to take place completely outside of Ireland, but precisely where it does take place is not very clear. This time the story unfolds in New Mexico, in what is definitely either 2016 or 1976. In spite of the certain presence of various modern objects (mobile phones, Xboxes, etc.), there seems to a a half-hearted effort made to create period detail from an earlier decade. Fashion sense, cars and even haircuts scream 'Disco era', as does much of the film's soundtrack, but with no commitment it seems more gimmicky than scene-setting.

This weird datedness carries over into the characters themselves, particularly the leading duo, Bolaño and Monroe (played by Michael Peña and Alexander Skarsgård respectively). Character construction is notably thin when "kinda racist" is in serious danger of breaking into the top three most significant character traits of our protagonists. This may well be another facet of the confused time setting - racist cops in the 1970s are hilarious, but not so much in 2016. Admittedly, this pair are billed as bad lieutenants archetypical crooked cops, albeit relatively toothless ones. But the problem with wanting your main characters to be self-serving and wanting to tell a fairly traditional buddy cop story is that one motive is incompatible with the other. Both characters are really just garden variety jerks, with a sprinkling of quirks masquerading as individuality. Bolaño spouts random factoids and potted philosophy, and remains likable or interesting mainly due to Peña's own obvious charisma. Monroe has slightly more in the way of development, but is still just a loose collection of tics. He's alcoholic, likes Glen Campbell, and has an unusual stooping posture that is a result either of his consistent state of drunkenness/being hungover or is a necessity in order to keep his face in the frame with Bolaño's. (Peña is reportedly 1.7m tall, while Skarsgård is almost 2m.) The supporting cast are serviceable enough without being exceptional, though David Wilmot's comedy Irishman Pádraic does land a few of the film's biggest laughs, and rather deserves his own spin-off with Malcolm Barrett's Reggie. But for the most part they exist only as a mechanisms to advance the plot, not as personalities.

Speaking of which, this movie would be fine if not for a certain plot development that comes roughly three quarters through its running time. Prior to this point, the film is cartoonish and excessive to an extent, but the tone is solidly light. The biggest dramatic aspect thus far has been that Monroe drinks too much. All of this changes with a particular revelation concerning the actions of the aggressively British villain, Theo James' "Lord" Mangan. Suffice it to say that he does something utterly reprehensible. This development lands like a drop of dye into a glass of water, tainting the entire thing a very ugly shade. Certain topics ought never to be used as merely incidental plot points or as lazy "noble" motivation for previously dodgy characters. It both fails to give appropriate attention and weight to the element itself, and it causes that single event to distort every part of the story that comes before and afterwards. McDonagh is capable of blending comedy and tragedy, but this is not blending. This is blue cheese in a bowl of cornflakes: it doesn't belong there in the first place, and it leaves a foul smell over everything.

Enjoyment of this movie is possible, but only through considerable audience indulgence and participation. We must ignore the appalling elephant in the room, and focus on jokes that run the gamut from genuinely hysterical to crashingly misguided. There is nothing sufficiently original to merit a real recommendation, and like so many "just okay" movies from this year, it will probably be quietly forgotten, save perhaps as a new example of extreme tonal dissonance.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari might be the first horror movie ever made. For this reason alone it deserves gratitude for helping to launch a generic trend that has lasted over a century - and probably a little scorn as well. But its value is not only as a pioneering work. The film remains an eerie, if not exactly frightening, experience, helped by the grainy darkness of its aging print, and an unsettling and warped set design.

It is probably Anglocentric geographical bias that Dr. Caligari brings nothing to mind as much as Shelley, Stevenson and Stoker, but the comparisons are unmistakable. The character of Caligari himself has shades of Dr. Frankenstein. Though his somnabulent slave Cesare is more his tool than his creation, the image of the mad scientist and his towering, mostly-mute companion is a familiar one. Both doctors share a mania for twisting nature to their own ends, though Caligari's motives are more openly nefarious from the outset. Cesare and the Creature share less in common, as the former seems to lack any kind of inner life struggling to get to the surface. Because of his fractured mental state, he has become a mere extension of Caligari's own influence. Cesare has more in common with a vampire (a pale-skinned man who sleeps in a box and stalks his prey through the night) but that resemblance is superficial. The sad tale of yet another doctor, Henry Jekyll, is reflected in the nocturnal murders committed by Cesare. Where Jekyll's formula separates his good and evil natures, Caligari uses another person to carry out his immoral deeds, keeping his own hands clean (if only literally).

Having said all of these things about the character of Caligari, it is entirely possible that that none of these things are true. The Dr. Caligari presented in the film may be a feverish projection by a psychiatric patient onto the director of his asylum. This may be the movie's greatest contribution to the horror genre. A book can transmit certain information to the reader more effectively, especially concerning the inner lives of its characters, but film is ideally suited to tricking an audience. After witnessing personally the grisly events of Dr. Caligari, everything we have seen is called into question by the final scene. This is communicated visually by the brighter, less fantastical setting, and the appearance of 'Dr. Caligari' himself, now lacking the grotesque make-up and sinister demeanour. If this is not the first twist ending in cinema history, it must be among the earliest. 

The final scene contrasts greatly with what has come before, particular in the set design. The scenery is comprised largely of painted paper backdrops, and this lack of realism is embraced. If Tim Burton has never seen The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, he has certainly absorbed the aesthetic philosophy in some way. The landscape is dominated by jagged shapes, usually curved and slanted, warping the viewer's perspective. It is a twisted fairytale world, at the same time quaint and threatening. The effect is certainly not diminished by the effect of the electricity rationing in post-World War I Germany, which necessitated that certain parts of the film's lighting were simply painted on to the background, leaving areas of deep shadow. This may be another hint that the movie's events take place inside a troubled mind: the world itself is warped. 

The heavy use of circular wipes throughout the film are a facet of the editing that might distract some viewers, and admittedly they are not particularly organic to the wider aesthetic. However, they are also a cunning way to overcome some of the limitations of early film-making, and achieve effects that are now simply taken for granted. In many scenes, the wipe will reveal only a small area of the frame before expanding to encompass the entire scene. Thus, focus is drawn immediately to where it is intended, and the most important part of the picture is highlighted, without the need for cutting. This effect may be achieved today by focusing the camera or using an establishing shot. Without these tricks, the method utilised is ingenious. 

The influence of Dr. Caligari is plain. One need only cite the Universal horror films of the 1930s and '40s, each with their own enduring legacy, to see this. But the roots run deeper than that, and the film can and should be enjoyed both for its historical significance and for its own quality. The moody setting and unsettling story make for an eerie experience, though time may have robbed the movie of some of its deeper dread. 

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare continues a proud tradition among slasher movies: prematurely declaring a particular installment to be the ultimate showdown. While the title may have been intended honestly, it only remained true for three years. Being the grand finale one might expect that this film mines the franchise for potential, bringing together the surviving characters and themes, and ending the story in a neat, perhaps even satisfying, way. Expectations were made to be frustrated. Freddy's Dead introduces an entirely unfamiliar cast of protagonists, offers a tantalising and all-too-brief view of a much more interesting world, and contains one of the oddest and least convincing back stories for any villain in anything, ever. Oh, and in a twist worthy of any hackneyed fan-fiction, Freddy had a secret daughter all along.

The new heroes are more interesting as plot devices than as people, insofar as they offer more compelling ways for Freddy to murder them. Carlos is hearing-impaired, allowing more freedom to use sound (or the lack thereof) as an element in creating fear. Spencer is an obnoxious early-'90s stereotype whose twin loves of video games and weed are the cause of perhaps the silliest Krueger kill, as Freddy maniacally wields a joystick and giggles as his victim battles his way through jerkily-animated cartoon adversaries. The child abuse back-story is, of course, assigned to the sole female among the teenage protagonists, Tracy, casting an unpleasant pall that is grossly at odds with the film's generally silly tone. While Freddy was originally conceived as a paedophile, this was wisely discarded as in bad taste, and the series has never handled this topic well, though the movies redeems itself somewhat by not having Tracy killed along the way. And John Doe, the Last Son of Springwood, exists almost canonically as a mere plot point, as though we could possibly be surprised at this point that the one to vanquish Freddy could be a woman.

Said woman, Maggie, is Freddy's heretofore-unmentioned amnesiac daughter. As movie twists go, this is only slightly better than Aperaham Lincoln, and only slightly worse than the reaslisation that it was 2004 all along in terms of credibility. After five previous movies it is disappointed that his most important female nemeses, Nancy and Alice, play no part at all in finally slaying Krueger. Maggie is perfectly functional, but Freddy's last stand and apparent demise do not feel earned. And yet, remarkably, her inclusion is emphatically not the most contrived or incredible surprise revelation in the film.

The original Nightmare is a fairytale through and through. A wicked and ugly man stalks children while they are most vulnerable, invading their dreams and toying with their lives. Freddy is simple and elemental, exploiting a universal of human experience: the need to sleep. He kills the children in vengeance for the sins of their parents. Or not, as the case may be. Broadening a mythos is no bad thing. Revealing that the source of Freddy's power to be three man-faced, skeletal snake-gods is borderline incoherent. Where did they come from? Why did they choose Freddy to empower int his way? Why do apparently ancient and powerful beings care about the petty revenge of a chargrilled child-murderer? No-one knows, and we're not supposed to ask. What can be known is that the final film in the epic saga of Elm Street is a bizarre moment to introduce these chuckling puppets as the foundation for the whole bloody affair.

The most potential-laden aspect of this entire film is also the part least focused upon. The film is set ten years into the future, which is apparent from the utter lack of any set decoration that could not be found easily in 1991, and the town of Springwood has been left utterly bereft of children. This oddly apocalyptic setting is rich with possibility; a city of haunted adults left hopeless and helpless by the loss of their little ones. A story about the parents of Springwood banding together to vanquish the demon that stole their kids away might return the series to the darker tone of the original. If nothing else, it would serve as a pleasant change from the uselessness of grown-ups common to most slasher flicks. Alas, we get one scene of the harrowed denizens of Springwood, and then the notion is completely forgotten.

Having listed at length the many flaws and missteps of this film, I confess that I still enjoyed it greatly. The first six films of the series, despite their increasing camp and absurdity, are all engaging and entertaining in their ways. Freddy's Dead has enough creativity and gruesome nonsense to get by, and as a finale to the whole story, the ending has enough weight to balance the lightweight fluff that the franchise had become. Certainly this is much better than anything Krueger-adjacent that came afterwards.

Godzilla/Cozzilla (1977)

Film re-releases are a gift to the temporally-challenged. Those of us cursed with youth have missed countless opportunities to witness the classics on the big screen. Happily, it is becoming more common to see films given anniversary showings and, while the cynical financial motive cannot be ignored, this allows great movies to have another day in the sun. In some cases an effort is made to update the film in some way. These changes can be positive - Back to the Future's 25th anniversary remaster looks crisp and fresh - or negative - pick any post-converted 3D re-release from the past five years. And on one occasion, a beautiful, haunting and deeply atmospheric monster movie from the 1950s was re-cut with newsreel, partially re-scored with electronic music, and daubed in the gaudiest primary colours that 1977 had to offer.

Luigi Cozzi's Godzilla, hereafter referred to as Cozzilla, is a crudely coloured and re-edited version combining Ishiro Honda's original and Terry O. Morse's Americanised King of the Monsters. Cozzilla's release date reveals a curious commonality with the original film. Godzilla was heavily inspired by a re-release of King Kong in 1952 (as well as by 1953's The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms), sparking a new interest in gigantic monsters bulldozing through major world capitals. Cozzilla was apparently created to cash in on the vastly inferior King Kong remake from 1976. The eerie synchronicity continues if one notes that both '70s films do grievous aesthetic and spiritual harm to two modern fables of humankind's uneasy relationship with the natural world. But this may be simple pareidolia brought on by the intense frustration of seeing a favourite film diced apart and doused in blurry colour.

Some of this vitriol may be down to the quality of the particular print available online. Despite being monochromatic, Godzilla is clear and sharp. Any extreme shadow is cleverly used to both hide flaws in the special effects and to create a stark, noirish tone around the monster's rampages. But 1977 was the year of Star Wars, and audiences (apparently) were unwilling to stomach mere shades of grey. Enter Spectorama 70, a technique used to colourise films by applying gels directly to the celluloid. Colourisation is far from new. An early example can be seen in the hand-painted colour version of A Trip to the Moon, a film over a century old. Spectorama 70 is much less precise, as might be surmised from the very notion of rubbing technicolour goo onto a film strip. The effect is one of tinting large and undefined areas of the frame one garish tone, which often gives only the impression that the viewer is peering at the movie through a sheen of urine.

The vast majority of the footage in Cozzilla comes from the two earlier versions of Godzilla and is presented in roughly the same order. There are two notable exceptions, both of which comprise fatal flaws in the movie. Genuine footage of the aftermath of aerial bombings, complete with shattered cities and broken bodies, is inserted into the opening sequence. The events of the film are explicitly stated to occur in August, linking it with the atomic destruction inflicted upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. These bombings, the partial catalyst for Honda's film, are referred to only obliquely therein. Cozzilla makes careful allegory vulgar by exploiting real and graphic images in a gross attempt to add gravitas.

The second big change comes at the film's climax, and threatens to turn vulgarity into desecration. Dr. Daisuke Serizawa is the most iconic character in the original Japanese film, not least because of his chic mad scientist eyepatch. The reason that he resonates is because he represents a scientific ideal, a desire to do great work twinned with an iron resolve to do no harm. He, in a single act of self-sacrifice, saves the countless lives threatened by Godzilla and by his own potentially devastating discovery. Cozzilla decides that this poignant and tragic ending requires an additional scene of pointless bombast, and inserts footage of a naval bombardment of the creature before it succumbs. Godzilla teaches us that terror and destruction at our own hands can be defeated by the moral fortitude of a single individual. Cozzilla argues that the proper response to violent threats is a bigger and more violent reaction.

Cozzilla may hold some interest as a strange curiosity, but lacks almost all of the depth of either of its predecessors. The American cut made strides to bring the story to a new audience while maintaining the same spirit. The Italian effort dilutes and obscures, losing its way in a rainbow haze. To make a bad film is regrettable. To mangle a classic is something worse.

Sleeping with the Lights On

It's October at last, the second month of the year that I consider prime horror territory (the first is April, home to Dundee's very own horror movie festival Dundead). As such, I wanted to offer a few ill-considered musings on why some of us enjoy seeing mind-bending terror and stomach-churning violence, as well as a personal history of my relationship with the genre that has come to dominate a considerable part of my filmic experience.

The first piece of media that I can recall finding truly terrifying was Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds. A teacher of mine, when I was roughly 8 years old, thought it a good use of her time to share Wells' classic with her charges, allowing us to listen to segments on Friday afternoons. While not strictly horror - though most near-apocalypses are a little unnerving - I was utterly petrified. The "Ulla!" exhaltations of the Martian fighting machines became the mental accompaniment to nightly dread of the dark, and the abduction-crazed alien monsters that presumably lurked within. Even today it remains one of the most evocative experiences of my young life. While I have come to love the novel greatly, listening to the musical adaptation still leaves me with an irrational unease, though no longer any real fear.

This fact might hint at some of the foundational elements of the horror genre itself. In my view, horror requires the successful suspension of disbelief in order to truly horrify, and has a tendency to focus upon a fearsome Other. Suspension of disbelief is, of course, important for fiction in general, but horror requires of its audience such a visceral reaction that a lack of engagement can be utterly fatal. This is the reason that in my own case psychological horror will always be more frightening than anything supernatural; while ghosts and goblins strain my credulity, the torments of the mind can seem very real. A Nightmare on Elm Street may be my favourite slasher franchise, but Halloween (prior to the overtly mystical shenanigans of later installments) is scarier. Less essential but still almost universally common is the idea of some force, internal or external, that means to do you harm. This may be some outside aggressor, human or elsewise, or an opposition within the self, when a disassociated and diseased mind turns against itself. This feeling is frightening on a primal level. While in real life this mistrust of the unknown can lead to bigotry, tribalism and fanaticism, horror fiction acts as a kind of channel and catharsis. They allow us to experience terror on our own terms and in a controlled environment. Return for a moment to A Nightmare on Elm Street, which offers a great example of this notion: what scares us loses its power as it is recognised and understood (though Freddy only weakens when he is figuratively, and not literally, faced). Fear, shorn of any real danger, gives us both an adrenaline rush and a teachable moment.

Successful teaching requires that a student be at least partially invested in learning. This explains why the next stage of my development as a horror hound was so bereft of education. Fast-forwarding to my teenage years (and bypassing my juvenile philistinism regarding The Exorcist), horror became something at which to laugh, if not outright sneer. I don't take full credit for this. Doubtless it's a trick of memory, but it seemed like the horror genre was particularly marinaded in absurdity and failure during my peak cinema-going years. Given the ubiquity of atrocious remakes of '80s slasher flicks, cack-handed adaptations of horror video games, and miscellaneous cinematic idiocy, I may not be entirely misremembering.

A couple examples will help to illustrate my somewhat infantile attitude to horror at the time. Walking out of a film is a bold statement of dissatisfaction in which I have never personally engaged and that I have only rarely seen performed. The finest example I have ever witnessed came at the climatic moment of Orphan. The story of a family who adopt a strange little girl - and featuring the least responsible bereaved parents in movie history - there comes a twist in the tail of the tale. Upon this revelation, the entirety of the sparsely scattered audience, excepting my own party, left the theatre en masse. We may have left too were we not paralysed with laughter at the absurdity of what was happening both on and off the screen. This hysteria was a relatively common occurrence. I used to take regular trips to the cinema with groups of high school friends, more-or-less for the expressed purpose of lampooning and mocking whatever lacklustre horror was showing that week. Silent Hill stands out as a particularly strong memory, turning the highly-influential survival horror franchise into visually faithful but absurdly plotted horror schlock. The point at which the film's resident creepy little girl raises her arms, proclaims, "Look at me. I'm burning." and promptly spontaneously combusts was the point at which the laughter may have crossed over from raucous to obnoxious, at least as far as other cinema patrons were concerned. Silent Hill may be one of the most faithful and successful adaptations of a video game ever made, that says more about their consistent awfulness than about its own quality.

A film I ought to have walked out of was the 2010 remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street (there may be an unintended theme here). This is not because it was the worst film I have ever seen, but because this was the most holistically abysmal experience I have ever had in a cinema screening. While I am not innocent (I was foolish enough to watch Wes Craven's classic right before setting off to see the re-heated retread), circumstances conspired to create much discomfort. Allow me to paint a picture: I am sitting in the front row, at the extreme left, of an auditorium overflowing with spectators. Because of this, I am separated from most of my friends and must tilt my head at such an angle that acute neck pain is a certainty. Tilting my head to see is fairly fruitless however, as the screen is so close as to be blurred almost beyond recognition in my defective eyes. I am watching a film that is so tedious that, if I didn't know better, I'd consider its soporific effect a brilliant meta-effect used by the director to allow us to share in the experience of the exhausted protagonist. And given the utter boredom induced by the film my dear friend sitting next to me required regular updates as to what was actually going on. So I am forced to recount the unengaging and worthless plot of an inferior movie that I can barely see to someone who is unable to follow the turgid plot and anonymous characters. It wasn't even bad enough to merit the riffing that made films like Silent Hill, The Grudge 2, and The Final Destination, among others, so damned entertaining.

I was not the type of kid to surreptitiously watch horror after my parents had gone to bed, nor did I haunt discount cinemas to catch the latest gore-soaked B-movie. This does make me feel like I missed out on a formative childhood experience, at least among those who later obsess over the macabre and the sanguine, but I'm attempting to make up for lost time. The aforementioned Dundead has become my Easter, a yearly opportunity to worship at the altar of horror new and old, and every year brings a discovery of at least one genuinely brilliant film. I intend to spend October filling in further gaps in my knowledge - conveniently ignoring that most of the films I watched in September were also horror - by finishing up the big three of slasher franchises, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween and Friday the 13th, and only briefly taking time out to enjoy The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.